At a time when the media flood us with messages of despair, works like BICYCLOPOLIS provides a plausible– possible antidote; a simple, earnest story of a believably sustainable town, armed to defend itself against imposed progress, may resonate with those on the left and many conservatives as well.
Avidor’s fictional community is a result animated books that deal with a future in which climate change has turned much of the American West into desert while human garbage continues to accumulate in dangerous floating junk in the oceans, the plastic rubbish on land gets swept up in the winds that whip across the now-desert landscape, so that travellers are hit by “bag storms”, whirling masses of bits of shopping bags and other bits of decades old plastic. In contrast to many writers who imagine a future devoid of technology, Avidor recognises that many modern inventions like pedal-powered gears and chains would be used to create windmills, water pumps, irrigation systems, vehicles and machines, junk from the nearby rubbish dump furnishes them with metal that can be re forged or melted and reshaped into useful things, while plants like milkweed and dandelion can be made into rubber substitutes.
His fictional village even has pubs, bandstands and sports stadium. Avidor’s creations have always been idealistic and instructional but never unrealistic or perfect. All futuristic fiction is really about the present. Interestingly, writers during the tech boom years of of the early 20th century, extrapolated those trends into space-faring techno-utopia and when the social and ecological costs of that boom caught up with us, dystopian fiction took over our collective imagination with increasingly horrific futures. Doomer porn however has limited appeal and shelf life. One of the most appealing subsets of speculative fiction is the “good old future” where our descendants have come through a crisis and created a better world that looks a lot like the past. What we need are stories of people who roll up their sleeves and use their hands-on-skills to fix problems relying on the craftsmanship of local people rather than shipping in supplies from third-world factories.
Nothing matches Avidor’s BICYCLOPOLIS which uses the basic Back-to-the Future premise of a young point-of-view, an old and whacky inventor, and a time-travel machine as a plot device to show off his design of a small-town, pedal-powered future in Midwest USA. BICYCLOPOLIS, founded by Civil-War re-anactors and bike mechanics who had the skills to build a new world, is a plausible model of a self-sufficient community. Inspired by the SF writings of H.G .Wells, in particular, The Time Machine, Avidor creates his own time travel story encased in a dismal dystopian genre and visually appealing realm of the graphic novel.
BICYCLOPOLIS begins in present day Stillwater, Minnesota, and follows the journey of Dan, who pedals 70 years into the future using a “velochronitron”, a human-powered, time-travel device. War and climate change have wreaked havoc on the Earth and resources are scarce in the post-industrial world.
Dan finds the once farmed and forested Upper Midwest transformed into wasteland. Finding refuge within an ecological oasis, BICYCLOPOLIS. Dan learns the future of the citadel threatened by outside forces and within its walls. He meets Sara and Archie and others who have something to contribute to the world around them. The city of BICYCLOPOLIS is is the ultimate example of teamwork is the essence of survival.
This is a satirical graphic novel, a plausible model of self-sufficient community noted for for its satirical tone– examining tech and car culture through the lens of a “frequently squashed rodent”. Its sharp counter- culture wit has garnished a cult following.
