M.A.1.A. - The Night of The Biplanes | Comic

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“M.A.1.A. - The Night of the Biplanes” is a motion comic, a dark adventure/drama set in an alternative WWI Europe, where technology has progressed fast and in a surprisingly different direction.

Based on the novel: La Notte dei Biplani by Davide Morosinotto
Writers: Chuck Dixon and Davide Morosinotto

Studio: Nucco Brain
www.nuccobrain.com
Co-Producer: Book on a Tree
www.bookonatree.com

Creative Director & Producer: Stefano Marrone
Illustrators/Designers: Ryan Lovelock, Andrea Reali,
Vincenzo Lamolinara, Stefano Marrone, Federico Piatti, Daniele Orlandini

The Great War isn’t only about bloody trench warfare.It’s also the war of the flying aces, whose exploits fill the front pages of newspapers and bulletins on the Compu-net –

the new computer network based on telegraph lines.

The biplanes that soar over the battlefields are wood and canvas, just like Mick Mannock’s and the Red Baron’s, but inside their mechanical bellies is a T.B.C., a Tactical Bio-Computer, connected to the pilot’s brain that turns man and aircraft into a single fighting machine.

In the long term, though, T.B.C.s infect the mind of the pilot, driving him slowly mad. Both the Allied and Central powers, however, keep this top secret, while exploiting the stories told in the newspapers to recruit increasingly young pilots – the younger they are, the greater their resistance to the illness.

TBC biplanes have mechanical arms and processing systems. In the long term, though, they infect the mind of the pilot, driving him slowly mad. Both the Allied and Central powers, however, keep this top secret, while exploiting the stories told in the newspapers to recruit increasingly young pilots, for the younger they are, the greater their resistance to the illness.

In Cornwall, three friends are following the war from a distance. John Davey is the son of a miner and, like his father, spends his days down the black pits, breaking his back and getting filthy with dust as he mines tin ore behind a patented Holman Rock Drill. Mary Tucker is a maid, whose parents gave her up when and now feels suffocated by a life with no prospects. Arthur Maddox is a young nobleman destined to one day take a seat in the House of Lords.

But Christmas 1915 changes their lives forever. Arthur and Mary enlist. Arthur defies his parents and joins the newly formed TBC tank division, whilst, with the help of an air force doctor, Mary forges her papers and becomes Alex Tucker, trainee pilot.

John, though, stays in Cornwall. As a miner, he’s exempt from the draft and doesn’t want to leave his homeland. Mainly he doesn’t want to betray his devotion to Arthur’s Uncle, Sir Richard, a renowned Scientist who used to tell them about peace and science. Sir Richard has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving John with a strange brass device with instructions to guard it with his life.

“Mary forges her papers

and becomes Alex Tucker,

trainee pilot.”

After Arthur and Mary have left for the front, John finds out about the TBC illness. He also discovers that, before his disappearance, Sir Richard had been working day and night to find a cure – a cure that somehow involves the brass device.

But John has no choice but to get involved in the conflict: while German spies infiltrate Cornwall to steal the device, he escapes, hoping to somehow make his way to the French front. The only person who can help him is a Minister – a Minister who’s really an MI1C agent with the British Secret Service fighting on the Somme.

John has to find his friends and bring them back home before the machines drive them mad or they die in the fighting. As a result, he ends up changing the whole course of the world conflict.

So, in The Night of the Biplanes computer technology is already widespread. But it’s also developed in a different way. It didn’t grow out of code breaking but from psychoanalysis and neurology, which were both born in the early 20th century. The computers in the novel have huge graphite screens, tangles of levers, and old typewriter keyboards. Printers are steam operated and tele-printers give birth to the first computer network: the Compunet. But there are also TBCs, devices that operate via a neural connection and have brought forward technologies that came much later (such as radar and the jet engine) or even come from our own future!

Like real life, though, history and technology are of secondary importance in the book. They’ve shaped the world of John, Mary and Arthur, and forced them to make certain decisions. But the things that really matter are feelings, fear, friendship, and love. Tied in with them are the challenges of becoming an adult, including making mistakes and having regrets. But the main question is deciding who they are and who they want to be. Something we all must decide for ourselves.