This post is Filed Under:

Home page Highlights,
Interviews and Columns

Fever Ridge: A tale of MacArthur’s Jungle War

Mike Heimos is a lawyer with a yen to write. The first result of that yen is Fever Ridge: A tale of MacArthur’s Jungle war from IDW. Heimos teams with artist Nick Runge to spin a tale inspired by his grandfather’s experiences in WWII. Westfield’s Roger Ash recently spoke with Heimos to learn more about the book.

Westfield: What can you tell us about Fever Ridge?

Mike Heimos: essentially it combines a Bildungsroman, a mystery, and straightforward historical fiction, a combination which has been done before in WWII stories but here the coming-of-age angle is fairly unique, and we have yet-untold historical elements and unexplored places. Thereby we tell a personal tale whilst introducing readers to the causes of the Pacific war, to Papuan and Filipino cultures, to the sort of weird Imperial German history of parts of new Guinea, and more.

The story is set during world war II in the Southwest Pacific Command and the protagonists are two friends serving in ‘the Sightseein’ Sixth’ Infantry Division’s commando unit, the Alamo Scouts. Erik comes from a German-immigrant family of meat-cutters, and “Blackie” is a farmer from Missouri, a native American of the Osage tribe. Not only do their training, personal encounters, and behind-lines missions cause them to grow beyond themselves, but they also come across a profoundly important secret hidden away in the jungles of new Guinea. It takes them a while to figure it out and … you’ll have to read the book!

Papuan tribal dance, deep in the bush. photo taken by Heimos’ grandfather.

At times the action is beyond gritty – poorly supplied in the bush, they sate their appetites with beetles, bats, and dogs whilst the Japanese resort to cannibalism. but at times it is dreamy, even surreal (I almost hate to use that term these days, being over- and inaccurately used, but here it is correct!) – especially when the leads volunteer for the occupation force in Japan after the surrender in 1945.

Thus the two leads’ war experience is rather exotic. and as the novel progresses we examine a unique perspective that grows within our main characters. It suffices to say now, that they are not necessarily thrilled with going home after the War.

Westfield: This is based on fact. how much is real versus fiction?

Heimos: My grandfather’s experiences were the initial inspiration, and the concept flowered after digging into the research on the 6th Army, the 6th Infantry, and the Alamo Scouts.

The Japanese medal from the man Heimos’ grandfather killed.

One incident my grandfather spoke of involved sniper clearing. They would go on patrol and constantly encounter snipers left behind by the retreating Japanese units. Not all were professional snipers, mind you, in fact most were just kids left with a rifle and a few cartridges, if lucky even a little water, and told to take a few GIs with them and die honorably. many were arboreal and actually were chained to their trees. thus once a sniper was located, stalked and taken out, the GIs would have to verify the kill and cut them down. Problem: they were not always dead! Of course when one of my granddad’s turns came up the sniper was not dead, in fact he was smart enough to ‘play possum.’ and so they fought it out up in the tree…obviously my granddad was the one that managed to emerge alive. I will not state that “he won,” though, as he never said it that way.

That story always cut right to it for me. The tides of history and the decisions of politicians require these guys to kill other men because “that is the war.” Well, just because “that is the war” does not make such a thing impersonal. To this day I have the Japanese imperial money and a medal and other mementos my granddad kept of the man he never forgot, that he killed with his hands.

As I got older some of the details became more candid, more extreme. He was not an Alamo Scout but he was a Sightseer of the 6th Infantry Division, and did fight alongside some men trained as Alamo Scouts. between his direct experiences and those of the commandos he relayed to me, I have a good handful of amazing, breathtaking stories. but I reiterate, that these things mainly just inspired the book, and it is about 85% the product of my imagination.

However, one of his deeds definitely will make it into the book, and I don’t want to give it away too much but I will say it involves a crocodile. He was awarded the Soldier’s Medal for that one.

Heimos’ grandfather (far left) and his best buddy (far right). This was after a sniper patrol, you can see the samurai swords they took from those cleared snipers.

Another thing comes straight from my granddad. knowing him and looking through all his Polaroids (some are attached), I can say that it once struck me, years ago – he never lost asad stare. It was just there, all the time. In my book the Bildungsroman, the coming-of-age element, is going to explore what was behind that sad stare and my take on it may surprise some people.

I’ll just reiterate here that this work is fiction and the story we tell is not true. But, the aim in writing historical fiction is to be cool and plausible. For example, huge influences are the works of Umberto Eco (The name of The Rose, Baudolino) and Gore Vidal (Julian), which are based on real events, real people or people that could have been real, backed by full research and consistent with the known facts. So for example, I’ve endeavored to make our deployments consistent with actual the 6th army and Alamo Scout operations, etc.

