Foreword:
Over the last week, I’ve read through quite a few of the webcomics on that list I made while I was sick (yes, I am better now. FINALLY). To my chagrin however, most of them seem to be gag-a-days. If you don’t see a problem with that, read my last entry
. There’s nothing wrong with gag-a-days, but I have to talk about two or three at once in order to have an article the same size as one about a single non gag-a-day comic and I usually don’t enjoy them all that much to begin with. To get my fix of plot I have, with much trepidation, finally decided to read El Goonish Shive. Not sure how that’s going to go, I tried reading it before but got bored before the second chapter ended. All those goddamned examples on TV Tropes have convinced me to give it another chance. Speaking of which I found ‘‘this’’ webcomic in the examples of Break Them by Talking, so yeah. Enjoy.
WARNING: I feel obliged to say that the comic I’m talking about today could probably be described as Not Safe for Work (that term is probably a little too strong but at least it gets the point across). Not because it’s porn, but because it addresses... delicate issues. Oh, and it has Gorn. Should probably watch out for that too.
*Sigh*
I feel very... ambiguous about Suicide For Hire [Trope Page]. It makes me laugh, then makes me feel like a bad person for doing so. Kinda like dead baby jokes.
It gives me a very strong feeling of cognitive dissonance to find something deplorable, hilarious, depressing, justified, disgusting and inordinately amusing all at the same time. What kind of comic could possibly get this kind of reaction from me? Well for starters, the main characters help people kill themselves in exchange for money. And they make a point of doing it the goriest and most karmically appropriate way possible. Yep.
As far as characters go, they’re static. Not flat mind you, just static. There really isn’t any major character development throughout the entire comic. Hunter (The wolf) stays exactly the same, Arc’s (The mouse) only development is that he becomes slightly less bothered by his job and the only other characters who receive enough attention to warrant development die at the end of the arc. But, as a whole, it works, and that’s the important thing.
Neither is humour the be all and end all of the comic. Most of the time, the hilarity is a nice bonus, something extra, a delectable side-dish to enjoy alongside the main course. But it isn’t the main course. A lot of stuff is played for laughs, but the suicide itself never is. That’s what got me. It might poke fun at why they people want to kill themselves, it might point out how hilarious and/or amusing a certain method of killing yourself might be, but they never try to deny that it is A Bad Thing.
The biggest problem I have with this comic is that it makes me feel bad for enjoying it. And confuses the hell out of me as well. Not because it’s unclear, chaotic or just plain silly, because it causes me to hold two opposing, mutually exclusive viewpoints at the same time. Example: “Someone dying is always a bad thing, especially when it was an accident” is accepted and agreed with while “It was his own goddamned fault and the world is better off without him” is also accepted and agreed with. For reference, I’m taking this example from an arc where a guy wants to kill himself because his friend died of alcohol poisoning.
Suicide For Hire manages to present a very serious issue, in a humorous way, without ever suggesting that it isn’t a serious issue. That’s what kept me reading. It also has some very deep (if dark), amusing and just plain awesome quotes. My favourite would have to be “I don’t hate you for what you are. I hate you for who you are” (said by Hunter to an abusive waiter trying to play the homophobe card to avoid blame). The runner up would be the whole conversation from these two strips.
With all of that said, I am not going to recommend this comic for everyone. It is Comedic Sociopathy with a (un)healthy dose of Black Comedy mixed in(I’m not entirely sure which of those terms is the better description) and will only appeal to a very... particular sense of humour. I’m still not sure whether or not the fact that it appeals to my sense of humour is a good or a bad thing.
I will leave you with that, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for reading.
