Dream life continues afoot. Or no, it's in the air. well, whatever, :)
There was a rewarding surge in traffic when the latest page dropped. Need to get the last few dream sequence pages uploaded tonight. I posted a clip of script that was cut out along with page 16 today.
Just completed a total renovation and conversion of Sequential to a word press site. Came out well i think. Lot of new functions possible now, Bryan Dave and I have been throwing round a lot of ideas. Need to catch up with TCAF things but so far everything seems to be coming together.
Not as cool: IDW strangely sent out a horrible pdf to use for the preview!
Huh? Rats, they make my hand lettered text look like MUD! Mentioned this to the PR folks at IDW when i saw the pdf myself but....hmmmm...hurrrm...hum.
Well, not to gripe to much or look the gift horse in the tonsils, here's the preview page, but read the one's i posted here below, ok? Images link to lage files on flickr that will open in a new window. Also you can use this full screen slide show, which includes all the other art I've posted from the book so far. These versions of the pages are from before final proof readings so some typo's may be included.
You like?
There was an awful truck accident and problems with customs that's resulting in delays in shipping, but it is on it's way. Ask you're local Brick and Mortar shop about it, or order online.
It was dropped on Bleeding cool, so this is post seepage, but here's the beutiful cover by Ben Templesmith of the next book to have my art in it! Popgun 4!
For those of you with ink on your fingers, Ben has a cool proses post on the creation of this here on his blog.
My story "Honolulu Lorie's" was suposed to be in #3 but along with a whole lot of stuff got bumped back to 4 when they realized they had over sold the seats. Some awkward moments there when i found out and i've been sitting on my hands till now to make sure it was for sure going to be in this one - "cut due to too much goodness" is generally not quite the message editors probably want to send if you like a story. But bygones, all's good now, and i'm excited to see how my baby looks in print and the company it'll be keeping. The Popgun series is damn impressive, very proud to have something in one now.
If you liked that proses post by Ben you'll maybe want to look at this Flickr set for Lorie's, documenting the creation of the art for the story. The script was first written in a bar years ago in the mid 90's on a napkin hanging out with some drunken scumbags and dear friends. Funny because i don't drink but they could never tell they say.
Sadly i can't get to LA for the launch party at Meltdown, but if you're in the area you can keep up with the news about that probably here on DJ's site.
POPGUN is back with another eclectic collection of established fan favorite creators and rising stars coming together for a new edition of the Harvey Award-winning graphic mix tape! From high-octane action to heart-tugging drama to laugh-out-loud comedy, this collection has comics you'll love: over 500 full color pages of them!
featuring JOCK, JEFFERY BROWN, ERIK LARSEN, TOM SCIOLI, JM KEN NIIMURA, FRANK STOCKTON, JESSICA FINK, SALGOOD SAM, MATTEO SCALERA, CHRIS MORENO, MARK ANDREW SMITH, DEREK MCCULLOCH, JEREMY TINDER, ELIZABETH GENCO and more! edited by D.J. KIRKBRIDE, ANTHONY WU & ADAM P. KNAVE cover BEN TEMPLESMITH FEBRUARY 10 512 PAGES / FC $29.99
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.
The 9th Rendez-vous international de la BD was lovely, Paul and friends go out of their way to make the guests feel welcomed. Also met some very cool people, made a few new friends. I've posted photos from the trip here.
In Toronto I got some work done , roughs for Work, and started on a new Bread and Butter project that's proving to be off to a fun start. Will talk more about that later but for now you can see the art here>>.
I had a short interview with Dalson Chen of The Windsor Star, that ran the week before BookFest Windsor here. Came out well I think. Made me laugh when he asked about graphic novels, there was a national post article just before on the same theme that made me roll my eyes.
BookFest Windsor was a pleasure for the most part, including the funny social drama around the final night's party, but I'm getting the impression this goes with the small book festival circuit a bit. Booze + Writers and Poets + Travel? :)
I have a few photos and stuff to post from that shortly.
Also spent a great and somewhat inebriated Halloween with my old friend George, roaming about the town checking out costumes and snapping shots. I made a bit of a video of that here.
The Rapture has provided adventure fodder for those who believe in it - I'm looking at you especially, Tim LeHaye - as well as those who don't. To the best of my knowledge, though, it's never been depicted as anything other than exactly what is happening. God has taken all the Christians away to Heaven and the Earth is ruled by the Anti Christ, with the Final Battle soon to follow.
