~ a short account of endeavors ~

Earth 2100 and apocalyptic doomsday scenarios always play well...?

2009-06-25T16:10:00.006-04:00

Recently ABC News ran a special report called Earth 2100, imagining possible worst case scenarios for our near future.

The show talked about some heavy stuff and wanted to soften the impact so it featured "graphic novel"-style sequences by Some talented comic artists. A friend, Leland Purvis, was one of the contributors. Also included were Josh Neufeld, Sari Wilson, Joe Infurnari, George O'Connor, And Tim Hamilton.

CBR took the opportunity to do a run down of apocalyptic comics, and Therefore Repent was chosen as one of the 6 tittles chosen, nice!

Six by 6 | Only the end of the world again

Episode 3: Ce genre de fille-la & Thinkin' Chicken'

2009-06-23T02:55:00.005-04:00

Book 3 of K is out!

you can preview some of it here, and this is the main site for the book where there's another Vid by the lovely Sophie Bienvenu to see. 6 days till 4 if you're counting!

Saw posters for the series walking home from a fringe play - this is the second i've seen. The other was of book 1's cover announcing the series.

Due to give Sof a call, and get copies of K4 from the publisher. Will have to ask how it's doing, get some numbers. Hope it's good. Happy with the way the art's coming out. Need to get more of it done faster this month, but yeah.

Also this week worked on the first of a new short format comic series, seen here on the left.

This is just a rough draft with only crude sketch art, but i'd be curious about how it strikes people, please let me know by writing or commenting here or on flicker.

The theme is to try to help re-frame the way people see science and how it can apply in a non-dogmatic way to understanding their own worlds and lives.

Three good plays i saw.

2009-06-23T02:13:00.011-04:00

Spent part of the last week volunteering for the Montreal Fringe as a runner, an in house Bike Currier.

Lot of fun, got 16 hours of exercise, 4 free plays, and opportunities to go to some fun sounding after parties. Mind you after all the biking i was not as energized for the after parties and only went to one for a short while. Getting to be an old man. Saw a young Ex lady friend recently and mentioned being almost 39 and I caught a far from subtle look of Disgust. Wow, so that's ageism. Fuckem'

Felt good getting all sweaty like that and three of the four plays i saw were really good.

'Red Bastard' was great and intense and i got him good with a Marry Poppins joke, he told me to shut up! He he. Great show, catch him if you can, sit in front, get touched.

'Reflections on Giving Birth to a Squid' was lovely, think it would make a very cool film. Think something by Wes Anderson. Met two of the cast members while doing my rounds. Mikaela Dyke is delightful in the lead roll. I had the pleasure of getting to say so to hear while doing my rounds. She's far too self effacing and very believable and fun to watch on stage. And the full cast was really sharp - they had some cleaver props but it was a black box play using a lot of mime, costumeing and simple props. All three players were wonderfully animated but Sebastien Heins pops on stage like a cartoon character - i mean that in a good way. Ran into him in the street and shook his hand, even then, the boy has some intense presence. Jessica Huras was great as well and has a great monologue as a wana-be baby sitter. The story is brilliantly told. For sure a must see, glad i caught that.

'Dracula in a Time of Climate Change' is a very entertaining vaudevillian romp with silly dance sequences and all. Very entertaining, Scott Kettles as Dracula is dead on dead pan; Susanna Jones as Renfield is a scene stealer; and Cassandra Wittman as Lucy plays an interesting Tim Burton-esque character until spending the night with a pack of vampires and the lead comes in to the story, at which point she seems to take a back seat as a wall flower to the Dames-in-charge which was a little odd. The rest of the cast hold their own well, and the story is snappy and silly timely satire. Very good fun.

Both the later two for sure will be at the Toronto Fringe, worth the shekels!

K, MoCCA and Awesome 2: Awesomer - gone fishin'

2009-06-04T18:35:00.006-04:00

Ok, about to take the weekend off and head south for a few days, got some drawing to do tonight and a few errands to run, then catch a train in the am. A quick weekend trip to NY to check out MoCCA for the first time! Woohoo.

Was just at the publishers office, K2: Le dep' eclaire a des milles a la ronde is on the stands! There's also another introductory video on the site with author Sophie Bienvenu!

