Gone

Posted: Wednesday, August 27, 2003
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of Gone Creator(s): Nigel Auchterlounie
Publishers: There Goes Tokyo...
From: UK
Price: £ 6.99 (UK)

A woman meets the perfect guy after being mugged by a person in a rabbit mask while using the subway. They move in together and have four years of happiness. Then one day she comes home to find here partner distressed. He starts talking about her finding him in bed with another woman a few hours ago, and how she just disappeared. She reaches for her watch and disappears. 2 Hours earlier she appears in their bedroom and finds her partner in bed with another woman....

Time travel, it hurts my head. It doesn't seem to hurt Nigel's head, 'cause he has written one of the most convoluted time travel stories I've encountered. You might have though the Terminator trilogy (the 3d ride at Universal Studios doesn’t count) was complicated, this story involves multiple copies of the same character, pre-emptive murders ands people adopting their childhood selves.

Somehow amongst this web of temporal trips Nigel manages to forge an entertaining, even moving story. She loves him, wants him and will go to any length to keep him, but fate seems to be stacked against her. As things progress her quest gets more and more fascinating as a character study of love gone to extremes.

Nigel's art style, in contrast to the plot, is minimal and direct. The characters are drawn in a spare style that has a slight Manga look about them, especially in their facial features. The backgrounds vary between sparse and stylised detail. A rainy day looks wet and cold, the subway is crowded and claustrophobic

There is a also an amusing short story in this comics which is an anthropomorphic tale involving a cat trying to teach a class of animal characters the basics of time travel and the resulting paradoxes. The drawing is far more cartoonist in style, and has a much more consistent look to it. The combination of the two stories in this book works well and results in a delightfully intricate book that carries the reader away with ideas and emotions.

In a Word: Timely.



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