In "Therefore Repent!" Canadian team Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam depict a post-Rapture world where nothing is for certain. The creator turn the bizarre religious belief into a science fiction scenario that has the characters actually searching for explanations beyond the accepted one while still working within the parameters of popular legend we all accept, either with straight face or with conspicuous snickers.
Raven and Mummy are two bohemian performance artists who wander around in their performance costumes. Squatting in an abandoned apartment in a little urban neighborhood, the two become acquainted with their surroundings and the other people left behind. One of the givens of the Rapture is that it would create a world populated mostly by artists and ne'er do wells, at least among the respectable crowds.
Munroe and Salgood also play with the likely post-Rapture psychology in regard to reactionary acting out that provide daily dangers and annoyances to the survivors. The Splitters are a group of people who believe there will be a second Rapture and they have one more chance to follow Jesus. Meanwhile, religious militia with names like "God's Faithful" roam around spreading dread.
There is one way to read the Bible - that is between the lines and asking simple questions like "Who is God? What's his story? Why's he so vague about where he comes from and what he wants?" While "Therefore Repent!" may not be moving down that road exactly, it's certainly in that spirit.
The story's conclusion recontextualizes the circumstances of the Apocalypse in an inventive and fun way - oh, yeah, and it's kind of corny. But good corny. The kind of corny that twists things inside out and lays out some intriguing possibilities as it unfolds. The kind of corny that's missing from the eye-rolling corny that infects the belief "Therefore Repents!" lampoons.
Revolution on the Planet of the Apes on Hype Space.
This is old, but i just found it. This is Ty Templeton, artist writer and editor extraordinaire, and our boss for Revolution on the Planet of the Apes.
He appeared on Space to hype the books when they came out, and they used a lot of my art from #1 for this. The publisher has been having second thoughts about doing a collection, if your someone who would like to see the Revolution on the Planet of the Apes books collected, like i would, write Mr. Comics and tell them about it for me please?
Listening to lots of stuff while i fling ink madly at this.
Finally got to my friends at Indy Spinner Rack! Done some editing for their show in the past and got to press the flesh in NY a few weeks back. Really enjoyed sitting with them at the Con, and all the rest. didn't have enough time to hang out, i Will be back.
Wish I'd bloody gone with them to Hero Con as almost planed! darrrr! That would have been so much better than staying at home and breaking up with my girlfriend. I am such a dummy sometimes, it amazes me.
In episode #134 Charlito and Mr. Phil talked with our editor and facilitator for the massive Comic Book Tattoo. Mr Rantz Hoseley.
I had to blush, I had not heard the 'reasoning' for our story being chosen to preview on MySpace before. And I'm not above sharing it with you here.
Clip of Rantz embarrassing me along with many others in the book is here bellow, and you can catch the whole conversation on the ISR site here.
Been inking, and writing, and doing a lot of walking still.
Up side to the insanity of visiting Toronto is all the exercise, reminds me to keep it going at home. With the always present list of things to do when your freelance, it easy to forget to get off your ass sometimes.
And of course the net always calls to be fed. To bad it doesn't take walks and crap itself. Been contemplating getting a dog friend lately.
Didn't get to the big SDCC this year. Had thought I would but changed my mind. Timing was just not suitable - need to get a lot done this month.
But Damn, it would have been cool to have been there for the official big launch of Comic Book Tattoo, Tori Amos's monster anthology book!
The photo here of a panel is by the K-Squared: They have a nice full report posted about the panel at the con, with Amos, Rantz, and 6 of the contributors. And the Tori Amos signing later. And there is a clip of the panel posted here on Flicker by comiquero.com, dug up by Russell Lissau.
There's also some cool shots up on Rantz flicker stream. And K. Star St.Germain posted the first page from what looks like a stunning story here. And i love this shot Sarah Jaffe took of herself with the book. There's a set here of one of the signings. And bellow is Rantz with some folks who posted this on their feed, proud owners of a limited edition. I believe word is everything that went with them to SDCC is gone, all sold out! There's a lot of buz on this thing.
Quite excited to see this thing, been kind of holding out in an act of perverse denial of reward i suppose. :)
I hope my story printed well. Kind of afraid to see how it looks along side some of the other stuff in the previews! ED: New Stuff. 1st Review of the book.
