I believe that the secret to crafting good children’s literature is that you treat young readers with the same dignity and respect that you give adults. Granted, I’m not advocating for creating a kid’s story with graphic sex and violence and certain themes and ideas do need to be treated with a certain level of caution, but I do think that child readers are capable of processing and dealing with a lot of the same issues and problems that adults face.
Let’s see if today’s comic “Time Traveler Tales” #3 lives up to the standard.
Written by David ScheidtCover by: Kate Sheridan
Illustrated by Kelly and Nichole Matthews
Lettered by Joamette Gil
Oliver and his mysterious pocket watch continue to hop around space-time seemingly without rhyme or reason. But answers may finally await him in a haunted beach house. Who is the Clock Master, and what does he want with Oliver? And more importantly, can he help Oliver finally find his way home?
Oliver is a young kid who has been gifted with the power of time travel, and while he has had his fun exploring all of time and space, a power like this always comes with consequences. Said consequences manifest in the form of a being known as “The Clock Master” a creature bent on dominating all of time.
In “Time Traveler Tales” #3, Oliver is shoved into a mysterious place where he is pursued by the servants of the Clock Master, but meets some important allies who give him some much needed information and help. Don’t worry, the book is both comfortably familiar and mind bendingly trippy. It wouldn’t be a good time travel story if it wasn’t.
While the series this comic is based off of was created by Karl Jacobs, the actual book “Time Traveler Tales” #3 is written by Dave Scheidt, who will be getting the credit in this review. Scheidt has a clear understanding of how a book written for younger children works and his talents are on full display here. Oliver is a kid who is both curious about all the weird things that happen around him, smart enough to figure out what’s going on, patient enough to listen to the people and things happening around hm, and brave enough to take all the weird and scary stuff in with a grain of salt and plenty of courage. This is a story where a lot of things get thrown at the protagonist very quickly and it’s nice to see Oliver rise to the occasion. On top of that, Scheidt does a great job of world building and subverting a lot of the usual tropes that surround stories like this. It turns out that Oliver is in fact, NOT the chosen one and that he’s NOT really that special for reasons that will not be mentioned due to spoilers. However, it doesn’t detract from the story and does a great job of adding to the world and Oliver’s journey.
If “Time Traveler Tales” #3 has any problems, they stem from being the third issue in a five issue series based off a previously created story in a different medium. All of this is to say that new readers might not have an idea of what’s really going on in this this book and lack the necessary context to grasp what is going on, but to be honest “Time Traveler Tales” #3 does a great job mitigating the issue all on its own. There’s a little blurb at the beginning of the story that explains what is going on and Scheidt does a great job of giving the readers a solid stand alone experience with the single issue without leaving people in the dark too much. Still, if you read this book and liked it, it would probably be a good idea to pick up the first two issues first, and maybe check out the series this is based off of as well.
The artwork for “Time Traveler Tales” #3 is created by Kelly and Nichole Matthews, and it does a very good job of blending the comfortable with the weird. The book does a cool thing where the characters are drawn one way and the settings are drawn in an almost entirely different style, which creates a weird, disjointed look that makes the people look out of place and out of time and is kind of evocative of Herge’s ligne claire style of art,. The characters are drawn with simple lines that evoke an anime style, but have some clear influences that take them out of Japan and more into Korean manhua style or an American webcomic. It’s a very kid friendly style that allows the characters to be expressive and relatable without being forced to devote a painstaking amount of detail to the faces.
Continued belowBut personally, the real star of the show is the environment and background that the Matthews have crafted for the book. They say that showing the passage of time is one of the hardest things to show in a visual medium, and that saying certainly applies when it comes to showing time itself. The Matthews make the choice to splatter some weird and interesting effects throughout the book, which makes the setting appear otherworldly, a bit unpleasant, and definitely hostile to human life and comprehension. There’s a couple of panels where we see the servants of the main villain of the series charge in and they look genuinely creepy. It all comes together in a beautifully abstract collage of color, effects, and character work that is unique and beautiful to look at, and it will be very interesting to see if other books take a lesson from what these guys are doing.
“Time Traveler Tales” #3 is a solid children’s comic with a lovable protagonist, some interesting world building, and amazing artwork that is engaging, entertaining, and just scary enough to be interesting while not enough to stop parents from buying the book for their kids. It’s a great example of children’s comic books done right and hopefully laying the foundation for more stuff in the future.
Final Verdict: 8.5- If you’re already familiar with the series this is based on, or if you’ve already read the previous books, you probably don’t need this recommendation. Other then that, it’s a solid book for children and looks great.
