So my fifth book and my first graphic novel, a collaboration with Salgood Sam, is finally available. Therefore Repent! is my take on the dark fantasy world established in the Holy Bible’s Book of Revelation. Some folks have asked about its relation to the Left Behind series, also set post-Rapture but with a conservative bent. I haven’t read it (though I have watched the movie starring Kirk Cameron and featuring Toronto’s CBC building as GNN Headquarters) but from what I hear it’s sincere bible fan-fiction, careful not to violate the canon. Mine’s closer to Bible slashfic, what with the bisexual angels and nipple-clamp-enhanced demonic communion. I like to think I’m re-imagining the Bible franchise, like Frank Miller did for Batman. Head over to the store to buy it or keep reading for the back cover copy and to see a hot book striptease. (more…)
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Therefore Repent! Now Out!!
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Graphic Novel Preview
Four pages of our forthcoming graphic novel Therefore Repent! were published in the winter issue of Taddle Creek magazine, which was great. Taddle Creek dusts off the concept of the literary magazine and allows one to appreciate the quality and yes, even glamour, beneath. A mainstay of Toronto’s writers for the past decade, TC publishes excellent fiction, urban history, profiles where writers are given the star treatment — and they throw great launches. Click through to see the four page preview of our post-rapture comic. (more…) -
One Creepy Dawg
So I’m putting together the catalog copy and cover mockup for my upcoming graphic novel, Therefore Repent!, and Salgood’s done another killer job on the art. My favourite comment so far: “When I looked closer the dog’s eyes seem to be, uh, overflowing with evil.” I told Salgood about it and he said he just drew a blank eyed stare and people read it as demonic. Keep reading to check out the cover it its full glory, wingèd helmet and all…
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Squidtastic!
One of the gems I received in response to my offer to trade books was a thin volume named The Giant Squid in… Holiday Hijinx. It preyed on my love of underwater creatures, the antiquated absurd, and needlessly cruel narrators. I’d enjoyed the Ask the Giant Squid columns online for their uppercrust tone and sharp-beaked attacks on monkeymen, but it wasn’t until I read them collected that I began to appreciate the characterization and narrative tentacles twined through. I interviewed the writers(s) via the interweb mail service, mostly with Dave Nelson, about their “3-pronged writing attack” and publishing experience.
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Bert is No Gay Gandhi
Joey Comeau’s Lockpick Pornography isn’t just a title tease: it puts out plenty of sleaze and theft in a smart and funny queer adventure story. The narrator puts his foot through a television, pulls together a genderfucked super hero team and launches a figurative and literal attack on the straight man’s world. Starting life as an online novel, it’s become a beautifully designed physical object courtesy of Vancouver’s Loose Teeth Press. Joey is launching it with a reading with Derek McCormack at Toronto’s This Ain’t The Rosedale Library Bookstore (481-A Church St) on Tuesday, March 21, 7 p.m. Free.I asked him a few questions over email about the book.
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Strife Strikes Gold
It’s a rare time that I like an art show so much that I’ll buy a catalogue — I find the writing in them does nothing for me. They’re as bad as artist’s statements, usually, which (along with the obligatory reading for authors) I consider to be a cultural convention that is deeply broken. But despite the fact that A Beginner’s Guide to Quantal Strife is a catalogue for a show that I hadn’t even seen yet, I read it cover to cover. It’s a thought-provoking and breezy read.Sally McKay, past editor of arts magazine Lola and an artist herself, is responsible for bringing together Quantal Strife. I know her and two of the three artists personally but I was still left with lots of questions as to how she managed to pull this off.
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Her Charmed Life
I met Missy Kulik at an indie media conference where I was doing a DIY Books seminar. I picked up a couple of her comics and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Her first book, Personal Charm, was self-published in June: or as the copyright page more originally puts it, “First Pressing June 2005.” We chatted by email about her book, which has its roots in ten years of zine making.
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Pitch-Perfect Pseudohaikus
Sherwin Tjia is a Montreal artist who makes everything from Scrabble-tile lapel pins to schoolgirl comics to mini-CDs inviting us to listen to his friends masturbate. His latest book of poetry, The World is a Heartbreaker, is a collection of three liners: “i don’t want to say/ payback, but you know it’s/ pretty much payback”. It renewed my faith in the power and relevance of poetry the way that the best song lyrics do. I asked him a few questions over e-mail about the book’s development. -
My Evil Comic Book
So what would you do if the Rapture, the biblical end of the world as foretold in Revelation, came to pass? Raven and Mummy go on a roadtrip! To read the 24 page comic for free go here. The backstory: a year ago, when An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil came out, I posted one entry a day to the faux blog. On it was an online poll that asked readers if they thought the character Lilith was really a demoness or just delusional: I said that I’d write a spin-off story depending on how the vote went. Of the 500 people who weighed in, 55% of you thought she was unholy rather than unhinged.
Supernatural, then.
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The Artist of Urban Exploration
Almost ten years ago, at the Imperial Pub at Dundas and Yonge, Jeff told me about his plans for a new zine. Quite different than Yip, his humor zine, it would be about exploring off-limits places. I was concerned about having such a narrow focus for a whole zine. I suggested he give it a broader theme, relegating the exploring to a column or subsection. “You could call it Sneak,” I said, brainstorming other sections for scams and other naughtiness. Out of spite, Jeff (AKA Ninjalicious) published twenty-five issues of Infiltration, a zine about going places you weren’t supposed to go. And next week, his definitive book on the subject — Access All Areas: A User’s Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration — is being launched in Toronto, to the dismay of lazy security guards everywhere.
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Berlin and Londontown
I knew it was going to be a good visit when Dmytri gave me a gift when we arrived. It was a patch with the No Media Kings logo that he’d bought off some local punk girls at a flea market in Berlin. It’s always a kick to see people steal my logo, but this really floored me.
And the show in Berlin was indeed really fun…
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Newsflash: Novelist Loves Novels
As a life-long reader and an indie publisher it’s a little obvious, but having a good book on the go really increases my quality of life. Most recently it’s been John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, a great book about a post-apocolyptic Britain being terrorized by, erm, walking plants. (Wyndham, who preferred the term “logical fantasy” to describe what he did, manages to make his ridiculous Dr. Who-class monsters a plausible threat in the book. Can’t speak for the movie versions, which look as hilarious as you’d expect.)But back to the quality of life issue: there’s something about a continuing narrative that is as soothing and enjoyable to slip into as a bath. I notice that I miss it in short story collections, for instance. I have to work at getting into the next story, while a good novel draws me back of its own accord. Occasionally I find a writer’s sensibility is engaging enough to pull me through a collection, as was Kelly Link in her wonderful (and now free!) Stranger Things Happen.
I finished Triffids this morning, and I’m on to The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. If you’re a little Pottered out but want a fantasy fix, Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is highly recommended. Feel free to add your own good reads to the comments.