This is the interior BD i did for that, it printed pretty nicely i think.

Was at TCAF, the Canadian version of this, but i've wanted to go to MoCCA for a while, haven't seen the museum since the early 90's, and the festival seems to promise much! But you know at TCAF i really only got to have real fun in the evenings, the days were work. Didn't want to do too of those in a row so didn't think I'd go this year either. But then i decided i had earned a hobo's weekend.

This time it's strictly for kicks, see some freinds and look at comic books. Not sitting anywhere or have a single thing planed. Looks to be fun. May spend a lot of time in panels.

Will post stuff if i have the time, photos and such, and probably use the excuse to play reporter a little on sequential. Good way to shift from the TCAF coverage mode.

One of the things I'm really excited to see is the Indy Spinner Anthology i have a story in with Rantz Hoseley, AWESOME 2: AWESOMER. It's pretty amazing looking, here's the specks!

Edited by Indie Spinner Rack's Charlito and Mr. Phil!
Preview

You can't keep a great indie anthology down! The boys at Indie Spinner Rack have been producing the premiere indie comics podcast for over three years, and in 2007 produced the aptly-titled AWESOME anthology. Now they're back, along with a few dozen of their friends and favorite guests... who happen to be some of the greatest cartoonists in the industry!

AWESOME 2: AWESOMER is edited by Charlito and Mr. Phil, hosts of Indie Spinner Rack, and designed once again by Eisner nominee Jon Adams. Contributors include Chris Duffy, Sarah Glidden, Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, Jeff Lemire, Alex Robinson, J. Chris Campbell, Robert Goodin, Alex Cahill, Chris Schweizer, and MANY more -- with a cover by the legendary Jeff Smith!

What's more, half the proceeds from every book sold will go to fund a student scholarship to the Center for Cartoon Studies! What are you waiting for!? Pick up AWESOMER today! -- Softcover Graphic Novel (Anthology) with inserted mini-comic, 200 pages, 6" x 9"

SHIPPING MAY 2009!
Awesome 2: Awesomer
$14.95 (US)
Diamond: MAR09443
ISBN: 978-1-60309-039-1

The set from Flicker for my story in that is here.

K2 on the racks in 4:12:54......

2009-05-27T20:03:00.007-04:00

Episode 2 of (k) is on the shelf in 4 days and counting, you can the seconds even on the home page here.

I got my own copies Monday and it looks pretty good, not totally keen on the font that was picked for the final lettering, but in the end not being functionally bilingual really it was simpler to let the publisher do it.

Saw them first in print at the post office the other day as i picked up my own box a week late after recovering from the festival.

It was stacked over with the magazines and smokes in its own little box. Later that day postering with a friend on my day off we past some giant ones for our series plastered on a large stretch of constructions sidings on Parc ave. That was fun, the art for book one holds up pretty good blown up huge like that. I'll have to go back to get a snap shot of that to send to Sophie. For a gig that started off pretty badly it's coming out well for now. Ultimately required a degree of divestment on my part but so it goes sometimes. Having spent the last few hours noodling on some more DL pages, i'm thinking about the sketches i did for 4, trying to get into finishing them & wondering where the text for 5 & 6 are...

A little more TCAF stuff

2009-05-25T00:21:00.007-04:00

It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, but Therefore Repent! and Jim got a second on the screen in this cool WHAZAMO! Ontario Graphic Novel Month Video spot about TCAF. Got posted on boing boing and stuff :)

...yeah, i'm easily pleased, it's true. Kind of also just like using that trick with the posting code :)

Dream Life 033 and a 'princesse dans le caniveau'

2009-05-23T13:17:00.002-04:00

Something from the monster, made a nice dent in Dream Life over the last three days.

Also while i was at TCAF i missed the launch for episode 1, but i'm told it went well. The site for K went live, there's a vid intro by Sophie the lovely author of the book posted, and there also this one from page for the series on the publishers main site here. And i noticed the first issue can be read as a PDF to, you can find that here.

Report from the desk:

2009-05-19T15:33:00.006-04:00

Posted this on P&P and then relized i should put it here...

