Sometimes the end of something is only the beginning of the story. Take the end of the world, for instance …

If you’d like to take a look at what the end of the world might look like, then check out the IDW section of Previews this month for Therefore Repent! The graphic novel by writer Jim Munroe and artist Salgood Sam is set in Chicago after the Rapture, i.e. the Biblical event that finds the righteous floating up to Heaven, leaving the rest of humanity behind. It’s also a relationship story, as a couple contends not only with the end of the world, but also the end of their relationship.

I chatted over email with Salgood Sam about the book, religion and his real name, among other topics.

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JK Parkin:: Let’s start off by talking about Therefore Repent! What’s it about?

Salgood Sam: THE END OF THE WORLD!

No, really. I’m serious.

Well, at least about the premise. It’s kind of a Left Behind style literal take on Rapture mythology – What if one day all the ‘good’ Christians floated up in the sky, after that, what would it be like?

There’s a lot of other sub texts to it too I think. Jim told me in part he’s always liked to mess with Biblical themes, which he blames in part on Catholic school. And he’s always had a penchant for relationship themes, indy & outsider culture, and some strong left/right politics get touched on. And I brought a lot of my background with multi cultural environments, urban landscapes, eastern religion and world mythologies for some of the visual stuff.

But I don’t think it’s terribly didactic about any of it, mostly it’s about how people are dealing with what’s going on, and each other. The rest of that stuff all comes up in the course of their reactions to things.

JK:: What kind of reactions have you gotten from folks? I imagine the subject matter could raise a few eyebrows, particularly in the red states.

Salgood Sam: So far they [the mythical red monster] don’t seem to have noticed us. But you know I won’t mind probably, if they do. Be interested if it started some conversations, or more.

Otherwise, the reactions have been really very, very positive.

We’ve got a lot of very positive reviews from the Canadian press so far, the Quill & Quire - a literary institution here - called the story a “boundless piece of fantasy” and “unhinged” so that’s cool. And we made it onto a bestseller list for graphic novels last week here in Canada.

While I don’t think you can miss our politics — Jim’s and mine — I think the book is enough of a story about people first and foremost to not be too easily mistaken for mere polemic.

JK:: If you don’t mind me asking, what is your religious background?

Salgood Sam: Sal’right, don’t mind at all. I was not raised with any real religious indoctrination. My family is mostly Russian Jewish, I’d consider myself culturally Jewish. But my parents were not observant and I was never expected to believe in anything as far as religion was concerned - spirituality was respected at home, and there was lots of talk about this kind of thing. But piety and strict doctrine were not considered important, frowned on even, I think. My father was very interested in Eastern philosophy, and we did join the extended family for high holidays. I’ve come to recognize a lot of the ethical, philosophical and spiritual stuff I was raised with as being a mix bag of Buddhists, Hindu, Jewish and Humanist ideals. And I’m fairly certain a lot of stuff my father talked to me about later in his life came out of his admiration for Jung.

JK:: How did you get involved with this project?

Salgood Sam: I’ve known Jim for a long time, we did a short comic a while ago and I’ve been a fan of his work since his first novella back in the late 80’s. He first approached me about the book when I was working on Sea of Red. I was into it, I’d wanted to do something like this with him for a while and had said as much a few times to him.

But then had to back out because my life was imploding a bit and I had to take care of some stuff for a while, so he did an initial short story with the characters with artist Michel Lacombe – you can read that online still, it’s here.

Basically it’s the prologue to our novel, not required reading but it will tell you what they were doing just before the book starts. So anyway, they got that done and Jim applied for a grant to do the full novel with that as part of the proposal package. He got the grant but then Michel backed out, so he asked me what I was up to. By then my problems had sorted themselves out so I was in!

JK:: What’s it like working with Jim?

Salgood Sam: Oh, what a monster! No, I kid. Probably more like that was me at the end there.

It was cool, hard to do the long distance thing for this kind of work, email just is not as good a communication medium as in person. He’s in Toronto, and I’m in Montreal, there was a lot of back and forth followed by long silences as I got immersed in the work and ignored my computer/email for a few days at a time.

Be glad to work with him again, by far one of the best two or three writers I’ve ever worked with, and I think our styles mesh really well on the page. Think he’d want to be in the same town as me if we do it again though, and he’s got a new kid, so he aint’ going anywhere soon…

JK:: How did you guys get involved with IDW? The book’s already been published in Canada, correct?

Salgood Sam: It was, Jim is a DIY guy, big time. So he put the book out in Canada himself. But we wanted to get someone else to handle the US and international markets - several times larger and proportionately that many more headaches to deal with. We tried a few different places, but IDW was really into it, and the ones who did not balk at sharing the Canadian bookshop market with us. I think Jim may have talked to them in the past but in the end we got this book with them by sending them a sample pack of the art when it was getting close to being done in a pitch pack.

JK:: You put a huge chunk of the book on the Web over at Comic Space. Has that helped interest in the book?

Salgood Sam: I think so, it’s been the way I’ve generated interest in much of my work for the last six years, and Jim puts his whole novels online to be downloaded for free. It’s hard to point to a lot of direct evidence but I’m convinced it’s been a good way to get people excited about things, want to look for them in the shops. And in some cases it helps build up a cadre of early adopters who might blog or talk about what your doing, help spread the word that way. We also made an ashcan of the first 40 pages into a booklet that was given as a free preview to shops and browsers at cons. That I’m sure has helped as well, a number of buyers tell me they upped their orders on the strength of what they saw in the various free previews.

Unquestionably for that kind of giveaway you have to have the goods to make it worthwhile. People aren’t going to pick up your book if you give away a third or all of it and they can see it’s not so hot, or crappy even. Then they will thank you for saving them the money and time.

But if you’ve got a good book then that’s what will show in the freebie.

And I think even when they can download the whole book? I’m certain for now most still will want to have a copy to hold, to put on a bookshelf, to show others. And for those really broke folk who just look at the free preview and can’t buy it? Well, they probably would not have bought anyway, and maybe now they will talk about it and share it with others, which is good for us long term and might even sell a few more copies somewhere down the grapevine.

JK:: Your Christian name, I believe, is Maxim Douglas … so why the name change? And why “Salgood Sam?”

Salgood Sam: I have a Christian name? What? Wait a minute, let me see … no, still circumcised…

Well, it’s not so much a name change as it is a bit of a word play and puzzles. It’s Max Douglas backwards, with the u and the x changed. I started doing it for two reasons. First was I spent the first three years of my professional carrier as a comic artist doing books that for the next few years I wanted to get away from. So I was kind of re-branding my creative identity.

I didn’t want people to think immediately about Saint Sinner when they saw my name on new stuff – wanted them to come to it clean, and that seemed like a way to do that.

Also I took to it because talking about Salgood Sam, in promoting myself, was a lot easier to do when it wasn’t my personal name I had to use. Salgood is my public identity, I don’t hide that I’m me, but I use Salgood as a buffer of sorts. I’ve started to use a few other Nome de plume as well, Sadax Golum is one I use at times. I also like puzzles a lot, so that’s part of it, too.

JK:: What are you working on next?

Salgood Sam: I have a project called ‘Dream Life’ that I’ve been developing for some time. I’ve started drawing that and I’m hoping I’ll be able to interest a publisher in putting it out next year in large installments of 60 or so pages, 2 or so times a year. I’ve also been spending some time in Audacity helping to edit the Indie Spinner Rack podcast for shits and giggles, and I’ve got tones of promo stuff to still do on Therefore Repent!, so that’s still keeping me pretty busy!