Labels: appearances, comic conventions, News, Therefore Repent

So as i was saying, here we go.

.

It's been posted on MySpace Comic Books site today as a preview for the book. You can read it all there! :)

Mark and I are working on an interview with each other to be posted soon to go with this.

This was a great short story to work on, I'm very happy with how the collaboration with Mark tuned out, very excited about this one.

Comic Book Tattoo is going to be an amazing showcase book, i haven't read the other stories yet, but i've seen lots of the pages here and there - the book looks amazing!

This is the first of three anthologies I'm going to be in between now and December, what a way to kick things off.

Labels: Art, COMIC BOOK TATTOO, Comics, launch, News, press

So if you read here often you'll maybe remember in the spring i postponed work on Dream Life a bit to do something exciting that had come up. Over Due to follow that up. I did a short story with Mark Sable [GROUNDED, FEARLESS, HAZED] that rifted of of Tori Amos's song Upside Down, for her latest project - a huge 12" x 12" 480-page comic anthology titled COMIC BOOK TATTOO.

Here's some highlights of press circuit so far-

SHE'S YOUR COMICS:
Tori Amos' "Comic Book Tattoo"
on CBR, with art!

Tori Amos' "Comic Book Tattoo"
to debut at SDCC with signing session on CBR

Here's a scan of a page from the Jan edition
of SPIN magazine that announced
Comic Book Tattoo, posted on chrisarrant.com

And Tori Amos anthology due from Image
posted on THE BEAT.


Here's a picture of the Hardcover Edition taken by our Editor extraordinaire, Rantz Hoseley. Some shots of the inside on the other side of this link. The cover art is by Jason Levesque of stuntkid.com.



Soon I'll be able to show you some of my own work, and Mark and i are sloted to do some interviews soon too. Stay tuned!

Labels: Art, COMIC BOOK TATTOO, News, Photos, press

Imagine what would happen if all the right-wing Christians suddenly floated up into the sky, and your wiccan lesbian neighbors could suddenly do real magic. That's the premise of magic realist/scifi/defies description graphic novel Therefore Repent!, written by the awesome scifi author Jim Munroe and drawn beautifully by Salgood Sam. What appeals about Munroe's post-rapture tale, aside the believable characters in outlandish situations, is the way it serves as a progressive, humane rejoinder to the Christian scifi novels in the Left Behind series, whose premise is almost exactly the same.

Munroe is one of my very favorite scifi writers — he's the creator of the nanopunk film Infest Wisely (free online!), as well as the author of Everyone in Silico, Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask (free online!), and An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, the prequel to Therefore Repent! This is his first foray into comics, and he takes to the medium well.

We meet Mummy and Raven, a couple of artists who used to do an act where they dressed up as a mummy and a raven, as they are searching for a home in a world turned upsidown by the rapture of hundreds of thousands of Christians. Those left behind are divided between "splitters," people who are trying to go as Christian as possible so they'll be taken up during the Apocalypse (this includes George W. Bush), and people who are happy to live in a world free from Christians. Mummy and Raven are among the latter, and they've moved into a cozy squat left abandoned by its raptured inhabitants. Things start to get even more unhinged, however, when angels in military uniforms start machine gunning "sinners," and dogs start to talk. Plus, ordinary people are starting to develop weird magical powers — one woman can send email by attaching ethernet cables to her piercings, and Raven herself can create birds out of smoke.

As the wiccans, lesbians, and punks start to band together to fight the paramilitary angels, Raven and Mummy start to have relationship difficulties. Mummy is flirting with the cute indie rock girl at the bar down the street, and Raven is keeping her feelings so bottled up that she's become psychologically stuck. This is the great thing about Munroe's writing, always: he manages to write weirdly sweet romantic stories set against a backdrop of the apocalypse or some kind of huge technological emergency. Salgood's drawings manage to be both dark and funny, cute sketches that shade into shadowy gloom, which perfectly harmonizes with the mood of the narrative.

There's a terrifically great twist ending which despite my love of spoilers I won't give away. Suffice to say, the story stays consistently surprising and weird, and the message is never a simple "Christianity is stupid" dogma at all. Instead, the point is to be careful about what kind of paradise you wish for. You just might get it.

You can buy all of Munroe's books, including Therefore Repent, here.