And a day of rest - geeeeezzzzz, man, came back from TCAF the hard way, had to get a cover and BD done for Monday, and almost, but not quite made it. lettering on the BD is temporary, the publisher is going to use their font once they do final edit.

Last week : TCAF was pretty awesome, though i have some mightily cranky notions about the building we were in - not a fan of the architecture, looks good on camera but where i was sitting, it was not a very human feeling space too me, never was a big fan of that one - i sat right under where this was taken from.

But a lot of people loved it and I'm told the library is ecstatic about the festival and provides the space happily which is not how the last place treated them so that's great for Peter and Christopher! Probably will grow on me, i just really loved the old Vic building we were in, had great feeling about it.

Saturday was insane! I mean packed! wow.

No one seemed to know were the ac controls were + i had been up pretty late Friday night being social as well as hulling 525 magazines clear across town and back again on foot [transit] Friday afternoon/evening to get to the Seth reading.

I had also chosen to wear something semi formal involving a jacket. = i was wrecked after day one.

Susi diner saved me and had a good time at Chips launch. His new book looks really sweet, hope to actually read a comic soon, it's in the short stack.

Day two was more mellow, and cool enough i didn't think about taking off my sweater, which it looks like i should have - this was all nice till later on when it was clear the sales were going to be slow.

Despite repeated attempts i was unable to crack the boredom by starting a rubber band war with Craig A. Taillefer, who just gave me funny looks. yes, that look exactly. Brian Evinou & Liz Baillie were grate neighbors, Brian did a lot of drawing. If i hadn't been so burnt out both days i might have felt bad about not being into it!

Last minute scramble to spend money in the last half hour left me with a small profit i spent on mothers day dinner. I bet folks with brand new books to sell did well. Also moved I'd say about 450 of 525 copies of the free Sequential magazine which were well received for sure. Got a short list of people who want to be in the next one if there is one.

The After Party Sunday night was nice, and i had a good time hanging out with Eric Kim & Co. Monday. Met a whole bunch of cool people on this trip in fact.

Had a few days off to see family, and got some sketching done. Missed my buss, took 12 hours to get home in all and crashed hard.

TCAF 09 report, sort of

2009-05-15T02:20:00.004-04:00

I published the magazine, but didn't really do any reporting of my own After the show, so instead check out the insane collection of links Bryan and I have been collecting on the blog from the show...

Come find me at TCAF!

2009-05-09T07:39:00.003-04:00

Hey gang, last minute posting! So it's that time of every two years again, come on down to the Toronto Reference Library and find me in the pile of comix creators and cool going's on at TCAF '09.

I'll have piles of my old and not so old art - some of these, those this and that to sell. And even cooler, a whole lot of THIS to give away totally free! Yep. And Buttons too, oh my!

See you there!

Free Repenting, RevolveR pending, renovations afoot.

2009-02-26T22:10:00.011-05:00

Hey all, slow fast and all over the place.

So have you read our book? Therefore Repent!

If not, or if you have and want a easy way to win a convert?

Well here you go; The sequel, Sword of My Mouth is in this month's Previews, the staff pick no less!!

And to help promote it Jim released the complete Therefore Repent! under a creative commons license for your reading enjoyment.

It comes in PDF, CBR, CBZ, and Bittorrent.
Nice!

If you like; return the favor, and drop by the NMK shop.

Help spread the rapture!: We got mentioned on Boing Boing!
And Digg, Digg it and post it to your friends, lets make it viral! :D

If you've read it already, send the link to friends you think will enjoy it with our blessings! And don't forget to drop by the local shop to let them know you want Sword of My Mouth #1. Knit a reminder around your finger so you don't forget!

And if this is the first you've heard of Therefore Repent! or you've been trying to decide if you wanted to spend the cash, please do check it out!

Maybe if you like it, buy copy for your library? With the lovely blue ink!

Sword of My Mouth #1
Jim Munroe (w) - Shannon Gerard (a)

If Ella didn't have her baby, she'd go crazy from the loneliness. But she might still go crazy from the guilt, because the baby isn't quite right. The world was simpler before the righteous floated away into the sky, and magic started working.

