CR Review: Therefore Repent!



Creators: Jim Munroe, Salgood Sam
Publishing Information: IDW, softcover, 160 pages, January 2008, $14.99
Ordering Numbers: 9780968637343 (ISBN13)

Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam's Therefore Repent! bills itself as "a post-Rapture graphic novel." This is obviously a reference to the story's plot, which details the lives among those left behind when a number of Christian believers around the world ascend into heaven via a scenario that seems to prove the popular Christian Right public prophecy to be 100 percent true. It could also be a joke about this being the kind of book that would come out after such an event, in the same way that a few books and plays wrestled with 9/11 either directly or indirectly in a manner that placed the book within that specific historical context, or even a reference to the Rapture as a series of beliefs by millennial-obsessed Christians that many have processed and come to a different set of conclusions. I think there are elements to all three, and as a tribute to the sturdy, focused quality of the dark fantasy in the book, multiple interpretation aren't only possible they're kind of the point.

The plot for the most part settles in on two under-40 lovers named Mummy and Raven, card-carrying members of North American outsider culture who settle in a Chicago neighborhood to deal with the changes the new landscape of reality has laid on them. Magic is now real, but its practitioners risk deformity after its use, which provides a clue to the protagonists' names and their respective, dramatic appearances. The most affecting part of the book shows their daily routine as they deal with the strain on their affection and the general breakdown of society that followed the departure of the various believers. One clue that Munroe and Sam are shooting for a broader point than a march through biblical exegesis is that their event far exceeds the 144,000 many believers in a Rapture believe will experience one to a point at which cities are actually fairly depopulated (one person refers to the number of souls fleeing upward as half the population). Munroe's strengths as a writer seem to come through most overtly in this section: his way of delineating Mummy and Raven's relationship through incidental moments rather than explication, and the way he uses fantasy to craft a large metaphor about widespread, post-event trauma, such as the feelings of rootlessness, fear and desire to function on a very basic level (staying home, watching the news, going out for food only) that enveloped a lot of people after 9/11. The fantasy itself isn't always captivating or compelling on its own -- it feels staged for an effect rather than the kind of sloppy confluence of events through which most of experience reality -- but it allows the two creators to present some of the more delicate themes and idea work against a fairly standard "world writ large" limited community stage. I would have enjoyed a lot more of life in the neighborhood stories, to be honest.

Salgood Sam's work proves mostly strong throughout. There are moments of visual sumptuousness that should keep the reader's attention, and those readers who feel an artist should draw everything and not drop backgrounds or atmosphere for a lighter workload or to emphasize certain foregrounded actions should be pleased with the pages placed in front of them here. Sam's work with figures isn't as consistent as his backdrops or his displayed skill in building narrative sequences, particularly when it comes to playing out emotion or a feeling across the faces and bodies of the protagonists. There's a cartoon pliability to some of the designs and faces that at times popped against the dominant shading and backgrounds which a half-dozen times drove me right out of the book and its otherwise naturalistic storytelling. But style-wise the work in Therefore Repent! seems like a closed circle; I don't think it's an approach that will change but perhaps become sharper if there are more volumes, as seems to be planned.

The book is a lot like that, too. My many problems with it -- a dull acceleration into magical confrontation between the left behind folk and angels, its interpretation of the Rapture as devastation signified by physical absence as a kind of blunt cheat away from the more interesting issues of how people interpret something that may not affect them directly, its self-satisfaction in the overly-clever way that various gimmicks are put forward like the female mystic to mystic "she-mail" -- resemble disagreements more than they do criticism. I may see a grander and potentially more interesting book that could have been done, but I recognize the singular nature of Munroe and Sam's work. I think most people will see Therefore Repent as solid pulp, with enough of an idiosyncratic take on grief and confusion and self-worth when it comes to grappling with universe-changing events that it will satisfy the impulse that many fantasy readers have that their reading at least touch on greater issues. The book's abundant, mordant humor and offbeat pacing aren't quite enough for it to transcend its dark fantasy elements in a way that will make it appealing to a wide, discerning audience, but those elements should allow for readers who may not be interested in such material something on which to hang their own reading. It remains to be seen if the story itself will have the kind of dramatic weight to become a vital book rather than simply a diverting one; it could also be that the artists are overtly making a case for diversion over significance in narrative art.


 
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