SFX

PATIENCE

The Time- Traveler’s Dead Wife

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released OUT NOW! Publisher Jonathan Cape Writer/ artist Daniel Clowes

graphic novel The release of new work by Ghost World creator Dan Clowes is an extremely rare event, so it’s doubly exciting that his latest is a time travel tale.

It follows Jack Barlow, an average shlubb who comes home one day to find his pregnant wife’s been murdered. The title references both her name and his obsessive commitment to finding her killer. When, in 2029, Jack stumbles across a means of time travel, he switches his target from avenging Patience’s death to preventing it…

Clowes fans will immediatel­y feel at home among all the signature elements of his style: the sardonic way even lovers talk, the speech bubbles littered with phrases like “tit- germs” and “total penises”; the vibrant, darklyinke­d art, with its cavalcade of characterf­ul faces and bad haircuts. It’s a delight to see Clowes draw the future, so it’s almost a shame that the bulk of the story’s set in 2006 or 1985.

It’s a strangely touching book – a scabrous love story, simultaneo­usly cynical and tender. The damaged, middle- aged Jack is an incompeten­t temporal investigat­or whose methods are morally dubious, but the lengths he’s willing to go to in the name of love impress. Though the killer’s identity is guessable, we’re given enough red herrings to keep the mystery involving. It’s not a particular­ly satisfying conclusion – but that doesn’t matter too much. For all that this is Jack’s story, some of Patience’s real strengths are shared with Ghost World: the way it unflinchin­gly observes the trials of a young woman negotiatin­g the difficult transition to adulthood. Ian Berriman

Clowes spent five years creating Patience. Until he finished it, he didn’t show a page to anyone – not even his wife or publisher.

A scabrous love story, at once cynical and tender

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Operation : the psychedeli­c board game.

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