Publisher: OR Comics
Writer: Luke J Halsall
Artist: Cuttlefish
Release Date: 5th July 2014

Redmond is a bored civil servant, utterly disinterested in his mind numbing, repetitive job. So far so familiar, right? However, the main difference between him and the multitude of other disillusioned office employees around the world is the fact that the company he works for specialises in something a little different – time travel.

Tipping his hat unashamedly to the works of Douglas Adams, Out of Time sees Luke James Halsall crafting a brilliantly quirky world complete with some truly memorable characters. NC-1000 (don’t call him “Nigel”), the deluded time travel casualty who has gone on one trip too many and now believes his robot and Annette, the belligerent, shape-shifting alien are both intriguing and compelling enough to potentially support the title on their own merits, however they serve merely as delicious background details that help flesh out the inner workings of this utterly absurd company.

The occasional clunky line of dialogue notwithstanding, Halsall’s boundless creativity and dry sense of humour are both on full display here, infusing the story with a sense of oddball fun without every lowering itself to slapstick or parody. Most of the humour here is derived from the way the worn-down Redmond views the extraordinary place where he works (time travel, folks!) in exactly the same way as many of us view our own places of work – as somewhere truly mundane and unremarkable.

As strong as the premise and characters may be however, the main selling point of this book for me is the fantastic artwork of the brilliantly named Cuttlefish. Utilising an exaggerated, hyper-stylised approach, he takes Halsall’s sense of whimsical charm and pushes it to a whole other level. His artistic style is straightforward – simplistic, almost – but never comes across as throwaway or hurried, remaining polished and measured at all times.

Unfortunately, as interesting as the actual time travelling aspect of the book potentially could be, it does struggle somewhat under the (perhaps intentionally) overcomplicated ‘time paradox’ nonsense. The ramifications and consequences of sending people both backwards and forwards through time are explained as well as possible without derailing the story completely, but result in the same “hang on, but what if…?” plot holes that plague most time travel yarns. Fortunately however, this disruption is handled fairly well by having Redmond explaining the ins and outs of time travel with a weary, matter-of-fact sigh to his bright-eyed, idealistic new assistant Lizzie, an approach which only enhances the offbeat, Hitchhiker-esque vibe of the book.

To summarise, Out of Time is a sharply written, beautifully illustrated time travel tale featuring some utterly fantastic characters. While it’s not flawless, Halsall and Cuttlefish have managed to create a world that I find myself instantly wanting to know more about, and I can only hope that they choose to expand upon this one-shot somewhere down the line. For now however, this serves as an intriguing slice of gloriously eccentric sci-fi that deserves to be sampled by as wide an audience as possible.

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Out of Time will make it debut at Glasgow Comic Con 2014 on the 5th and 6th of July, and will – I would assume – be available via the OR Comics website shortly thereafter.

You can find out more about Luke James Halsall at http://lukejameshalsall.wordpress.com, and more about Cuttlefish at http://cuttlefishcomics.blogspot.co.uk.

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The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson (aka Ceej)
Article Archive: Ceej Says