Post-apocalyptic Vancouver on display in local artist's graphic novel

How would Vancouver fare after a massive global pandemic? What if catastrophic climate change raised sea levels and wiped out much of the city's landmarks?

Graphic novelistMichael Kluckner explores the idea in his latest book 2050. He depicts a crumbled seawall, a partlysubmerged Alex Fraser Bridge and a walled-off downtown returned to its natural island state.

"Visually and graphically it became a great opportunity to play with the idea of what the Lower Mainland may look like," said Kluckner speaking with host Sheryl MacKay on North by Northwest.

The celebrated author has written several novels about Vancouver and British Columbia, focusing onthe region's natural beauty and history.

Kluckner said he chose Vancouver as the setting for his latest workbecause of his attachment to the area but also because geographically the region would be hugely affected by his imagined ecological disaster.

"The heroine of it, the brainwashed detective, she lives in the ruins of a high rise building and comes and goes from it in a rowboat."

2050 tells the story of a dystopian future where a dictatorship rules over the remaining population, which has been depleted by more than 70 per cent.

Inspired by Cuba

Kluckner said he drew inspirations from a 2012trip to Cuba where he observed the people living with a low-carbon footprint, often housed comfortably in dilapidated buildings.

Hebegan imagining what a benevolent dictatorship, whose goal was to heal the planet following a climate based disaster, might look like.

Kluckner said when writing a graphic novel, instead of a regular novel, whatyou lose in written language you make up for in visuals.

The author's approach, he said, should not be to have long narrative panels that explain things to the reader, but instead to try and push the story through images and conversations.

"What you're really doing is thinking how I think a filmmaker would work. You're staging a scene."

The Vancouver artistsays producing a graphic novel is a great way for young people, who may find a traditional novel daunting, to get into creative writing.

Kluckner says he plans to focus his next work onJuliaHenshaw, a prominent Vancouver writer and explorer at the turn of the 20th century.

With files from North by Northwest