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written by michael heimosart by nick rungecolors byjordie bellaireletters bybrandon dEstefanoedits bytom waltz

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FEVER RIDGE: A TALE OF MACARTHUR’S JUNGLE WAR #1. FEBRUARY 2013. FIRST PRINTING. FEVER RIDGE © 2013 Michael A. Heimos. All rights reserved. © 2012 Idea and Design Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved.IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe Street, San Diego, CA 92109. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Any similarities to persons livingor dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.

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A lot of people have a thing about bats, we all know they playlarge roles in literature and the graphic arts and surely we neednot go further into the vampire and Batman stuff. We will add alittle to this in Fever Ridge because truly, New Guinea can bedescribed as “bat-land.” There are bats of all sorts, all over theisland: from flying foxes large as hawks to bats that crawl on theground (as you saw in Issue 1, our characters caught them forbreakfast). It is well known that Papuans very skillfully catchbats, often in handmade nets strung between high trees, ratherlike tuna nets, and revel in them as culinary delights. They alsopassed this knowledge on to the Allied soldiers, especially theAlamo Scouts (see Issue 3 of Fever Ridge!).

Now as the foregoing shows, Nature has a few tricks up its sleeve–s—-even pretty, brightly colored songbirds can deceive. Well, justthe opposite is the case, too, and even if you find batscompletely creepy you have to love the blossom bat, orSyconycteris, a new subspecies of which was recently found in theFoja Mountains of New Guinea by a scientific expedition funded bythe National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution andthe Indonesian Institute of Sciences. It’s been called the“hummingbird of the bat world” or simply the “hummingbat” becauseof the long tongue it uses to drink nectar from flowering trees.Just like their compatriots in nectar, bees, they are importantpollinators as well. 

In the mid-1800s the legendary explorer and scientist AlfredRussel Wallace, who had seen more than a few wild places, wrotethat the rugged and dense forests on the island of New Guineapresented “...an almost impassable barrier to the unknowninterior.” This remained true throughout much of the 20th century,even during the desperate battle for the South Pacific duringWorld War II. In Fever Ridge, we focus on both the great issuesfacing mankind and the personal perspectives of a handful of menduring their struggle for mastery of that unknown world. But NewGuinea also provides us a wonderful aesthetic stage, and you willalso see Nick and Jordie do astounding things with New Guinea’sastounding creatures.

Taken with a grain of salt of course, have a read of Rev. R.Lister Turner’s “Malignant Witchcraft in Papua and The Use ofPoisons Therein,” Man, Vol. 24, (Aug., 1924), pp. 117-119. Readmore about the Foja expedition athttp////://ngm.nationalgeographic.com//2010/06//foja-mountains//white-text.And please give direct support to the remaining explorers of theworld, or indirectly through funding//sponsoring organizations suchas the National Geographic Society and the SmithsonianInstitution.

-Michael Heimos

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