Sword of My Mouth

Ella’s baby is not quite right. But since the righteous floated into the sky and magic started working, not much is.

A stand-alone story continuing on from the acclaimed graphic novel Therefore Repent!, Sword of My Mouth moves the focus from Chicago, under siege by angels with machine guns, to the urban prairie of Detroit. Folks in the D have banded together to turn land with burned-out crackhouses into farming tracts, and seem to be on a road to self-sufficiency… until Famine rides into town.

Praise for Sword of My Mouth

“Jim Munroe’s done for the Book of Revelation what Ronald D. Moore did for Battlestar Galactica.”
— Peter Watts, author of the Hugo-nominated Blindsight

“If you love tales of the apocalypse but want something smarter and more character-driven… you must read this comic.”
— Annalee Newitz, io9.com

Sword of My Mouth is beautifully drawn and deals with a post-rapture urban environment that’s filled with machine-gun wielding angels, men with skeleton hands, various mutations, babies with huge teeth, and sustainable farming. It’s pretty much got it all.” — Kelly McClure, bust.com

“Profane and wonderful, Sword of My Mouth and Therefore, Repent! are subversive, smart, and gripping. Munroe is a fantastic writer in many media (novels, games, films and comics), and his talents are ably matched by Gerard’s stellar illustrations, jagged line drawings that play with time-series and an expressivity of posture to convey emotion with unexpected punch.”
— Cory Doctorow, boingboing.net

“A genuinely creepy interpretation of a world where the majority of Christians have been bodily assumed to Heaven… Against this unpredictable, disturbing backdrop, Munroe tells ordinary stories of survival and friendship, and for all the religious and mystical wonders on display, his gift for capturing realistic behavior among normal human adults and children alike makes Sword Of My Mouth worthwhile.” — the Onion A.V. Club

“Something about this novel feels familiar in a way that’s beautiful at the same time that it makes your skin crawl. These are Munroe’s people, these artists and activists, and he knows what they look and sound like. He also understands their fight. Sword of My Mouth feels something like a zombie movie meets George Orwell; genuinely hackle-raising, smart, and political without being wearisome, this book is a winner.” — Santa Barbara News-Press

“Munroe has created another stunning, thought-provoking work that will linger in the reader’s mind.” –Quill and Quire (starred review)

Unsure? You can read the first 22 pages of the book on tor.com.

Jul 152009
 

We’ve just launched the mini-site for Sword of My Mouth, making the first two issues (and commentary from me and Shannon) available for subscribers and people who’ve pre-ordered the graphic novel. It’s the first third (48 pages) of the book so far, and we’ll be adding a chapter every other month until we launch the complete graphic novel edition at next year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. UPDATE: The Globe and Mail just ran an article about our publishing experiment.

One of the things we did differently with this book was research, and so I’ll take this opportunity to write a bit about that. Continue reading »

May 082009
 

How does $1 sound?

Sword of My Mouth #1, the first part of the follow-up to my post-Rapture graphic novel Therefore Repent!, is now in stores and this weekend at TCAF. #1 will be the only print edtion — issues #2-6 will be digital only, after which the complete story will be collected together and published as a printed graphic novel. So if you’d like to get them as they’re released bi-monthly through this year, you have two options — you can subscribe to the complete series in a digital format for $6 or pre-order the printed graphic novel for $12 and get a free subscription to the digital issues as well as some other goodies.

In a time when the economy and other forces are making the print pamphlet model unsustainable for many indies, we’re excited to see how this will work. The digital format isn’t going to replace the print book, but it’s an interesting format that allows for cheaper prices and more direct interaction between creators and readers — one we hope to foster by adding commentary.
Continue reading »

Feb 232009
 

Her baby isn’t quite right. But in a post-Rapture Detroit, not much is.

The first 22 pages of the next post-Rapture story after Therefore Repent! will be appearing in comic stores in May, to be eventually collected into a graphic novel called Sword of My Mouth in 2010. Check out Shannon Gerard’s fantastic cover art and the description after the jump, and if it looks good you can preorder at your local comic store — it’s in this month’s Previews (MAR09 4308, pg. 266). Update: I just saw it’s a Staff Pick at Previews!

(What’s that, you say? You’re behind and haven’t read the critically acclaimed Therefore Repent! yet? Well, lucky thing I’m releasing the full graphic novel as a free download today, isn’t it?)

Continue reading »

Nov 252008
 

I’m 2/3rds (AKA 66.6%) of the way through writing the graphic novel follow-up to Therefore Repent!, so I thought I’d post some of the amazing sample pages by the new artist, Shannon Gerard.

I don’t want to give away too many details, but it’s set in Detroit, involves one of the Four Horsemen, and the first 22 pages should be debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May 2009.
Continue reading »