Jim Munroe

Mario’s Pain

November 10, 2005

Novel Amusements #5, my DVDzine, is available online now. [UPDATE: Sold out.] This issue’s theme is “Games and Shames,” and it’s the biggest issue yet: 85 minutes of short vids, two digital toys to play with, and comes with a 16 page booklet with interviews with the creators. Click for a close-up of the front and back covers, featuring art by Shannon Gerard.

I’ve got two vids on it, Yoga Deathmatch and the brand new Mario’s Pain. To watch the played-out plumber talk about his back problems, click on through.
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Enter Early, Enter Often: Do-It-Yourself Grant Writing

November 2, 2005

I’ve received five grants in the past eight years. Amounting to about $50,000, they’ve allowed me to take some time to work in different mediums and build community resources instead of focussing solely on making money through publishing books. The grant system isn’t perfect, but overall I am a big believer in it — I wrote an article a few months back on free money.

A lot of people have asked me about this over the years, and while I don’t think there’s any trick to grant writing, I do think there’re certain strategies that have helped me.
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Aw, Get A Room!

October 19, 2005

A couple years back they started having Canzine at the rather amazing Gladstone Hotel, a flophouse-turned-artspace in the heart of Parkdale. It was already a huge, eclectic zine fair, and now, if you had an idea for something beyond tabling your zine that needed a bigger canvas, you could get a room — and lots of interesting stuff ensued. This year, to mark the fifth anniversary of No Media Kings, I’m checking into Room 214.

And boy, do I have plans for this room! I’ll be launching my DVDzine Novel Amusements #5: The Games and Shames Issue with microscreenings; I’m hosting three very casual themed meetups for people into self-publishing books, touring, or videogame-making to chit-chat; and I’ll be moderating two more formal discussions, an indie distribution thinktank and a panel on collaboration: Are You Too D.I.Y.?

It’s all happening Oct. 30th at 1214 Queen St. W. in Toronto, check the schedule below for exact times. Everything’s free.

UPDATE: I recorded the collaboration panel: pics and MP3s now available.
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The Artist of Urban Exploration

October 13, 2005

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

October 4, 2005

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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The Bold Explorers

August 28, 2005

Susan and I are doing some exploring of our own — we’ve got two European shows coming up in London and Berlin. Currently we’re in Montepellier for her biochem conference, amazed that the French Mediterranean is in fact that fabled place of palm trees and terraced cafés.

But The Bold Explorers actually refers to the comic Kate and Bruce start making together at the end of An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil. A comic that is currently being drawn into being by the fiendishly talented Michel Lacombe. Check out the cover, and keep your evil eye cocked for it — it’ll be released in October.
Newsflash: Novelist Loves Novels

July 27, 2005

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.
Scurvy Not Covered By Medical

July 18, 2005

I met Nicholas Johnson at a Seattle zine fair nearly a decade ago. He was peddling Shark Fear, Shark Awareness at the time, and through a mail correspondence I kept up through his zine projects that were engrossing accounts of his time as a sperm donor (Burning the Ancestral Chi) and an ESL teacher (Kongju-si: Letters from Korea). His fast and trashy vid making was a big inspiration to my own initial forays into making little movies, and he actually wrote a DIY article for this site.

Big Dead Place (Feral Press, 2005) is his latest and greatest project to date. Nicholas spent the last couple of years living in Antarctica, doing the joe-jobs that keep the research labs based there functioning: washing dishes and compacting garbage. I knew from the couple of e-mails that he’d sent that his stories about the place would be hilarious and fascinating: what I didn’t expect was how deftly he would weave together the historical tragedies of Sir Robert Scott’s bungled exploration with the bureacratic tragedies of bungled room assignments. Populated by lewd characters and outlandish scenarios, it nonetheless ignores the easy targets in favour of putting forth a journalistic work of depth and craft.

I shot him a couple of questions via e-mail.
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In Praise of Older Women’s Conferences

June 8, 2005

A lot of science fiction writers grow up going to conventions, but I was writing SF seriously for over a decade before I went to my first one. (Why pay $50 to go to a hotel in the suburbs when I could go to a punk show downtown for $5? went my thinking.) But Emily was so enthusiastic about WisCon that I decided to go… anything that billed itself as the World’s Only Feminist Science Fiction Conference had be be interesting, at least.

Who knew that feminism and SF would be two great tastes that go great together?
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Angry Young Spaceman 5 Years Young Today

May 3, 2005

On May 3, 2000, I had the Toronto launch for my second novel and the first No Media Kings book, Angry Young Spaceman. I then set out on my first book tour ever, taking the train across Canada with alien exhibit creator Sandy Plotnikoff to spread the word of teaching English on other planets.

The first printing has been sold out for a while, but happily Peter at The Beguiling (and organizer of the much anticipated Toronto Comics Arts Festival) snagged a box of the US edition for me. They’re not in mint condition–heck, they’re 5 years old after all–but to make up for that, the first 45 people who buy one will also get one of the remaining “TEOOP Program” nametags I gave out at the original Canadian launches (click thumbnail at left to zoom). Also, their names will be entered into a draw to get the full colour, 3x4ft. laminated poster of the lovely cover art by Mike Brennan.
Time Management for Anarchists: The Movie

April 27, 2005

I’ve just finished a Flash adaptation of my Time Management for Anarchists seminar. I started doing the talk a year and a half ago at Canzine and have done it a half-dozen times since, mostly at infoshops and political bookstores (Austin, Montreal, Berkeley, Vancouver) and also at a couple of events (New Orleans Book Fair, the Vegetarian Food Fair). It’s based on the paradoxical notion that anarchists have to be more organized than average if they don’t want to depend on power structures, and presents some ideas on how to kick the boss habit.

To see the eight-minute presentation–complete with cartoon sounds, fake graphs and historic guest stars–click on. Feel free to add your tips and opinions to the comments afterwards.
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Yoga Deathmatch

February 27, 2005

I’ve just finished making a video about the similarities between the ancient Hindu art of spiritual discipline and the rather more modern art of online gaming. Watch the higher self rack up high scores getting to the next level of consciousness in the transcendentally physical world of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch! It’s a little over four minutes and change, keep reading for the download links and screenshots.

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