[Graphic novel] SWORD OF MY MOUTH by Jim Munroe & Shannon Gerald

If there's one thing that mass media and entertainment can bank on in the 21st century, it's our endless love for a good Apocalypse story. It just seems that despite their best efforts, we can't seem to get over our vicarious thrills from seeing the vast majority of Earth getting wiped out in all manner of ways. And there's no end in the weapon of mass destruction - zombies, vampires, contagious diseases, the environment, aliens, The sun going supernova, killer robots, even dragons (?), the list is bloody endless.

Of course the Grandaddy of these (in a Judeo-Christian sense of course) are the delightful tales of Armageddon in the book of revelations. For all you filthy atheists out there, the focal point for this story for many is that of The Rapture that's when all those true believers in God are whisked up to heaven in an instant to some catchy disco post-punk tunes, while those who are left behind are forced to battle it out with the forces of good and evil before the Tribulation, where the lord will rain down judgement on the earth for seven years, to the sounds of Sunn o))). What a git, eh?

The idea of salvation through the rapture/tribulation is one that has a firm grip on the souls and collective minds of many evangelical xtians. (For example, despite a litany of documented cases of virulent antisemitism, many US evangelical groups advocate and support for the Zionist state of Israel. Why? Well for the rapture and the second coming, the Jews need to be in their homeland of Israel. Easy of course!). And this is not lost on guys like Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Their Left Behind series are huge bestsellers among xtians, as across 16 books, they portray the struggle of born again Christians against the rise of the Antichrist,(who happens to be the head of the UN). It's a world where only god fearin', gun totin', 'Murican Xtian folk save the day against such evils as Islam, the UN, Europeans, and lesbians who are in punk music (probably).

It's against this backdrop that the graphic novels of Jim Munroe offer a more nuanced and realistic riposte to such religious nutbaggery. His 2007 debut, Therefore Repent! tells of a world thrown into chaos after the Rapture has taken all the Christians up to heaven. Those that are left behind are split into those who try to become born again (such as George W Bush), and those who are actually rather happy that there are no more xtians around to bother them. Told through the eyes of a lesbian wicca couple in Chicago, we see a world where the laws of reality slowly start to unravel as magic becomes real, animals start to talk, and bands of non Christians band to fight gun-toting "Angels" who are killing "sinners." Beautifully drawn by Salgood Sam (in a dense shaded pencil style), it's funny, humane, and much more rounded a story about the normal people trying their best to get by in a world thrown into chaos.

This has since been followed up with Sword Of My Mouth. Here the action picks up in Detroit some indeterminate time after the first book. as the world is dealing with the ramifications of the events of the previous book. New York and other cities are under the occupation of the "Angel Armies," who have also cut off the city. Magic and all sorts of physics bending phenomena abound, while people are exhibiting strange mutations and other powers. In this mess we see the main character Ella, a young woman whose boyfriend has left her to join the fight against the angels. Saddled with a mutant child, she is forced to leave her home after it is burnt down, whereupon she is taken in by a group of people running a co-op farm in the outskirts of the city. Together they band together to survive against the angels and their allies, as well a new threat, form the horseman known as Famine who is trying to drive them out of business.

Sword Of My Mouth, does have some things going for it in terms of the ideas it puts forth. Compared to the the previous novel, Munroe allows his imagination on what could happen to take a freer reign, with some really intriguing set ups. Also, the story of urban farming in a rundown and ravaged Detroit also shows a very prescient touch with the current climate that Detroit is undergoing currently. Right now there are many pop up urban farms in the area that are looking to make the local area more self sufficient.

But I feel that Munroe doesn't really take full advantage of all the ideas he has to hand. The pacing of the book felt loose, almost to the point of flabbiness, with a huge amount of endless chit-chat among the members of the collective that didn't really go anywhere. It was as if you're reading the apocalypse done as a Indie mumblecore movie. Much of the praise for Therefore Repent! was for the roundness and complexities of the characters, but with Sword Of My Mouth, they were for the best part, pretty one dimensional. The twist ending also seem to be rather half hearted in my opinion. It left you thinking that not a lot had been resolved or that it was something that was thought up at the last minute to give the novel some kind of closure.

Despite it being a post rapture story, the idea of religion actually seems to take more of a back seat. God hardly even gets mentioned. Indeed the "Famine" part of the book is more of an anti-corporate/Self sufficiency allegory, with the farm representing the local, small scale community co-op, while the company represented by Famine was the aggressive Walmart interloper looking to subjugate the area for profit. This part of the book is where Munroe seems to be more comfortable in telling the nuts and bolts of running a small scale urban farm and the hardships it entails.

Compared to the pencil art in Therefore Repent! the art in of Shannon Gerard in Sword Of My Mouth has a loose, sketchy style. An absence of traditional panels lends the art a slightly chaotic, even anarchic format as people and the action move around the pages wherever they want to go. The characters are based on actual life sketches of real people which does give the book a sense of grounded reality, although the handwritten lettering was a bit annoying after a while.

Sword Of My Mouth is definitely to be appreciated for its intriguing art and the way it has a non-judgmental, humanist attitude to its characters and the choices they make. But I came away feeling that there needed to be a lot more work done to make the story and the characters more interesting. [No Media Kings]
- Bob Cluness

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