Battlemouth

Suicidegirls.com has once again opened our eyes to the possibility of a totally new genre, the multimedia experience novel, or as I am calling it the “Thrilla with Manila”. Now up until this point there hasn’t really been a name for such experiences, so I’m hoping this catches on and I am able to retire by 30. (wait does anyone know how you get credit for coining a phrase? damn never mind) What I am babbling about is a new “out of book” experience involving J.C.Hitchins and SG.com.

J.C. Hutchins and Jordan Weisman have written a kick ass thriller novel called Personal Effects: Dark Art, about an “Art Therapist” who helps patients in a psychiatric hospital by using he personal effects they had when they entered the Brinkvale Psychiatric. Now I know this sounds kinda like carnival witchery, but think of him as the Mentalist with a PhD in art history and the wacky hi-jinx will ensue. Now, replicas of the personal effects are included in an envelopey pocket in the front of the novel(hence thrilla with manila, yea I know but puns are awesome).

Cool, I get a novel and some creepy crime scene pictures to try and work out the real killer before the stories through, but wait there’s more. Worked into the story are clues to the identity of the “real killer” (maybe I need to send this book to O.J. so he can start focusing on his short game again), such as email addresses which are totally hackable, voice mailbox codes where you can go to hear messages from characters in the book, and so on and so forth.

Seems like a fairly well rounded multimedia experience though the reason Suicide Girls is mentioned is because they have joined with Mr Hutchins to take some fantastic photos of some very sexy ladies to go inside the world of Personal Effects and show some of the characters and a little back story to whats going on. Also on their site, you are able to read some content by Rachael Webster, who is now guest blogging, oh yea she also happens to be a pivotal character in the book.

Not lastly you can head over to the website of Brinkvale Psychiatric and voluntarily commit yourself to get even a deeper behind the scenes look at the world of Personal Affects. In summation, this isn’t just a book or just a multimedia thriller experience, it’s a combination of the two which may change the way novels are marketed in the future. It’s always fun to find little story easter eggs on dvds or hidden links in websites, but if that became the new standard in entertainment who knows where we could go?

I’m still holding out for my virtual world choose your own adventure with the option to go back to page 32 and not get on the alien spaceship, but that’s just me trying to relive my childhood and undo some iffy choices. If you’re looking for a quality thriller with tons of extra stuff to do, see, and experience, head over to SuicideGirls.com and check this out. Or you can see more, including an explanation by the author himself and testimonials from other authors and critics, at JCHutchins.net.

Enjoy a mildly NSFW gallery of images from the collaboration.