A stand-alone six-issue story continuing on from acclaimed graphic novel Therefore Repent! Sword of My Mouth moves the focus from Chicago, under siege by angels with machine guns, to the urban prairie of Detroit, where a different kind of struggle is faced.

Folks in the D have banded together to turn land with burned out crackhouses into farming tracts, and seem to be on a road to self-sufficiency... until Famine rides into town. This six-issue story arc will be written by creator Jim Munroe ("a pop culture provocateur" - Austin Chronicle) and drawn by Shannon Gerard.

B&W - 32 pages - $3.99
See PREVIEWS page 266.
Diamond Previews code: MAR09 4308

In other news, been working on the next things.

Behind on doing some writing, but I've been eying the first 6 acts of Thieves Cant. Thinking about the few interesting directions to take, think I'm going to spend a night watching some high caper Royal Crown affair type of flair,

Rebuilt a home for
The rise and fall of it all over here.

There's a trailer! And art! And the script and more! Will be adding some other stuff too in the futture. Planning to have this one done in 2010.

In the mean time it is one of the projects coming back with RevolveR, Along with the fist 60 pages of Dream Life.

Also: rebuilt more of my webpire, Sequential, and CHO! are sporting new hair cuts and I'm thinking about adding funny pages to Sequential some how...

Catching up on neglected house cleaning as well. The studio is a wreck right now, i'm purging stuff, been selling off some art. If your interested in owning an original certified Salgood Sam - one of my drawing that is and not the pen name - have a look see here, and drop me a line.

And last; some recent work to ponder and i hope stimulate your brain cells and tickle your pocket books ;)

Dream Life art

2009-02-17T23:59:00.002-05:00

Comic Book Syndicate 39

2009-02-10T00:05:00.000-05:00

Comic Book Syndicate 39 pt2

2009-02-10T00:04:00.000-05:00

Comic Book Syndicate 39 pt3

2009-02-10T00:03:00.000-05:00

Comic Book Syndicate 39 pt4 -last segment

2009-02-10T00:02:00.001-05:00

Cover art for Popgun 3

2009-01-26T21:21:00.007-05:00

Just saw this, looks sweet! nice one by Tara McPherson.

Here's the blurb:

POPGUN VOLUME 3 by ERIK LARSEN, DAN BRERETON, PAUL GRIST, SHELDON VELLA, ED KWONG, JUAN DOE, TONCI ZONJIC, SALGOOD SAM, MIKE DAWSON, ANTHONY WU, CHRIS MORENO, MAXIMO LORENZO, DEREK MCULLOCH, CONNOR WILLUMSEN, and more!

edited by MARK ANDREW SMITH & D.J. KIRKBRIDE

cover by TARA McPHERSON

The Harvey Award-winning graphic mixtape returns for a third round with a new generation of cartoonists teaming up with some of the industry's most celebrated names to produce nearly five hundred pages of all-new, full color comics! Always exciting, unpredictable, and bursting at the seams with unhindered creativity, POPGUN keeps getting better and better!

MARCH 25th * 448 PAGES * FC * $29.99

You can preorder it on Amazon, [the listing shows the wrong cover] And you can also order it from your local comics retailer (Diamond order code JAN092368)

popguncomics.com

Here's a peek at my stuff in the book.

Illustration Portfolio 2009

2009-01-25T00:13:00.012-05:00

I take both privet and commercial commissions.
Contact me to inquire. If you have a problem with flicker or want a clean page to look at use this my dedicated illustration site here.

flicker

Lionel's first and Last bit of press.

2009-01-24T21:27:00.009-05:00

Received these in the mail Friday, amazing stuff. Bellow is a two page center spread from the Toronto Star, a hagiography run a few months after my father died in 79 - it came out just after my 9th birthday as i recall. Bellow that is a clip from a community paper from the neighborhood in Don Mills he lived in as a kid.

Been talking to a lit rep about the bio project, suggested approaching it as a memoir and seems pretty into it. More on Lionel here....

New art: Dream Life and Widows

2009-01-15T04:48:00.003-05:00

Some stuff i've been working on. These are for Dream Life.

And the first two from a story by Rantz called Widows.

I'm being torrented!

2009-01-10T21:37:00.007-05:00

We've been shanghaied by the bay!

