Therefore Repent!
Therefore Repent!
What if the religious right… are actually right?
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.
When a book has a back copy like that, how do you NOT pick it up? Therefore Repent! is Jim Munroe (of No Media Kings) and Salgood Sam‘s “post-Rapture graphic novel”. 144,000 (12 tribes of 12,000) people have floated up to Heaven and the rest are left in a post-Apocalypse world where magic works and soldiers/angels wander the streets to “clean up” those who dare use it. Jim Munroe calls it “[his] take on the dark fantasy world established in the Holy Bible?s Book of Revelations”.
Graphic Novel
A graphic novel is a type of comic book, usually with a lengthy and complex storyline similar to those of novels, and often aimed at mature audiences.
I’m always a little confused about how to define a “graphic novel”. While I’ve read Maus and Jimmy Corrigan, I usually see “Archie” and “Richie Rich” when I think about comic books. I think that Wikipedia definition is very clear and concise, and fits well with Therefore Repent!.
Raven and Mummy
At the centre of the story are Raven and Mummy, the protagonists. You can read their back story through a free 24-page online comic. They have arrived in post-Rapture Chicago where magic works, “Splitters” (those left behind but still have Faith in a second Rapture so they need to atone) irritate, and the capitalist system has deteriorated. Wearing disguises (Raven with a Raven head, Mummy dressed in bandages), they settle into a squat and life starts to unravel around them.
The back copy claims that “through it all, Raven and Mummy face the possibility of a bigger problem than the end of the world: the end of their relationship.” That’s bullshit and I’m not really sure why it was included. Yes, the two of them are facing relationship problems, but it’s really, really superfluous to the rest of the story. They were in a tent when the Rapture happened, Mummy started rising in the air while Raven didn’t. After sticking the roof of the tent, he floats back down and is stuck on Earth. You’d think after a sacrifice like that, the two of them would have more chemistry together, but instead they just kind of drift around each other until the end. Admittedly, it must be hard to stick a love story in the midst of everything else that’s going on, but it’s nothing that had to be emphasized.
Secondary Characters
The secondary characters really make this story. Dogs are able to tear out a human’s Adam’s apple to steal their voice. A shopkeep only trades for playing cards, not money. “Mr. Christ” is an adviser to George W. Bush. With the litany of different personalities, most of whom develop exponentially in the last chapter, sequels are an inevitability.
There’s not a lot of room for character development, and I think it works in this context. As a graphic novel, there’s little chance for literal backstory; instead, Therefore Repent! floods a number of different personalities into the mix instead of needlessly complicated a few. In that sense, they become more like archetypes.
A group of women called the “She-Mails” offer “a server to get in touch with other women”. It works with a naked woman hooking her various piercings (ears, nose, nipples, etc.) to wires and using an “other-dimensional energy network to transmit messages.” They also get the best line in the book: “it seems pretty unlikely, but really, wasn’t e-mail just as unlikely?”
Revelations
The Book of Revelations is pretty ridiculous, I think we all know that. It was written a few hundred years after the rest of the New Testament as a way to scare people into having Faith – you know, because the rest of the Bible doesn’t have a “have Faith or terrible things will happen to you” vibe to it at all. Munroe says: “It’s a pretty amazing and wild read. If you’re a fan of science fiction, like I am, or dark fantasy, it’s kind of the granddaddy of all that.”
Perfect fodder for a good graphic novel setting. Salgood Sam’s illustrations are appropriately stark and his perspectives are off just enough to make you uncomfortable about claiming his world as your own. His flying soldiers/angels parallel today’s religious nuts who somehow think war will grant them salvation. And the fact that Jesus, or at least someone who relishes in that mistaken identity, is working for George W. Bush? That’s one of few things more absurd than Revelations.
Magic
Raven is probably my favourite character of all time. Not specifically the Raven of this story, but the mythological trickster who permeates a lot of North America’s best stories. While this isn’t the first time she’s been interpreted through Christian mythology, Thomas King might be the best at that, it’s the most repressed I’ve ever seen her. Her magic consists of creating fighting ravens out of ash; her only real “trick” is instigation.
The magic here works like a dark version of Charles de Lint‘s “urban mythology” – it’s practical magic for a practical age. Kind of like what they do on Heroes, but with less emphasis on discovery. We are made to believe that magic users are being punished by God much the same as mainstream America’s impression of those who attempt it in real-life. However, like mainstream modern America, it turns out that the religious right aren’t actually the purveyors of morality, but misinterpreted mutations of what is good. When Mummy is blessed with a “bad karma-induced” third eye (he steals a Buddha statue from a yoga studio) he’s able to clarify the use of magic in thie society to Raven, who ends the book with:
There’s a possibility… that God might not want us dead, after all.
If you really want to look at the work politically, it’s a simple exaggeration of the Us VS Them morality story in American. The religious folks here abuse the word of God to punish those who disagree whereas the magic users accept those who fall outside. It’s pretty literal, Richard Dawkins-esque criticism of organized Faith.
Religion
Religion, especially the Judaeo Christian beliefs, makes for good story fodder. It’s full of ridiculous characters getting themselves into ridiculous situations to illustrate some very subjective morals. I wish Therefore Repent! had stretched its analogs a bit a more because I think the story has a lot of flexibility for interpretation. Instead, while references to Biblical doctrine add a bit of validity to the work, they stop being entirely necessary. I’ve seen a number of works in the post-apocalyptic genre who deal with these kinds of issues and don’t need the injection of God. I think I’m just a bit disappointed that MORE wasn’t done to take advantage of the Biblical characters and stories.
I also think the end is a bit of a cop-out. It’s an obvious set up for continued stories, which is great because I’d like to read them, but it’s changed the side that God is fighting with. The idea of a wacky Old Testament-style God is much more appealing to me as a character than one who is simply fighting to rid the world of evil. And I would have LOVED to see the sleazy maybe-Jesus character who turns bottled water into wine developed a bit more. But alas, it looks like this book created an XMen-style band of do-gooders who might start fighting for God’s approval instead of against his temper.
I don’t know, I’m optimistic about future incarnations of the story (hopefully released as serials online; people DO make money on webcomics) anyway; there’s a lot of potential in these pages.
Independent Publishing
Jim Munroe left the News Corp owned publishing house HarperCollins to pursue “indie press alternatives to Rupert Murdoch-style consolidation.” That’s a very admirable and I’m glad to see it working out for him. The book itself is beautiful: floppy enough to feel comfortable, eerie dark blue ink with full bleed on nice, clean pages; even the cover is a nice, mature semi-gloss. You can buy it directly through No Media Kings.
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