"I can't be the only person who saw the sparks and thought this," writes Barry Dennen, "so apologies if it's been done already."

It has not only been done, but it will be done again forever! Read the rest

Paper Girls is the outstanding Stranger-Things-esque graphic novel series by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, a tale of time-travel, meddling, war and coming of age whose mind-bending twists and turns earned it a Hugo nomination this year. Now Paper Girls 4 is on shelves, and it's time to party like it's 1999.

You probably missed out when Nike auctioned off 89 modern-day replicas of Marty McFly's self-lacing sneakers, but that shouldn't stop you from having a pair. While they don't tie themselves, these handcrafted slippers inspired by Marty's futuristic Back to the Future II Air Mags should do the trick. Read the rest

If you're a child of the seventies, you'll probably remember that while the sitcom Happy Days aired from 1974 to 1984, it was set in Milwaukee in the late fifties.

Ok, so in 1980, an animated spin-off series called The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang hit the Saturday morning cartoon circuit, lasting just two years. In those two seasons, they meet a "future chick" named Cupcake and are accidentally hurled through time and space in a janky spaceship with Mr. Cool, a talking dog. This quasi-educational show (which has Wolfman Jack as its narrator) chronicles their journey trying to get back to 1957, but first they jump to significant historical time and places, like the Salem Witch Trials.

So, it's a cartoon, made for early-eighties kids, of fifties youth bouncing around in time trying to get back to 1957. Sure... why not?.

If you have the time (heh), watch all of Season 1 and Season 2.

If you're wondering, this cartoon happened two years after Robin Williams landed a small role as Mork on the live-action Happy Days (which eventually turned into the spin-off, Mork & Mindy) and just three years after the Fonz jumped the shark.

Ayyy... Can you dig it?

(Weird Universe) Read the rest

MinutePhysics' Henry Reich works the whiteboard to map and categorize time travel in films like Back to the Future, A Christmas Carol, Groundhog Day, Looper, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

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William Gibson's 2014 novel The Peripheral was the first futuristic book he published in the 21st century, and it showed us a distant future in which some event, "The Jackpot," had killed nearly everyone on Earth, leaving behind a class of ruthless oligarchs and their bootlickers; in the 2018 sequel, Agency, we're promised a closer look at the events of The Jackpot. Between then and now is Archangel, a time-traveling, alt-history, dieselpunk story of power-mad leaders and nuclear armageddon.

In Paper Girls, the celebrated comics creator Brian K Vaughan (Saga, Y: The Last Man, etc) teams up with Cliff Chiang to tell a story that's like an all-girl Stranger Things, with time-travel. Read the rest

Octavia Butler is a name to conjure with: the first African-American woman to rise to prominence in science fiction, Butler's fiction inspired generations of writers by mixing rousing adventure stories with nuanced, razor-sharp parables about race and gender in America; she was the first science fiction writer to be awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant, and her sudden and untimely death left a hole in the hearts of her readers, proteges and admirers.

Brian K Vaughan is one of my very favorite comics creators, though the erratic schedule of Saga, the psychedelic, sexy space opera he and Fiona Staples created has frustrated me at times -- and then I remember that Vaughan is so erratic because he's so busy, creating new titles like 2015's Paper Girls, which Image Comics began to collect in two volumes this year: Book 1 last April, and Book 2 on December 6.

5 years ago, Boing Boing described James Gleick’s The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood as "a jaw-dropping tour de force history of information theory... The Information isn't just a natural history of a powerful idea; it embodies and transmits that idea, it is a vector for its memes (as Dawkins has it), and it is a toolkit for disassembling the world. It is a book that vibrates with excitement, and it transmits that excited vibration with very little signal loss. It is a wonder." Read the rest

Are we alone in the universe? Is time travel possible? If you have sex with a robot, does it count as cheating?

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Essex, England police ticketed Nigel Mills, 55, for speeding in his DeLorean. He was apparently going 88mph (although his top speed was 89mph). Mills insists that he "wasn't trying to time travel."

"Me and the rest of my family enjoyed the Back to the Future films," he said about his purchase of the DeLorean. "When I’m out in it a few people recognise it, they slow down and take pictures – drivers take pictures out of their windows or try to film you and I get approached at petrol stations.”

Mills's ticket was tossed out of court when the two officers who cited him didn't show up. Probably because Mills erased them from existence.

(The Guardian) Read the rest

Joe just wanted to go to the national chemistry convention, but somehow his flight never gets him there. Waking up on a distant planet, where humanity isn't quite as developed, Joe realizes he has been Cast Under an Alien Sun.

Olan Thorensen has written a fun, and fast moving, take on two of my Sci-Fi favorites: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. Joe is an unwilling, and unknowing time traveller. His knowledge of science and technology can save his new society, if he just doesn't scare with his sorcerous ways.

I've already picked up the next in this series, The Pen and the Sword.

Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible) by Olan Thorensen via Amazon Read the rest

Archangel is a five-part science fiction comic written by William Gibson and Michael St. John Smith and illustrated by Butch Guice; Issue #1 came out last month and sold out immediately, and IDW has only just got its second printing into stores this week, just ahead of the ship-date for #2, which is due next Wednesday. Read the rest

Jason Ayres' My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday is a unique time travel novel that spun my head! Ayres' lead, Thomas Scott, lives his life backwards and experiences no consequences for his actions.

Waking up on his death bed with no memories, Thomas Scott expects to be ending his life. The next day, however, he wakes again! Only to find out that he's now living the day previous to his last, things start to get interesting. Scott discovers he is living life backwards, and hopes the actions he is taking lead to a better future for his friends and family, but he'll never find out. Scott never experiences the consequences for his actions, which leads him down paths one might not anticipate.

My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday is certainly a unique and fun approach to time. This is a fresh take on the genre.

My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday by Jason Ayres via Amazon Read the rest

Edward Aubry's Unhappenings is a smart and satisfying time travel novel. I love stories about paradox created by folks moving around in time, and this novel has it in spades.

At age 14 Nigel Walden starts to experience the titular Unhappenings, mundane things in his life seem to random change. The color of his bicycle changes, and conversations he thought he had never occurred, but then his first girlfriend disappears as if she never existed. Every time Nigel gets close to someone, he seemingly causes a catastrophe that leaves the relationship never having happened. As he reaches college, Nigel realizes he must be involved in some sort of time travel. Things only get more complicated.

Aubry's writing is clear, simple and telling. I felt Nigel's emotional traumas and the difficulty of growing up so different, the slower pace of this novel is well employed.

Unhappenings by Edward Aubry via Amazon Read the rest

Improv Everywhere (previously) keeps on bringing the hits, but seriously, this one takes the cake. Read the rest