Check Out This Exclusive Preview for the TIME SHOPPER Original Graphic Novel
Action Lab Comics has a new original graphic novel releasing later this month and they’ve provided us with an exclusive preview. The story is called Time Shopper and comes from writer Tony Fleecs, artist Christian Meesey, colorist Brad Simpson, and layout artist Tone Rodriguez.
“The plot revolves around a gig economy slacker, Carl, who’s recruited to travel back in time to prevent every major disaster that’s impacted humanity. Instead, he notices how cheap everything is and uses his resources to go on a millennia-spanning shopping spree. There’s a nice human beating heart at the core of the project, too.”
Fleecs released the following statement about his inspiration for the story:
“Everything’s more expensive now than it used to be and everyone wishes they could somehow still buy stuff at the old prices. Gas used to cost under a dollar a gallon. Comics were only $.12 a piece! A shave and a haircut only cost 2 bits!! So the idea was what if you could just travel back in time and buy stuff for the old bargain prices? And then I thought, Well, that’s a pretty frivolous use of a time machine. A responsible person would probably warn JFK before they went shopping. That was the germ of it.
Also, there’s this scene in Back to the Future Part II where Doc Brown gives Marty McFly a briefcase full of money in case he needs to buy anything while he’s time traveling. And since I was a kid, I always thought, Screw the future. I’d take that DeLorean back to the mall!”
He then added the following statement about which time periods the graphic novel would explore:
“I picked historical disasters by what was going to be funniest and what time periods had stuff in them that I’d want to buy. They had to be far enough in the past that you could joke about them without seeming super mean, but also be recent or notable enough that readers would recognize what the event was with just a little bit of context. I never wanted to be like, Well, here we are at Jesus’ crucifixion! but they could say, “Hey man, that crown of thorns looks super metal! You ever think of selling it?” And Christian Meesey’s visuals would sell the rest of it.
At first I made a list of all the historical events I wanted to use and I realized that they were ALL American. So I sprinkled in a bunch of world history, too. And then luckilly, the furthest I ever went in school was an Associates degree in Computer Animation in the late ‘90s. So I don’t have a Masters in History—I figure anything I put in this book, If my dumb-ass knows about the history of it, then everybody else probably already knows about it too.
And also, I often dream about saving Tupac with a warning from the future...”
Time Shopper will be available on January 29.