Labels: buy, News, press, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Labels: appearances, comic conventions, events, News, Therefore Repent

Labels: News, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Laughed Behind

originally published [with art] on March 20, 2008 by Bob

Both scarier and funnier than a library full of only Left Behind novels, Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam's Therefore Repent!: A Post-Rapture Graphic Novel asks the disturbing question: "What if the religious right... are actually right?" Set in a post-rapture world, when Heaven's non-elect are left behind to pick up the pieces after the "chosen" have ascended to their just rewards, Therefore Repent! imagines a world in which magical powers become commonplace and the same pre-rapture biases and prejudices rule the day.

Where else but Canada could such a work come from? First published by No Media Kings in Canada and now brought to America by IDW Publishing, Therefore Repent! takes aim at the fundamentalist foibles of the American Christian Right with withering satire. When "Dubya Almighty," as one character calls him, appears on a television news broadcast to discuss his post-rapture tour of the Red States, Bush spins wildly in response to the question of why he himself has been left behind. When Bush refers to the faux Jesus beside him as "Mr. Christ," it's laugh out loud funny as well as cry in your pillow sad, especially if you're an American surrounded by the consequences of conservative "religion."

One good aspect of the post-rapture world is the availability of good housing vacated by the chosen. Raven and Mummy, the two main characters of Therefore Repent!, find themselves a new home in the chaos of the aftermath (above). Although basic services are spotty at best, a number of "splitters," those who believe in a second round of rapture to pick up those who needed to atone during the "tribulation" period before ascending, keep hope alive and the wheels of society turning to a degree. Munroe and Maxim Douglas (Salgood Sam's real name) create a credible incredible world of "radical splitters" performing the miracles of Jesus, talking dogs, and sibylesque figures who replace e-mail with "she-mail." Like Milton's Lucifer in the early sections of Paradise Lost, this depiction of "evil" seems infinitely more interesting and fun than the world of the holy rollers. If you'd "rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints," post-rapture Earth and America seems not so bad, at least for a while. Douglas' edgy, almost grimy black and white images compose the perfect atmosphere for this magical realm set in all too familiar places.

Unfortunately, the powers of religious bigotry remain strong after the rapture, and perhaps even gain strength in the vacuum of legitimate authority. Military figures with angels' wings (above) wreck vengeance on the unfaithful practicing "black" magic. Militiamen calling themselves "God's Faithful" decide who lives and dies based on their personal creed. In these passages, Munroe and Douglas reveal the roots of the destructive tendencies of the Christian Right in America and their ties to other wings of conservatism such as the militia movement and just how deep those roots go. Of course, Therefore Repent! is fantasy, but only in fantasy can you find the license to connect the dots in such profound and illuminating ways. Therefore Repent! is social commentary disguised as fantasy literature. "It's just a comic book," they say, allowing these ideas to get under the radar in a way that more mainstream media no longer provides.

Therefore Repent! begins by quoting the Bible passage from which the title is taken. "Therefore repent!" says Revelations 2:16. "If you do not, I will come to you soon and fight against them with the sword of my mouth." In Therefore Repent!, Munroe and Douglas use the "sword" of their mouth and pen to fight against those crippling America under the weight of their right-wing prejudices codified in religious language. Those who need to repent are not the sinners but the "saints" who have taken their country down a very strange and twisted path leading to the violence of illegitimate wars and legitimized torture. In Therefore Repent!, we receive a valuable Bible lesson that questions the nature of what it is to be God's chosen and who has the right to do the choosing.

Labels: News, press, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Labels: events, montreal, News, Therefore Repent

I have SLASHED SLASHED SLASHED prices on my books -- as much as 50% in some cases. Go check out the AMAZING deals: And, for people who buy 3 or more books, you get a No Media Kings t-shirt. FREE!

Whaa? I know! I know, you just lost your mind. I'll wait while you find it. OK?

PLUS if you're a book club or an educator or an indie bookseller or just a really big Munroe fan, email me for purchases of 10+ -- just be prepared to redefine your def of "deep" discounting. I don't want you to die from the shock of the INSANELY LOW PRICES.

