Published by Carlsen Comics
H.G. Wells (Author, abridged and translated by Thilo Krapp), Thilo Krapp (Illustrator), 25 € (D), HC
192 p.
ISBN: 978-3-551-80309-2

London, 1897.

Henry is a gifted inventor. But he is also lonely, grieving a lost love. To win it back, he builds a time machine. Yet, upon reaching the past, he’s out of reach altering it, and his time-travel finally leads him somewhere entirely unexpected: In a dystopian future, he encounters two vastly different societies – the gentle Eloi and the dangerous Morlocks. But amidst this adventurous future, might Henry actually find what he was originally searching for?

I first read H. G. Wells’s classic THE TIME MACHINE in eighth or ninth grade. The book left a lasting impression on me because it presents a social „thought experiment“ that remains highly relevant today: to what extent do our actions and societal decisions today shape our future?

However, I found it difficult to fully relate to the protagonist’s purely scientific curiosity regarding time travel – out of which he comes to constructing such a machine. The motivation Wells describes for the time traveler around 1900 may well have been sufficient justification for a character in a book back then, and I can certainly understand why regarding the importance of technology and it’s wondrous effects on every day live in that era. Yet, for an adaptation into the visually rich medium of graphic novel, I needed a reason for the time traveler to take on such effort which readers could more easily connect with, as they accompany Henry on his adventure and journey.

Early on in the adaptation process, I hit upon a motivation that resonated deeply with me. I incorporated this into my vision – and using it to shed light on the era in which the story begins, too (the rigid late-19th-century England).

And to tell the tale in a way it has never been told before.