Westfield: Why did you decide to do this as a comic?

Heimos: about 6 years ago I decided to write the prose and verse that was swimming in my head for the 10+ years prior, lost for practicing tax law. Apologies for getting a bit cliché, but the notion is cliché for a reason, that life changing events often make one get out of the chair, as they say. soon after my mother passed away in 2006 (and my father was not doing well, he would pass in 2010), I saw death up-close and personal, and I decided do some different things before my time comes. So quite literally, first I devoted a weekend to myself to drink some beer, grill some food, and just think, writing down stories, come up with titles…

I lived in Denver and in those days was a huge, devoted Battlestar Galactica fan. during that weekend, in Sunday’s newspaper I read that in a couple weeks the ‘Starfest’ con in Denver was welcoming Katee Sackhoff as one of the celebrity guests. She was (probably still is) my favorite TV actress so I had to go, had to go! and I secured the tickets.

The comic book folks had a con in tandem with Starfest and so I popped over to see what that was all about. now I was never a comics devotee; my dad had some way cool old comics but trashed them when I was a kid, and I never really got into comics thereafter. Anyhow, I’m an extremely curious guy, love learning new things, anything that stimulates the mind, and saw there were seminars about comics creation, writing, all kinds of stuff.

I had thought these things were just “hey look at this shiny superhero, you haven’t had a date in 2 years either so let’s put on a costume and pretend…” etc. Nope. There were interesting people giving seminars, having stimulating discussions about art and story telling and production, technology and marketing and so on. Wow, I was completely intrigued. So I went home and had a few more beers (one toasted to Katee of course) and thought rather simply “…a couple of my stories would be awesome to see as well as read. now I want to see them. maybe someone else would too, but I know I want to SEE them.”

The next day, I attended a seminar with Nick Runge on the dais with other Denver artists – Armando Durruthy, Leila del Duca and some others. I approached Nick afterward about his availability and whether he would consider collaborating on one of my ideas. I sent summaries and he indicated being most attracted to the WWII story.

And so here we are.

I will say I’m currently working on other projects as well, both in comics/graphic novels and traditional writing. artist Armando Durruthy and I are finishing up the pitch for a medieval story focusing on the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians starting in the 13th century (again, this is subject matter which I think is brand new to graphic novels). also myself and another artist-friend, Scott Brooks, are drawing pitch materials for a Kung Fu/double-entendre/comedy thing. Some info is at my website, www.kingfishergraphicarts.com.

Westfield: What can you say about your collaboration with Nick?

Heimos: The main thing is that it became clear after a short time that we are simpatico on a lot of levels. It’s great when writer/creator and artist are like-minded generally, or at least on a lot of things. Nick and I have shared quite a few brews and burgers; we are both wired for curiosity and learning; we enjoy the research process and doing thought experiments, that type of thing. We have dry to black senses of humor. and we both like creating layers in our disciplines, and asking something of the reader, a sort of ‘iceberg theory’ for the book where we don’t need to say or draw everything for the reader.

He’s not just a gunslinger for Fever Ridge, he’s really into the story and the subject matter. and that is what sets him apart here – he undertakes to add things unsolicited, it is always good and always grounded in careful thought. He’s not afraid to voice opinions, make suggestions, ask if we can try something totally different than what I dreamed up, etc. In other words, he truly cares and takes pride in the product.

Another thing that is great is Nick’s work ethic and respect for his collaborators. He squeezes all the talent and intangibles into a considerate guy. Unless something unforeseen happens, if he says it will be ready Friday, it is ready Friday. So I’ll also add that our other team members, Jordie (colors) and Brandon (letters), are sick artists too. Although I’ve not had the chance to get to know them like Nick (Jordie lives in Ireland, Brandon in Baltimore), I’m sure we’d be mates. I can say that their work has been stellar from the very beginning and I plan to work with them on other projects, too.

Westfield: any closing comments?

Heimos: I think comics are proving to be superbly fertile ground for historical fiction, and the growing diversity of historical topics in comics is heartening. Of course you have e.g. Brian Wood’s mostly-great Northlanders series, the Viking series from IMAGE, etc. I adore Wood’s writing and research, choice of topics and how he directs his artists.

And recently I heard via Blake Northcott (vs. Reality) of a work by Jordan Stratford, The Mechanicals: A Steampunk novel of the Crimean War. Slick, insofar as this conflict is the sort that, usually, only we historian types get jazzed about. but there someone makes it awesome and at the same time will raise awareness of people, events not usually in the forefront of popular interest. good stuff!

Purchase

Fever Ridge: A tale of MacArthur’s Jungle war #1