David Mack Josh Hechinger, Matthew Humphreys, Kristyn Ferretti (L) Jonathan Tsuei, Eric Canete Jason Horn, Dean Trippe Sara Ryan, Jonathan Case Rantz A. Hoseley, James Stokoe Tristan Crane, Atticus Wolrab Kako Nikki Cook Drew Bell, Kevin Mellon, Mark Sweeney (C) Jeff Carroll, Mike May Jeremy Haun, Amber Stone (C) Leif Jones Elizabeth Genco, Carla Speed Mcneil, Mark Sweeney (C) Kelly Sue Deconnick, Andy Macdonald,Nick Filardi(C),Kristyn Ferretti(L) Cat Mihos, Andre Szymanowicz, Gabe Bautista(C), Kristyn Ferretti(L) C.B. Cebulksi, Ethan Young, Joey Weltjens & Lee Duhig For Guru Efx (C) Omaha Perez Irma Page, Mark Buckingham Rantz A. Hoseley, Ming Doyle, Mark Sweeney(C), Kristyn Ferretti (L) Mike Maihack John Ney Reiber, Ryan Kelly, Kristyn Ferretti (L) Alice Hunt, Trudy Cooper Jonathan Hickman Matthew S. Armstrong Neil Kleid, Christopher Mitten, Kristyn Ferretti(L) Stephanie Leong, Sonia Leong Peov Kelly Sue Deconnick, Laurenn Mccubbin John Bivens Hope Larson Emma Vieceli, Faye Yong(C) Chris Arrant, Star St.Germain Mike Dringenberg Paul Maybury Jim Bricker, Craig Taillefer Dame Darcy G. Willow Wilson, Steve Sampson Neal Shaffer, Daniel Krall Adisakdi Tantimedh, Ken Meyer Jr. Mark Sable, Salgood Sam Tom Williams James Owen Seth Peck, Daniel Heard Ivan Brandon, Callum Alexander Watt Leah Moore & John Reppion, Pia Guerra, Mark Sweeney, Kristyn Ferretti Jessica Staley, Shane White Ted Mckeever, Chris Chuckry (C) Jimmie Robinson Lea Hernandez Derek Mcculloch, Colleen Doran, Jason Hanley (L)
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.
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 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!
Spring breezes are helping to loft Therefore Repent! on the wing...
Man did/do i have a lot of spring cleaning to do! Been at it for a week now. almost done though. Feel itchy to start finishing some of the DL pages for act 1. Poked in to panel and pixel just now, John Muth posted me a link for a review on io9.com for Therefore Repent! By Annalee Newitz. Not to sound too stroked but it's nice reading a review where it feels like the reader has totally got what you hoped you were trying to say. Lots of comments too! That's cool. :)
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.
Some readers are never going to pick up Therefore Repent! when they hear about the plot. The graphic novel imagines the biblical Rapture, with the righteous floating up to heaven, and the sinners stuck on a miserable earth roiling with war and suffering. It just sounds too much like it might be the work of a smug Christian author, offering a book-length Jack Chick tract to a general comics readership. Bible camp for the heathens.
Not only is that an erroneous conclusion, it's a far too simple one. What writer Jim Munroe and artist Salgood Sam have done here is to join mystery, horror, romance, and the lurid excitement of eschatology in a complex tale that manages to be spiritually moving without resorting to organized religion.
We begin with Mummy and Raven, a couple of free spirits wearing the costumes it sounds like they are, as their way of protesting this whole Rapture business. They wander the post-Tribulation streets, squatting in apartments abandoned by the righteous, trying to cook up food without electricity and survive by their wits in a collapsed America. They confab with Jews, Muslims, drinkers, hippies, and "unbelievers" of all stripes, looking for resources, friends, and meaning in a bereft world.
The cover to Therefore Repent. Click for a larger image.Gradually, we witness stranger and stranger doings in this post-Rapture life. Dogs eat the voice boxes of dead people and acquire the power to speak. Some women have the ability to conjure living birds of ash, and cats of dust. The newly pious can walk on water, multiply loaves and fishes, and turn water into wine. Bisexual soldier-angels descend to earth to kill survivors practicing the "dark arts" of divination -- levitation, invisibility, and even drumming circles. It's a mishmash of horrors and wonders that reminded me, with its sheer oddness, of the vibe you get from some Clive Barker stories. Of course, the idea of this particular sick world is only as "new" as the New Testament. I wish I knew more about the Rapture so I could appreciate more here. The genital-less angels, for instance, are a Biblical idea, I understand.
