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| The Maple and the Vine: Preview |
"A remarkable work of art...this book carries itself with dignity and character. Both well written and well drawn..."
This is a digest-sized collection of the first three-part series originally published between 1992 and 1994, rescripted and annotated. If you see definite changes in my style since over the next couple of storylines, you now know why... preview that was here. I have added the prologue pages that preceded the main story and the wonky lettering I had used is gone, gone, GONE! At that time I'd had no other comic fonts, but I've got them practically jumping out the cupboards now. I also love today's layout apps with their pre-imposition capabilities! No more late-night cursing and swearing at dummies, yay! |
This
is where it all started, around 1989 or so when I rediscovered prints of
the CF-105 Avro Arrow at its rollout
ceremony and a story started growing in my head... of course, knowing me,
the fantasy/SF element would have to come in somewhere! I didn't mess with
the actual history (unlike a certain CBC miniseries starring a certain
SNL alumni), I just found leeway in the cracks and crevices between the
elements of the truth that are known to the public, and used them as a
launching point. Moreover, I make no pretenses about Arrowflight
being anything but fiction! However, I've been looking at all of the changes
that have been taking place in the world since original publication and
while I freely admit my version of the future is set in an alternate continuity
and is a crazy fun-house mirror version of today, seeing certain elements
of it coming true (increasing despotism, cultural balkanization in the
US and Canada, mass destruction terrorism and disease scares, etc.) is
frickin' SCARY! In fact, I have people who read the original books in the
early 90's coming back to me and saying "you called it just about right!"
But I digress...
Now, where was I... in an alternate near-future, a combination of sucessful terrorist WMD attacks precipitates the collapse of North America, leaving a number of ethno-cultural factions to fight over the remains. A reinvigorated Aryran Covenant movement emerges victorious and promptly goes about invading its neighbors and transforming its new domain into one giant concentration camp where every soul is either incarcerated in it (with varying degrees of 'comfort'), working for it or greedily feeding off it. Canada is now one of the unlucky girls in the Covenant's new harem, because the Covenant wants its resources, its labour, and its fertile Caucasian women (Come to think of it, land, wealth and sex are always reliable fight-starters!). Slavery is back with a vengeance! It is at this time that 'magic' returns to the earth in a most unusual vehicle, 'vehicle' being the operative term... Back in the 50's, an ancient and secretive organization slipped metals of um... rather unusual qualities into Avro Canada's Arrow project. They then undertook extreme measures and incurred horrendous personal costs to rescue one of the aircraft before John Diefenbaker turned them into torch fodder. The activation of the latent potentials of the airframe metal rendered the machine fully sentient, autonomous and completely independent of fuel or facilities. Radar and heat invisibility were also evident. That would be formidable enough, but a spell-like 'blood-bonding' procedure makes the new being a 'relative' of the pilot who assisted in its rescue, and enables a partnership which can access a far greater pool of energy as long as the human half of the equation holds out. That, however, must wait as the power of the relationship builds slowly, over generations. Until then, the Arrow must go into stasis 'Outside'. Decades pass, until the 2010's. Who will be the heir to this legacy?
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