Rather flattering really.

So, yeah, you can find the entire Sea of Red series including my first 4 issues amongst the comic torrents now.

Hey, obviously i'd prefer it if people paid to read my books, but on the other hand i've long felt one of the best ways to get people to try stuff is through freebies. In any case, if you want to check it out before buying, for sure I'm all for it. I tend to think/hope those that will want a hard copy will.

If you feel inclined to help support at least one of the artists involved in creating Sea of Red, here's my hat tipped, shoot me whatever you feel inclined to via pay pal. I'd be much obliged guv'.

Dream Life pg 17 and some rapture news

2008-12-12T05:45:00.005-05:00

Inking some Dream Life, and other things. The winter hibernation urge has set in, Pigging out on Italian Corn Bread and Coffee and trying to be productive.

If your thinking about affordable Christmas gifts,
may i suggest a proven treat?

Modern Post Biblical adventure stories always thrill; Therefore Repent! by Jim Monroe and myself has earned itself small hills of praise for being and engaging page turner.

And why am i talking up my last grafic novel? Is it that i might want to suggest that you get that special comics freindly friend a copy of our book for Christmas?

Yep, might be. I mean, it's a post rapture grafic novel, what more slightly blasphemous gift could you give your hip and culturally savvy sweet someone?

In Canada and at the cut rate of $10 here on NMK, from Amazon [$11.24 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25]or IDW, or your local comic shop! Everyone likes getting puppies, this one talks and you don't have to worry about potty training :)

Hah! i should have been a copy writer! har! i kill myself.

OK. I just watched How To Lose Friends And Alienate People and now I'm channeling the main character! He he!

But seriously; it's also because i wanted an excuse to post a link here too for the big news!

If your one of the many who've asked me if there will be a sequel to Therefore Repent, and aren't already way ahead of me because you regular the NMK blog, then put your eye's on this sweetness!

The New Post-Rapture Graphic Novel

I'm [Jim Munroe] 2/3rds (AKA 66.6%) of the way through writing the graphic novel follow-up to Therefore Repent! so I thought I'd post some of the amazing sample pages by the new artist, Shannon Gerard.

I don't want to give away too many details, but it's set in Detroit, involves one of the Four Horsemen, and the first 22 pages should be debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May 2009.

A: Yes there will be and no i won't be drawing it but don't you worry none, it's in very good hands. :D
Go see for yourself, check out the sample pages they posted.

See you @ EXPOZINE 2008 | Sat Nov 29 & Sun Nov 30

2008-11-28T00:11:00.007-05:00

So I'm going to be at Expozine, along with much of the alternative comix scene for Montreal and many from all over Canada and the US!

Expozine has evolved into the biggest zine fair in Canada now, it's been amazing to watch; I've attended every year so far.

This year I have lots of books. Not as many copies of Therefore Repent as I'd have liked it looks like, just 10!

Ordered more but unless they show up Friday I think they got held up with thanksgiving in the US.

That kind of sucks because i can probably sell 3 times as many as I have. But what you going to do?

I will have other books though, lots of RevolveR's, a few copies of Comic Boot Tattoo, Sea of Red, old jam zines and some other older books i've done. Also going to bring a long box of old books from my personal collection, stuff i'd like to start divesting myself off. Also, i had some cool new 1" pins I had made up too, hear they come out well, going to pick them up tomorrow!

The books are above, bellow is the art from the pins! See you at the show! Drop by and say hi if you read the blogs. :)

Therefore Repent!

2008-11-11T05:30:00.012-05:00

a post rapture graphic novel

If you haven't seen it, be sure to ask you retailer for a copy of the original graphic novel Therefore Repent!

NEWS : FREE DIGITAL COPY: If you want to preview Therefore Repent! it's now also available for download via the NMK site here as part of the promotion for the squeal, Sword of My Mouth #1, appearing in you local comic shop in May from IDW! [Diamond Previews code: MAR09 4308]

60 page online preview

Written by Jim Munroe
Drawn by Salgood Sam

What if the religious right... are actually right?

Without warning, multitudes of Christians float bodily up into the sky. For the immoral majority, life goes on pretty much as usual.Except that after the Rapture, magic works -- for those willing to risk demonic mutations.