Munroe and Sam convey the action with a deceptively sleepy pace. The practical considerations of what Mummy and Raven should do with their daily surfeit of free time, the bumps in their relationship, and the challenges faced by a few other minor but memorable characters are the meat of the book. We, along with these characters, are waiting for answers. Will there be another, final Rapture? Can the impious yet be saved? Should the stunned non-Christians fight the gun-toting angels of vengeance, or would that be sacrilege? What does anything mean in a world where god has passed judgment, and everyone left is a loser?
The ending is a revelation, in several senses of the term. Let's just say that the Christians may have been right about how the world will end, but wrong about who's on either side of the chess board. And the potential for good people to fight their way to salvation -- and transformation -- in the darkest of times is presented so lovingly, via the delightful couple that is the cosmically tripping Mummy and the defiant Raven (and their talking dog, too), you just marvel at your journey as a reader.
Salgood Sam (the nom de plume of one Max Douglas, spelled backwards, more or less) is a gifted illustrator. His black-and-white drawings are slick like a film storyboard drawn by an exacting crafter. Check out one panel near the end of the book, in which our band of heroes takes out an angel. He falls through the sky upside-down, his huge black wings fluttering helplessly above him on the way down. It's gorgeous.
It might be a good idea to read Therefore Repent! twice, even. Any confusing plot points at the beginning will be revealed as clever little breadcrumbs.
"Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammo" takes on new meaning with this one. Highly recommended. | Byron Kerman
Got a note about this just before leaving for NY, which was cool; when i told folks like the literary agent i talked to at the con that a Pulitzer Prize winner name dropped my last project they tended to take notice. So yeah, Junot Diaz was interviewed by THIS RECORDING April 10th, and when asked about what he's reading lately this is what he said...
In terms of genre fiction, are you getting to do any reading for pleasure?
I've have been reading tremendously. I'm sort of recovering from book-novel-whatever... right now, I'm reading this book called THEREFORE REPENT! (Laughs)
Does it have an exclamation mark at the end?
YES! YES!
What's it about?
It's completely nuts. Of course you haven't heard of it. It's by a guy named Jim Monroe and it's put out by a small press. It's a book about what if the rapture actually happened, and that's all I'm gonna tell you.
Cool. Much thanks to Junot! So I'm going to have to go find some of his work and have a look, I'm told he's an amazing author, as the Pulitzer would tend to suggest.
Hey all, some nice stuff for the clip pile here; stumbled across this a bit late, Comic News Insider featured the book on their weekly top three list when it came out in January. This is a clip from Episode 125 - Tue, 29 January 2008!
I'm Going to be at the upcoming New York Comic Con - April 18-20, 2008!
Also i've confirmed with Vito, I'm booked to do a singing for Therefore Repent! on the 21st the Monday after the con with my co-creator on Sea of Red, Rick Remender (Fear Agent) and Tony Moore(Walking Dead) @ Jim Hanley's Universedowntown store in New York City [map]! If your in town i hope you can make it out to the store.
Also really look forward to meeting the guys, Tony did some awesome work on my covers for Sea of Red, I've worked with both of them but i haven't met either of them in the flesh so it's going to be cool to actually encounter the real people! Hope it goes well :)
Time TBA and last...
And we got a nice short blurb in the March 2008 issue of Rue Mourge!
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.
January 31, 2008 By J. Caleb Mozzocco [personal blog]
When a huge swath of the world's population suddenly rises bodily into the sky, disappearing into the heavens, it's popularly assumed that the Rapture has occurred, and that those Christians who believed in it were right all along. Writer Jim Munroe and artist Salgood Sam's new graphic novel Therefore Repent! (IDW Publishing) is set in this post-Rapture world, focusing on those who are--ahem--left behind.
I hear there's a real market for books about people left behind.
[max:Rimshot! ba-tish! he he.]
Munroe and Sam's leads are a weird-looking couple who answer to the names Mummy and Raven; he wraps himself in gauze bandages like a mummy, and she wears a raven mask that covers her whole head. A half-hearted reason for this is given at one-point-they were at a Burning Man-like arts festival when the Rapture happened, and kept their costumes on from then on to commemorate the event-but I think they just make for more interesting character designs for Sam to draw dressed like that.