Labels: News, repent press, Therefore Repent

It's very strange when you're reading a graphic novel and feel like it was formed by an entirely different set of creators. In some ways it's a little unfair to do so to the actual creators, almost like you aren't giving them their fair credit. None the less, if you'd asked me who'd created Therefore Repent!, I'd have probably guessed Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple (who coincidentally really are collaborators on Marvel's Omega the Unknown revival). I'd like to assure Jim Monroe and Salgood Sam, however, that such a comparison really isn't a bad thing at all.

The Rapture came, and billions of people rose up into the sky to go to Heaven. Now, the rest of the world is in chaos, some claiming this to be a time of tribulation with a second chance at salvation eminent, others just trying to survive as best they can. With an army of angels trying to purge the world of survivors, and strange powers manifesting left and right, can Mummy and Raven find a way to just live in peace?

Monroe's story reminded me a lot of Lethem's early novels, with its fantastical events and ever-shifting status quo being presented almost matter-of-factly to the reader. This isn't the sort of story where characters spend half their time continually gawking at their situation, but instead just move on as if it's part of their lives these days--which of course it is. The end result is that as a reader, I never felt like I was being condescended or talked down to, and picked up the sensation that this was somehow a very real world that I was getting a glimpse into. The setup for Therefore Repent! is clever, in both how Munroe imagines what the remaining infrastructure would look like, but more so in the changes in humanity. This is the sort of setting I could easily see sustaining a long series of stories if Munroe chose, dipping into different locations and lives all over the globe. As it is, I feel like there's still so much more that could be told about the book's existing cast. There's a lot in their past left nebulous, and it's the arrival of Mummy and Raven into a neighborhood of Chicago that not only asks questions of all the supporting cast but of them as well. Likewise, some parts of the story itself are never really explained; the actions of some characters are left blank, which can be frustrating to anyone who is expecting everything to be explained or wrapped up neatly.

The art in Therefore Repent! is a lush, thick-inked creation. I really love the way that Sam illustrates an urban sprawl, with its streets and buildings and alleyways. It's a wonderfully full art style, and in some ways I think it's more effective here as pure black and white versus the red-tinged art of Sea of Red. Here, the darker color against a white background carries a stronger visual weight, and that's especially important when Sam draws the fantastical elements of Therefore Repent!. Because they're so different, they need to really stand out and pop off the page at the reader, and that's exactly what happens. My only one complaint is that some of the more action-oriented scenes came off as a little muddled and hard to follow--I can't help but feel that they don't really play to Sam's strengths as an artist. Fortunately, they're a very small part of the greater whole. I do wonder if the smaller dimensions of the book, which normally works well in compacting Sam's art, somehow worked against him there.

Therefore Repent! was a nice surprise for me as a reader--a book full of enough ideas to fill up an entire series, and with a beautiful illustration style in the narrative. Add in an unpredictable (but good) ending and lots of little surprises along the way and the end result is a book that would make me definitely seek out further collaborations between Munroe and Sam. I might have confused their synergy with other creators in the past, but I certainly won't make that mistake again.

Labels: News, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Taking a few days to ink, then back to Top Secret project.

Blocky thing takes forever to ink, I'm telling you, Boyo.

Having some interesting conversations with a few writers right now, considering illustration a sort of philosophical picture book, been approached about a couple of comic book ideas that if not too big I might end up doing, and maybe even seeing if I cant think of an interesting animation idea - had a studio contact me about the possibility of talking about developing an idea with them, pretty exciting the more I think about it. Pondering what concepts i've been kicking around might make the leap well, or if I have any new notions that might be worth pitching....hmmm.

Also making small steps towards writing a new Sea of Red project, that i've pretty much decided I'd like to do sooner than I can draw it, so looking into other artists for that maybe.

Been making plans

to tour for Therefore Repent!

It's looking very good for me going to the NYCC, and Paradise, and by hock or crook my first visit to the San Diego Comic Con. Also Windsor/Detroit as well in the next 6 months! Maybe more yet, haven't got a confirmation but might be giving a presentation here in Montreal at the end of the month as well in NDG, hosted by geekmontreal.com

Jim's going to hit the road as well a little bit, stay tuned and i'll have dates and places for all that.

Labels: "Dream Life", "finger string", Art, events, News, Sea of Red, Therefore Repent

Labels: News, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Labels: News, press, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Labels: "Dream Life", News, press

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, News

We just got a write up in the fantasy mag, 'Realms of Fantasy'. very short, but i liked it....