And an angelic army appears to have been deployed to mop up the sinners.

But through it all, outsiders Raven and Mummy face the possibility of a bigger problem than the end of the world: the end of their relationship.

Critically acclaimed and poplar with readers, Therefore Repent! is an unconventional apocalyptic page turner.

Praise for Therefore Repent!

"Therefore Repent! is great. Loved the conflict between the old and new religions, plus it's got Jesus and mutants." -- Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned

"Therefore Repent! is impressive, layered, and in places surprisingly funny. I didn't think it would be my sort of thing, but I enjoyed it." --Jim Ottaviani, author of FALLOUT: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb

"Now, just dealing with the Rapture might be enough of a hook, but Jim and Salgood do a great job of characterization from the very beginning. The two protagonists are so interesting that I had to keep turning page after page to see what and who they were. And yes, Salgood can draw like nobody's business... I give this book two thumbs up." --Chris Pitzer, AdHouse Books

"The tale's offbeat anarchy and peculiar, parodic charms will win you over. It's like one of those church pamphlets about salvation gone terribly, terribly wrong." --John Burns, The Georgia Straight

"Therefore Repent! is an absolutely boundless piece of fantasy that he wisely grounds in very human relationships... to say it's an imaginative work would be an understatement: 'unhinged' is probably more accurate. I can't wait for more."-- Robert J. Wierseman, Quill & Quire

"The art is extraordinarily fluid and the storyline ingenious and sharply intelligent." --Jeff VanderMeer, Realms of Fantasy

"It's completely nuts... It's a book about what if the Rapture actually happened, and that's all I'm gonna tell you." --Junot Diaz, 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction

Joe Shuster Award Nominee for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer 2008

More press and reviews.

Available now in stores,

Amazon, Chapters/Indigo & more.

And via the publishers,

NMK & IDW

Matrix Magazine Review of THEREFORE REPENT!

2008-11-11T02:56:00.006-05:00

Montreal's cool hipster art and lit mag Matrix Magazine reviewed us favorably in issue 80.

The full text is now online here, and added to my big ol' virtual scrap book on my blog. :)

I like this Vincent guy, will have to track him down and get him a drink...

THEREFORE REPENT! A Post-Rapture Graphic Novel
by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam
in [ Reviewed in Matrix 80 ]
Read by Vincent Tinguely

The glory of science fiction and fantasy is the "what if?" factor. In Therefore Repent!, the authors gleefully explore one deceptively simple premise: "What if the Rapture actually happened?"

The graphic novel has a fairly obscure geneology, beginning with a comic book originally conceived as the invention of a couple of characters in his previous (non-graphic) novel, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil. A 24-page comic was conceived and written by Munroe, rendered by Michel Lacombe, and posted online. Having invented the post-Rapture scenario for this project, Munroe was interested in pursuing an expanded narrative about the comic book characters, Raven and Mummy, and the strange world they find themselves in. When Munroe was ready to go ahead with Therefore Repent!, Lacombe was no longer available to do the graphics, but Salgood Sam, who'd collaborated previously with Munroe on other small projects, was eager to take on the task.

The result is a sumptuous feast for the eyes (all in black and white), and a pleasingly complex plot that takes its sweet time in unfolding. Munroe lends the fantastic notion of the Rapture a believable texture by introducing the no-less fantastic "reality" of earthly magic, telepathy, transmigration of souls, inner visions, shape-shifting, prestidigitation, and talking dogs. In a sense, he's taking on a very real anxiety - that the most powerful military industrial complex on earth is currently controlled by people who believe in fundamentalist quackery - and proposes that the power of such a belief system isn't as monolithic and indestructable as it might sometimes seem.

Salgood Sam's drawing skills never flag over the epic sweep of the tale, and he feels free to try any number of innovative framing and sequencing techniques. The characters, bizarre as they might seem - a woman with a bird head and a man who goes about wrapped in bandages like a mummy - become fully-rounded in the course of the story, and even the minor characters feel believable to the reader. The result is a spectacular graphic novel, full of angels, demons and unclassifiable creatures, with a brainy subtext that never interferes with the fun.