[max: well yes and no, they are more interesting like that, but...]
We follow them as they arrive in Chicago and try to start a new life there. Writer Munroe seems to have grossly overestimated the number of Christians who actually believe in a physical Rapture, as Chicago is apparently depopulated to the point where there are plenty of nice apartments around for squatting purposes.
[max: true, but for fiction, it depends on who's numbers you use when you start out on your literalists' take on the idea ;) ]
The existential questions such an apocalyptic situation would raise are built into the setting, often in rather incidental ways (the press conference in which the president offers a rationale for why he's still on Earth is amusing), and hang over the narrative, an unspoken conflict informing all the other conflicts.
Among these are the one between Raven and Mummy, whose love for each other was tested in a way that is a testament to its incredible strength, but also leaves a lingering resentment.
In their new neighborhood, they seem to quickly be drifting apart and are soon on the verge of breaking up. Apparently, the Rapture was only the beginning of the weird things going on, as dogs begin talking, magic becomes real and fairly easy to practice and squadrons of angels patrol the cities machine-gunning down sinners.
The story is rather oddly paced, turning from a serious slice of post-apocalyptic life focusing on a sprawling cast into something of a fantasy action piece in the second to last chapter, but it has a few killer twists at the end that turn the whole story on its head, and seem well worth waiting for (one twist, in particular, forgives what seems like lazy research at certain points).
Sam's highly textured black-and-white art serves the script well, and he's able to sell people mutated by magic just as easily as the everyday feel of bars, shops and street corners.
And hey, isn't it nice to see a comic book about the end of the world that doesn't involve zombies?
Not bad, not bad at all and if his blog post is any indication we got him thinking so that's cool. The "lazy research" was kind of the point on our behalf, but i think he got our intention in the end. Hate to disappoint him though, there are a few zombies in the story. :)
Hopefully it doesn't present any server problems, never had one before so reason to hope. But there's been 100+ of you since 7pm! :)
Wow, well, hey there, hi to you all visiting from Drawn!,
Have a look see around. As well as the new project, Dream Life, maybe take a peek at my most recent book, Therefore Repent! - it's just come out in the US and has been available for a while now in Canada.
And I love feed back so please do feel free to drop me a line, say hi, all that.
Ok, got pages to draw and a short trip to pack for, talk soon?
Overwhelmingly good review on the Guild of Outsider Writers by Victor Schwartzman.
Link: I posted a link to this a while ago, but i wanted to add it to my clipping pile. This one blew me away when i read it, i owe Victor a drink...
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.
Another short Review for the Clipping pile, this one from the Spacecast blogg the day after out August launch in Toronto...
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
Isotope : A Post-Apocalyptic...Relationship Drama?!
Link: A short Preview for the IDW edition of Therefore Repent from the folks at Isotope comics in San Fransisco.
When I first heard about the book, an original graphic novel about a post-rapture world in which magic works, thoughts of the terrific Strange Girl by Rick Remender (who actually worked with Therefore Repent's artist Salgood Sam on Sea of Red) popped into my head. But after reading the preview for the book I have to say that despite the similar Hollywood style pitch, no two books could be more uniquely different.
Therefore Repent! approaches the Rapture in a very interesting human manner, despite the fact that our tour guides are a bird-headed girl, her mummy-wrapped boyfriend, and a talking dog. Yes, I know... I tend to not like the talking animal books either. Like I said, this book really surprised me!
Juxtaposing between oddly normal moments, in this case taking over a raptured couples' apartment and clearing out their garbage... with the violent retribution of the angel militia that still police those left behind, author Jim Monroe serves up a thinking man's look at the post-rapture apocalypse. And it's hard not to sit up and notice a book that so artfully explores the fundamental truth that even in end-of-the-world conditions our relationships, both good and those falling to dust, still take precedence over all else.
Really not like anything else out there, and definitely worth checking out!
After getting some high profile but middling reviews of my work recently, it's nice to have someone not be put off a bit by my detailed art...
LINK: I recently received from my awesome retailer a free advance sample of Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam's Therefore Repent. It is a self-published graphic novel about the survivors of the rapture, those left behind and not taken to heaven. I think it's a really interesting take on an apocalypse-based story. I've read the Left Behind books (the entire series) and I've spent a considerable amount of time reading about the "end of the world" in the bible. In fact, my dad spent a lot of time reading about prophecies and we had many discussions about it during his time. So with my apparent interest in the story, I ordered a copy and received it in the mail yesterday. Of course, I read it right away.
