An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil

Ever walked in on a roommate in, uh, the middle of something?

When Kate interrupts Lilith’s demonic ritual, it’s pretty awkward, but it gives her a great idea for a new online journal: roommatefromhell.com.

Whether her roommate is unholy or just unhinged, Kate’s not sure. But she knows a good show when she sees it, and she convinces her bombshell pal to perform her strange ceremony at their art gallery launch. Then she gets a booker at the local rock club to let them open for a metal band, and the kids love it. They decide to take the show on the road, and somewhere along the way Kate’s role changes from tour manager to go-go dancer.

It’s fun, but she can’t ignore the creepy people from Lilith’s past that are coming to their shows. And as the rituals get more intense and more bloody, Kate starts to wonder if she’s gotten in a little too deep.

It’s not quite rock and roll, but she could still lose her soul.

Acclaim for An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil

“You really must pick up a copy of the incomparably great Jim Munroe’s latest novel… a warm, poignant look at the underground art scene in Toronto, Opening Act captures the oddball community spirit and aspirations of people who care more about a good wheat-paste campaign than about mortgages.”— San Francisco Bay Guardian

An Opening Act has all Munroe’s trademark charm, his wonderful, rueful fondness for his own characters, and a genuine mystery: is Lilith a demoness or isn’t she?” — Georgia Straight

“The devil’s own road-trip novel: Munroe’s indie-rock science fiction combines Adbusters’ sensibility and wit with Kerouac’s mania and tosses in a little Fred Pohl for seasoning.” — Cory Doctorow, author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

“Munroe’s novel shows how blogs have become part of the cultural landscape.” — The Guardian

Nov 232015
 

Illyana from the New Mutants, the first comic series I loved

Continuing the 15th anniversary giveaway: my free ebook this month is An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil. My original title for this was Hipster Hellspawn — in fact I think the title might have come first. I was convinced by one of my early readers that this was a bad title, that the H-word alienates everyone — one of the most pronounced aspects of hipsterism is that it disavows itself. I have a theory that this discomfort in its own skin is the way that it evades being co-opted — or at least gives its skin a slipperyness that makes it difficult to bottle and sell. Maybe that’s why in the over 10 years since I wrote the book the term hipster hasn’t been totally replaced. (I vote for “coolster”.)

And apparently these hipster-adjacent ideas have followed me into middle-age as in the last month or so I have been toying with the idea of a comedy webseries named Moustache Shoppe. It’d never be entirely clear what happens in the Shoppe — grooming? consultation? trims? — but if you have to ask, you probably don’t belong there. Comics who particularly enjoyed Movember should drop me a line! (And yes, I know: there’s lots of signs Peak Moustache has already occurred. But a small, carefully coiffed fringe of hair above a man’s lip is still very delightful.)

Read on to grab the free ebook!

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Nov 232005
 

Mummy and Raven and Dog, tooSo 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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Aug 082004
 

When Kate discovers that her roommate identifies as a demoness, she figures it’s too sacrilicious a secret to keep to herself: she tells all on her blog, roommatefromhell.com.

This is the basic gist of my new book, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, a tale of the urban occult told entirely through Kate’s entries. Starting today, I’ll be posting one a day to the faux roommatefromhell.com blog until all 88 entries (the whole book) are up. [UPDATE: the blog is down.] After that I’ll be writing a spinoff story based on how the poll on the site goes. [UPDATE: This became The Bold Explorers.]

Feel free to add your comments. I’m curious to see how people read this blog version of the book.