Anarchist Fantasies: A Cognitive Analysis of Fantasy to Promote Anarchism and Cultural Reformulation in Therefore Repent! A Post-Rapture Graphic Novel

In this article, I argue that the graphic novel Therefore Repent!, written by Jim Munroe and illustrated by Salgood Sam, employs fantastical qualities to enact an anarchist perspective on community structures. I analyze how the text reformulates common cultural domains, including the church, state, economics, and various received perspectives on the self and identity. The text models alternative ways of participating in these domains through a range of multimodal strategies, thereby offering an anarchist alternative through fantasy. I develop a cognitive model for analyzing these textual strategies through the concepts of cognitive domains and alternativity, to show how the graphic novel develops cultural and ontological reformulations. I suggest that the text employs its fantasticality and mediality as a form of art manifesto for anarchist ways of being.