The story starts out with the main characters, Raven and Mummy, who have to deal with their relationship in a new setting in post-rapture Chicago. In a similar fashion to comics like Y: The Last Man or Wasteland, the narrative spends a good deal of time setting up what the world is like after the apparent crisis, and Munroe does a find job establishing a world that doesn't seem as grim and hopeless as the bible does. One of the big details is that magic now works after the rapture, but those who do magic risk being grotesquely deformed for it. I really like this idea because it seems to really work with the biblical "Devil's time on earth" stuff that the book of Revelations spouts. I also like this because it adds depth to the characters in the book. Salgood Sam's art on these characters just tattoos your mind because he draws them so well.
So we have Raven and Mummy, two characters who use magic, and become deformed for it. I found that the relationship between Raven and Mummy being the central focus of the narrative to be well executed, and that the setting blending in around them works so well with the intended message or finality that Munroe has in the story. The end of the story may seem preachy, but it attempts to put a different spin on the way God works and the whole reasoning behind the rapture. It spoke to me and my own personal beliefs and yet it was not preachy at all. It was a very pleasant ending. Salgood Sam's art is fantastic. I'd first seen his work on Sea of Red and I thought it was quite fascinating. This book is no exception and I actually like it a lot more. It may be in black and white, but his art really tells a story and if the word balloons were taken out, this story could thrive on his art. I really enjoyed his dog drawings.
If any of the rapture stuff interests you, I'd recommend this book. It will be available for release in 2008 from IDW, or you can buy it from Jim Munroe's website www.nomediakings.org. It's really a nice book to read and I'm glad to have come across it. I've passed my sampler along to someone in hopes they will enjoy this book as much as I did. Oh, and if you do buy it from Jim's website, he autographs it and writes a little something, which is really neat! I think all writers should do that.
And don't forget, the 15th of Jan, our IDW edition hots the comic shops. If you haven't pre-ordered yours please do, more we sell this excellent book [thats not hype, I'm very proud of this book, think we did good here] the more time i can work on the next one before i have to think about the next paycheck. The Diamond catalog # is NOV073660, ISBN:978-1-60010-146-1.
"In Therefore Repent!, by Jim Munroe and drawn by Salgood Sam (No Media Kings/ECW, 160 pages, $16), the vision of the near, post-Rapture future is more surreal. Jesus is Dubya's White House sidekick (they are on a cross-country evangelical-political tour), but the book focuses on the lives of average people, mostly through the relationship between Mummy and Raven, a couple who are "left behind."
The heavily shaded artwork is often busy and over-detailed, but Therefore Repent! is also filled with its own rich collection of small details. On a subway map, many of the stations are crossed out by hand, a medium channels the Internet rather than spirits, and a group called "splitters" believes the second phase of the Rapture is imminent. These details often pose more questions than they answer. Why are the angels, who look like present-day young American soldiers, so evil? Why does magic now work? How is it that a dog can talk? Much is left for the reader to fill in, making the work stronger and more interesting."
Can't please them all, but it's a great nod just the same i think:)
Local illustrator Salgood Sam and author Jim Munroe create a post-Rapture work in Therefore Repent!
by VINCENT TINGUELY
When prolific indie author, quick and dirty filmmaker and DIY organizer Jim Munroe got a grant to create Therefore Repent!, a full-length "post-Rapture" graphic novel, Montreal-based, long-time Munroe fan and sometime collaborator Salgood Sam jumped at the chance to render it. "I'd read an early Munroe novella at a zine fair when I was 19 or 20 and I really liked it," says Sam. "I've been following his stuff ever since. When you really identify with a writer's vision, they've tapped the voice you hear inside yourself, they're appealing to you on that level." Sam spent more than a year meticulously bringing Munroe's ideas to life, drawing on skills honed in both the indie comics realm and through years of grunt work for the likes of Marvel. "Jim's a good writer to collaborate with because he was into gearing it into what I was into doing," Sam says. "I didn't have to do any contortions to visualize the script as I was reading it." Munroe agrees. "He's perfect, because he can do the hipsters and the hellspawn," says Munroe. "He can do urban settings very well and true to life, but also fascinating fantastical things."
