Suicide - the founder of a group that will headline Seattle's Neumo's tonight - had lived in Los Angeles for a while before returning to her hometown, Portland. And it was there that she reconnected with the edgy, tattooed women of the soggy Pacific Northwest.

"Having come from LA where most girls are a bit more superficial, it just seemed like a very strong and empowering thing," she recalled during a recent call to her office. "So I decided to take photos of them in a classic sort of pinup (style) that really showed off who they were."

The Suicide Girls moniker came from a passage in Portland novelist Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club" follow-up, "Survivor." It was a reference to the tattooed and colorfully coiffed women that many associate with goth or punk culture.

"It's kind of a like a catch-all term that my friends and I have been using to describe the girls that hang out in (Portland's) Pioneer Square," said Suicide, 27, "because nobody really links their identity with the subgenre of music they listen to any more. Everybody listens to a bit of everything, so to call yourself goth or punk or emo or whatnot … just didn't seem very accurate."

"I thought maybe people in Portland would appreciate it," she said. "I had no idea it would appeal so greatly to people around the world. We have models on every continent now, including Antarctica."

The site has become a phenomenon indeed, having been featured on HBO's "Real Sex" and spawned a burlesque tour, its consequent DVD, "Suicide Girls: The First Tour," and a book, "Suicide Girls" (Feral House, $22.95).

About 1 million users are drawn to the site each week, according to Suicide. It costs $4 to subscribe, and not only do fans get access to saucy images, but also use of bulletin boards, music and personals, and they read interviews of celebs that range from actors Owen Wilson to author Neil Gaiman.

Suicide said her company uses more than 800 models and that around 1,000 aspiring Suicide Girls apply each week. They fill out applications that give a sense of who they are.

"The girls decide how they pose, what they wear, the setting," Suicide said. "The shoot is designed to showcase how the model feels beautiful about herself. So they're not playing into any stereotypical fantasies there. They're the ones in control of how they are presented."

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