Therefore Repent!, Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam, IDW Publishing.

This first foray into graphic novels by the indie innovator Jim Munroe, with able assistance from the illustrator, features a war with angels, bird-headed men, and, after a Rapture-like catastrophe, the appearance of magic on Earth.

The main characters, Raven and Mummy, must navigate this new world while also dealing with more personal issues.

The art is extraordinarily fluid and the storyline ingenious and sharply intelligent.

Labels: News, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Therefore Report! (a post-Rapture graphic novel)

Jim Munroe, Salgood Sam

Available through No Media Kings, www.nomediakings.org

Reviewed by Victor Schwartzman

This is not a review in the Ain't It Cool News style, which is usually as much about the reviewer as it is about the book. But you really need to understand why I did NOT want to read this book right now, much less review it. Yet, here we are. And this is the first draft of the review, right now that's all I have time for, but this review needed to be done. It needed to be done now. Guess that tells you something. Later, I'll go back and edit.

You need to read the whole review, so click on 'read more' to find out how busy my life is, and why I had to read this book and write the review anyway.

I am a founding member of Outsider Writers, and run our book review and Agit Prop 101 poetry page. My policy for the book review page is that I do as few reviews as possible-I don't have the time to read nearly as much as I should, plus it is good to have as wide a variety of reviewers possible rather than the review section being my personal blog. I've done maybe five of the ninety or so reviews on the site.

More to the point, I just don't have the time right now to read books and write reviews, due to more than the usual situations. About two months after we started OW, my mom, 91, had a mild heart attack that put her in the hospital. Real heart attacks are not likely Hollywood heart attacks-no horrible sudden pain, no grasping the left arm, no falling to the floor. Instead, they creep up on you, starting with a discomfort in your chest. Mom ended up being in the hospital for about three months. In the end, she was too weak to be discharged back to her retirement community apartment. That meant her going into a 'personal care home', with about one day's actual notice when she left the hospital. Moving her was traumatic for her-she knows she was moving into a 'final stage' kinda place. I was seeing her in the hospital almost every day, plus speaking with her on the phone each day. Clearing out her apartment was difficult, and now my house is full of her things.

Then she had the second heart attack, three weeks after moving into the nursing home. More hospital time. Of course, all that is a far bigger problem for her than me, but I am her primary care giver.

Then there are the problems with my day job (don't we all have problems with our day job), my dealing with high blood pressure medications, and now apparently developing carpal tunnel syndrome. Sometimes I feel I don't have the take to eat and feed my body, much less my mind.

So not only did I NOT want to write a review of this book, I had no time to read it. When it came in the mail two days ago I was tired, depressed, and capable only of watching Dr. House ream out people on tv. So I opened the package (I'd ordered the book from No Media Kings, it was cheap and came with some cool stickers by the way) I had no intention whatsoever of reading it then-y'hear me, Munroe and Sam?

Unfortunately, I opened the book and looked at the first page.

See, this is the damn problem with this damn book-you're screwed if you read the first page, because, based on my experience, you then have to read the second. And the third. In the end, I read three quarters of the book in one sitting, and then finished it yesterday as soon as I woke up & had some coffee. Clearly, Munroe and Sam have no respect whatsoever for me and my problems. Now I'm writing this review, because the book is just out & I figured you need to know about it.

"Therefore Repent" is a graphic novel which takes place after the Rapture-after the true believers, 144,000 of them, rise up to Heaven. It ain't about them. It's about those of us who are left behind. It's about the Army of God then returning to Earth to clear up the non-believers-the Army of God looking a lot like U.S. soldiers in full battle gear, complete with automatic weapons, except these soldiers also fly around with angel wings on their backs. And then there are the talking dogs.

I'm an agnostic (I don't believe in god but I do believe in hedging my bets), so I have no particular interest in the Rapture-but actually, either do Munroe or Sam. Munroe, who wrote the text, and Sam, who illustrated it, are far more interested in those of us who are left to continue their lives, under the literal gun of the true believers. Like President Bush, who didn't make it up to heaven, and who now tours the U.S. with a makeshift Jesus, saying he had to be left behind because someone's gotta steer the ship of state (steer it straight for the rocks, but that's another story).

This is a novel about the magic within all of us, about what stops us from realizing we have that magic, and how we can find that magic again and use it.