Therefore Repent! begins with the arrival of the fascinating and fantastical Raven and Mummy in a near-future Chicago. Munroe, who's based in Toronto, set the story in an American city because, as he quips, "They go together like peanut butter and jelly, America and the Rapture." 144,000 Christians have floated up to heaven, Jesus has joined George W. in the White House, and heavily armed angels from on high are descending to do the Lord's dirty work on Earth. Things would seem quite hopeless for the rest of us godless (i.e. not fundamentalist) sorts, except that magic is afoot...everything from Eastern cosmic insights to transubstantiation actually works. Soon enough, a grassroots magical insurgency starts to form.
"I was inspired by this idea that the most powerful people in America purport to literally believe in Christians floating into the air, into heaven, which is what George W. Bush says he believes in," says Munroe. "That's pretty mind blowing, that in their own mythology they'd have something that wild-especially when the conservatives have problems with Harry Potter."
After a more ambiguous approach to the idea of evil in An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, Munroe decided to go for a dark fantasy scenario in which, if miracles, angels and such were to be given free play, then other forms of magic would be just as valid. "Well, if people are going to float into the air, how about less top-down magical manifestations?" Munroe says. "Religion is very top-down, it's God or who God specifically anoints. But if there is magic from on high, then it is going to emerge from below as well, if people are willing to explore it and not kowtow to the powers that be. I like the idea of it being nascent in all of us, but only if we embrace it-individual power, rather than waiting for other people to anoint us. The whole DIY, coming from the grassroots thing."
Therefore Repent! launches this Saturday, Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore (211 Bernard W.)
It's in this November Previews! published by IDW in the US. Diamond # NOV073660
Very important info; There was an error in the listing,
the cover price will be $14.99 us, Cheep!
not $24.99!
Here's the info off of the IDW site
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
When people told me about it they warned me that the reviewer wasn't as keen on the art as they were on the story, but having just read it i find it more of a back handed complement than anything - first of all we've gotten a few now, and most have been very positive about the artwork. And those that recognize the roll of the artist as storyteller have been very very positive.
Hence on the whole I'm not really concerned now much about the work i did, but this reviewer was positively glowing in their underwhelmed response to what i drew - see i set out on this book to not get in the way of the story, do a better than good job but not be showy about unless it was called for, let Jim's story take care of the rest.
Well, the reviewer LOVED his story, and simply thought my drawing "is generally unassuming". Given the raves that's PERFECT. Means i did my job exactly right. :)
Glee.
Here's the full text for my clippings...
Therefore Repent!
Jim Munroe; Salgood Sam, illus.; $16.00 paper 978-0-9686363-4-3, 160 pp., 6 x 8, No Media Kings, Sept.
With his new graphic novel project, writer and DIY publishing pioneer Jim Munroe builds on the events of the Book of Revelation to create a bold and imaginative new world. This is by no means the same terrain mined by the Left Behind series; Munroe's post-Rapture America is a land of covert magic, of Splitters (believers in a Split Rapture, who hope there will be a second Rapture for those who perform good acts in the dark days following the first), and of strike forces of Angels, air-dropping from heaven, heavily armed to mop up in the time of tribulation.
The story focuses on Mummy and Raven, lovers and drifters (he's the one with the wrapped face, she's the one with the raven mask) who arrive in Chicago and take up residence in an abandoned apartment. ("Finding prime squats got a whole lot easier after the Rapture," one character quips.) As they explore the neighbourhood, they discover that everything is not as bucolic as it first appears; the talking dog is just the first sign.
The art, by DC and Marvel veteran Maxim Douglas (working under the name Salgood Sam), is realistic and minimally stylized. The stark black and white palette adds a noir feel to the book, which nicely underscores Munroe's text and grounds his greater flights of fancy. There are a couple of gasp - inducing panels late in the book - ever wonder what happened to those people who got Raptured? I'm not going to spoil the surprise - but the art is generally unassuming.
The same can't be said for Munroe's writing. Therefore Repent! is an absolutely boundless piece of fantasy that he wisely grounds in very human relationships, chiefly that between Mummy and Raven (and their new dog). To say it's an imaginative work would be an understatement: "unhinged" is probably more accurate. I can't wait for more.
SALGOOD
SAM's WORK DIARY | an account of endeavors
and random musings | the web-log of Max Douglas, a
professional cartoonist working and living in Montreal Qc Canada
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Dream life continues afoot. Or no, it's in the air. well, whatever, :)
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