'Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy: Time Trout' by Doug Savage is another crazy adventure with woodland creatures, featuring a moose who shoots lasers out of his eyes.

When a time traveler from the future falls in to a creek, a trout swallow his time travel device and wreaks havoc with his tiny brain. Included in the zaniness is Aquabear, a foe that Laser Moose previously beat. Before the end, there are all kinds of knots tied in the timestream.

While I didn't find this volume quite as fun as previous volumes, it was still a fun read. The art is fun, and the weird things that happen are sure to keep young readers turning pages.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This one's a zany wild ride! I would recommend for lovers of time travel and the series Bird and Squirrel and Chickenhare.

Nothing is more fun in an absurd book than time travel. While serious sci-fi must grapple with the logical inconsistencies in time travel, an absurdist story can play with those same elements without explanation. Self-fulfilling time loops, that sort of thing. When well done it's always funny. And for all it's weirdness, Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy is always well done. It helps that there is other ridiculousness included. Like Laser Moose shooting the leg off of the same deer in every book.

When I read this graphic novel a couple of months ago I didn’t find it anywhere near as funny as I’d expected. I thought the first two ‘Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy’ adventures were very giggle-worthy when I discovered them two years ago so naturally I needed to reread them. Now that I’ve reintroduced myself to my favourite moose that shoots lasers out of his eyes and his sidekick rabbit I wanted to reread ‘Time Trout’

In ‘The Traveler’ we meet, well, the traveler. Obviously! They’re human and pretty happy to have succeeded in their mission to travel back in time. Their awe at the beauty of their surroundings quickly morphs into panic as they fall into the water, losing their futuristic flux capacitor in the process. Naturally a trout swallows this time travel device and almost immediately travels through time.

If future guy had bothered to watch ‘Back to the Future’ they’d know that Deloreans are the only way to time travel (unless you have a spare train laying around) and have the advantage of being too large for anyone to accidentally ingest.

Anyway, our trout finds himself in the past, just before the time he became an important part of a disco ball chain reaction. This chain reaction was possibly caused by an evil chickadee, if in fact he is as evil as Laser Moose suspects.

Meanwhile, Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy are taking Frank to Doc because Laser Moose zaps his leg off (again!) before the story officially began. Poor Frank! For the first time in the series we actually get to meet the doctor who sews all of Frank’s accidentally amputated limbs back on.

On another one of the trout’s time jumps he accidentally brings Aquabear with him to the present. Eventually Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy join the trout in the future, just in time to witness the aliens from ‘The Invasion’ arriving for their return visit. They’ve brought some friends with them this time. Our time travellers come up with a plan to hopefully fix everything that’s gone wrong so far and jump back into the time stream.

In ‘The Aquabear’ the plan doesn’t go how it’s supposed to but it does result in Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy meeting Frank for the first time. Again. Poor Frank! Off to Doc we go! Despite everything that keeps going wrong the trout decides he likes this time travel business and wants to keep doing it, which leads us to ‘The Falls’ where we almost get to witness Laser Moose’s origin story. Things go very wrong again before possibly going somewhere in the vicinity of right. During the course of events Laser Moose meets a new friend, Gonk the dinosaur, who I hope will make their way into future adventures.

I definitely enjoyed ‘Time Trout’ much more during my reread. Without the necessary context provided by the two previous graphic novels, repeated jokes and background details don’t have any significance. I also appreciated the cameos made by the eagle, the evil chickadee, Mechasquirrel and Gus in this graphic novel more the second time around.

‘Disco Fever’ remains my favourite read of the series but while I gave this graphic novel 3 stars during my first read, I’m now rounding up from 3.5 stars.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity to read this graphic novel.


Original Review 24 July 2019 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay, so this doesn’t compute for me. After enthusiastically slapping ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy’s two previous adventures I eagerly began reading this one and didn’t find it funny. It has time travel in it, one of my all time favourite things to read about and imagine and place on my bucket list. Plus I love these guys! I need to investigate further because I can’t leave it like this.

Has it been too long since I last saw Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy? Have I forgotten some in jokes?

Has my sense of humour gone MIA today?

Has the shine worn off this series for me? Please don’t let it be that!

I need to reread their other adventures so I can come back to this one with hopefully a better appreciation of it and with my sense of humour intact.

Delightfully absurd.

I seem to have delved in midway through the series so I may have missed out on a few inside jokes, but it reads well as a standalone. I very much enjoyed the art style, and the text was easy to read.

When a time traveler from the future arrives, slips into the river, and Trout swallows his time traveling device thinking it is a grasshopper, things get a little bit crazy in the woods. It turns out that Trout can control the device with his mind. Soon things get a little too crazy and Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy think Trout needs to get rid of the device. But Trout has been enjoying being the hero and having adventures for once. Why can’t he keep on doing that?

The time travel plot allows readers the pleasure of visiting past adventures of Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy, seeing some possible futures, and gaining a new friend in the forest. Poor Frank probably gets the worst end of this time travel business in that he loses a leg I don’t know how many times. I like that given the chance to change his lonely past, Laser Moose decides to not do anything because he recognizes that both the good and bad experiences of his past have shaped him to be the person he is today. A good example for kids in a world where everyone wants to take the easy route that hardships can be good in our lives. This quirky series may be just the thing that picky reader is looking for, or that gets reluctant readers into reading. Also try it out with scifi fans, and of course, graphic novel lovers.

Notes on content: No language issues or sexual content. As mentioned, Frank loses a leg to Laser Moose’s eyes multiple times. It looks like a ham and isn’t very bloody. Another friend just stitches it back on for him. Some other creatures get laser beamed and are injured but seem overall ok.

I received an ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the first two books in this graphic novel series and I really enjoyed this one as well. It's fast-paced, funny, and fun. I would recommend this to my patrons ages 8-11 who have a darker sense of humor.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read this book in ARC form. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer to simply advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

The thing you have to understand about the Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy books is that it is not only silly, but absurd. So, once you get past that, you can enjoy the weirdness of these stories.

This one is a bit weirder than the others in that it involves time travel with a fish. A trout swallows a time travel device from a future time traveler, and then bops around in time, some of which has Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy in them, and some where they are not.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5285" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-24-at-12.10.34-AM.png" alt="laser moose" />

I like the reasoning of why the fish ate it. Because the time device might be a grasshopper, and he wouldn't want to miss out on it.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5284" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-24-at-12.15.32-AM.png" alt="Laser moose" />

We almost learn the origin of Laser Moose, but then the characters decide to not interfere, so we don't learn how it came out in this volume of the series.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5283" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-24-at-8.42.20-AM.png" alt="Laser moose" />

And after the story is over, there is a discussion of the science behind time travel.

A fun time was had by all.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for and honest review.