Graphic novels are long comic books, essentially. Jim Munroe has a vivid imagination and interest in politics and our social mores. Salgood Sam (whose name, guys, is not actually Maxim Douglas spelled backwards, but it does come close) matches Munroe's imagination and interests in his art. The art is black and white, ragged in spots-a style perfectly fitting the story itself, where the characters lived ragged lives in situations often beyond their (immediate) understanding. There are plenty of cinematic aspects to the art, with Sam playing with different angles, big panels and small panels, showing a lot of versatility working only in black and white. As for Munroe, he paints a large palette himself-our entire society. But the writing is not just a way of expressing his concerns. It was the story that sucked me in, even when I did not want to read anything.

Raven and Mummy are two people who saw the 'chosen few' rising up from the earth. One of them started rising also-but could not leave the other behind. So now they are both stuck with the other "immoral" non-believers. Raven wears a mask that makes her look like a raven-when we see what is under the mask, it's a shock. Her boyfriend, Mummy-well he looks wrapped up. In the midst of the world falling to hell (hahaha) they have relationship problems. It ain't easy in their world, with the Army of God swooping down on angel wings to machine gun them if they step out of line. And then there are the talking dogs.

Raven and Mummy make friends in a new neighbourhood, where people struggle to carry on with their lives as "normal" society has fallen apart. They try to find lost friends, including Lillith, with whom they communicate by "shemail" (email, but through the head and body of a woman who's specially hooked up). There is magic in the air, but it is very risky to look into yourself to see what you can do with the Army of God flying around ready to pop your cap.

There is a lot more to this slim book. There are twists I did not see coming, and which I can not tell you about. There is content I did not expect, but which I found very relevant to the life I have. And the art was a times challenging, moody and grim-it is not depicting a pretty world and feels no need to leave you feeling good.

If this book MADE ME READ IT, then I'd say-buy it.

Labels: News, press, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Comic Fans Repent!
Posted by cb120
Friday, August 17, 2007 13:43

Last night I kicked off this year's Toronto Comic Arts Festival by attending the launch party for new graphic novel Therefore Repent! It's a post-apocalyptic tale written by Jim Munroe, author of novels An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, Angry Young Spaceman, Everyone In Silico, and Flyboy Action Fiction Comes with Gasmask. You may recall my previous blog about Munroe's recent directorial debut with indie-scifi flick Infest Wisely.

With this latest offering, Munroe has re-imagined the biblical Book of Revelations and used the idea of the Rapture as the basis of a scifi-fantasy adventure. Set in Chicago, the book follows two characters, Raven and Mummy, as they navigate a post-rapture world. As the back of the book explains, "Without warning, 144,000 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."

Munroe has teamed up with Montreal-based comic artist Salgood Sam, who provides the book's beautifully dark illustrations. At first glance the art reminds me artist's Eric Drooker, (which I love). But while Drooker's graphic novels are completely sans-words, the illustrations in Therefore Repent! do well in complimenting Munroe's intelligent script and bringing his post-rapture world to the page. Check it out at nomediakings.org

Labels: News, press, repent press, reviews, Therefore Repent

Labels: "Dream Life", Art, Comics, News

Labels: News, press, repent press, Therefore Repent

Labels: Comics, events, launch, montreal, News, press, repent press, Therefore Repent

Labels: audio, av, media, News, podcasts, press, sound, Therefore Repent

Labels: launch, montreal, News, Therefore Repent

Jim Munroe (w)
Salgood Sam (a)

What if the religious right... are right?

Therefore Repent! is a graphic novel set in a Chicago neighborhood after the Rapture. Once the Christians have floated bodily into the sky, life goes on pretty much as usual for the immoral majority... except that magic works, if you're willing to risk demonic mutations. CNN reports that Mr. Christ and Mr. Bush are on a speaking tour of the red states. 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.

In the tradition of The Book of Revelations, Therefore Repent!, courtesy of novelist Jim Munroe (Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask) and acclaimed artist Salgood SamSea of Red) is a lurid, dark fantasy tale. By taking the apocryphal scripture as literal truth - as the American powers-that-be claim to do - the story also explores the political and spiritual ramifications of God abandoning humanity.

TPB-FC
6" x 8"
$14.99
160 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-60010-146-1

Labels: Comics, News, press, Therefore Repent