Devastated by a killer virus, the world you once knew is a wilderness.
No, it's not your daily news update, but the opening to the blurb of Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter. It continues...
Life is lawless and dangerous. Survivors like you either live in scattered, fortified towns, or roam outside as bandits. YOUR mission is to cross the wilderness to the far-distant oil-refinery at San Anglo and bring vital supplies back to the peaceful town of New Hope. Even in the armed Dodge Interceptor you are given, the journey will be wild and perilous. Will YOU survive?
For his sixth solo contribution to the FF range, Ian
Livingstone ventured into the realms of near-future, post-apocalyptic dystopian
science fiction. Clearly inspired by the
Mad Max movies, set in 2022,
Freeway Fighter had the hero
crossing the wilderness in his heavily-armed (and armoured) Dodge Interceptor,
to reach the distant oil-refinery of San Anglo so that he might return with
vital supplies for the inhabitants of the peaceful town of New Hope. But
success is anything but certain, since the wilds that lie between the
scattered, fortified towns are the territory of lawless bandits and brigands.
Vehicular combat was a feature of this particular adventure
with the Dodge Interceptor having both a FIREPOWER and an ARMOUR score to
represent its offensive and defensive capabilities.
Like Starship
Traveller (Steve Jackson’s one and only foray into hard sci-fi Fighting Fantasy),
Freeway Fighter has fewer than the
standard 400 references, coming in at only 380 paragraphs.
The cover was by the sci-fi artist Jim Burns. When the book
was republished by Wizard Books, the cover was reworked by Jim Burns. However, this
the painting was not an original piece of artwork for the range, the piece having already
been used as far back as 1984 to illustrate the Games Workshop
RPG
Battlecars.
Model-maker and FF fan Stuart Bannister was inspired by Jim Burns' artwork to create a 3D revision. "I enjoy converting miniatures, and I also like making dioramas, so it made some sense to try and recreate scenes from some of my favourite FF books," explains Bannister. “My very first one was to recreate the cover art from
Freeway Fighter, using a 1:43 scale model car, dismantling it and adding bits to it in order to build a more futuristic/post-apocalyptic version. I had just watched
Mad Max and had re-read the
Freeway Fighter book – the front cover illustration remains one of my all-time favourites. Getting a car to the right scale of 28mm miniatures was a problem and then trying to get a really smooth, red finish on the car was a challenge. I had to do a lot of sanding and use a lot of spray lacquer to get the desired effect."
Freeway Fighter, as sculpted by Stuart Bannister.
The interior art was by Kevin Bulmer. It was
completed in only nine days, as a favour for Ian Livingstone after the original
illustrations that had been commissioned, were rejected at the last moment.
One of the early contenders for internal artist on Freeway
Fighter was actually FF legend Iain McCaig, but other commitments meant that it
simply wasn’t to be. However, we have an idea of how the book might have looked
since McCaig did start work on an image for the book.
With Fighting Fantasy gamebooks,
the reader is always cast as the hero of the adventure. This means that
secondary characters encountered along the way enjoy the sort of popularity and
fan adoration normally reserved for the protagonists of more traditional
novels. In the case of Freeway Fighter,
readers demonstrated a particular fondness for the car the hero drives
throughout the course of the adventure.
“I wanted to know the background story to the Dodge
Interceptor you end up driving in the book,” says Andi Ewington, the creator
and writer of the Freeway Fighter comic.
“I always found it strange such a car would be found at New Hope without a
bigger tale to tell. The comic fills in those gaps and brings a depth to an
already existing story.
“Once I had the germ of the plot and I had my main
characters, I would cherry pick scenes, encounters and baddies that fans would
be familiar with and weave them into the narrative. It was imperative not to
mess with the world so it would conflict with the gamebooks too much, so every
step I took in the comic I would ensure I wasn’t creating a ripple that would
disrupt the source material. It was tricky, but I think I’ve managed to
carefully tip-toe my way through it without causing too much disruption.”
Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter was published by Titan Comics in 2017, with Andi Ewington's script being realised on the page through Simon Coleby's art, Len O’Grady colours, and Jim
Campbell's lettering. It was later collected as
a graphic novel, which has since been translated into Hungarian!
This new iteration of
Freeway Fighter has also inspired FF fans, including pixel artist Andy Green, who created this image, inspired by Simon Coleby's artwork.
Did you know...?
One of the variant covers produced by Titan Comics for
Ian Livingstone’s Freeway Fighter #1 featured
the artwork from the original FF gamebook and was exclusive to Forbidden
Planet, which hosted the launch event for the comic at its London Megastore, on
Saturday 20 May 2017. It was here that Livingstone and Burns were reunited for
the first time in a long time.
“After a gap of 30 years, it was brilliant to see Jim Burns at the
Forbidden Planet launch event signing,” says Ian Livingstone. “Puffin
Books’ original 1985
Freeway Fighter gamebook (red car) cover was painted by Jim. When
Freeway Fighter was republished by Wizard Books in 2005, the (blue car) cover was again by Jim
, and now
both of his cover paintings appear as variant covers of
Ian Livingstone’s Freeway Fighter #1. And I am pleased to say that I am the proud owner of both paintings which sit proudly in my collection.”
