Thank you Fantagraphics for a copy of My Time Machine!

"My Time Machine" takes off when Carol Lay's silver-haired protagonist embarks on a foolhardy odyssey from the politically fraught and environmentally anxious America of 2020 to a bleak, distant future. After inheriting blueprints designed by the Time Traveler of H.G. Wells' historical account, our curious and all-too-human adventurer enlists her genius ex-husband to build a modern version of the time machine. Torn between fixing the past and glimpsing what lies ahead, she chooses to witness how our follies will unfold, hoping to bring back knowledge that might save civilization. Though she expects trouble, the reality proves far worse: by 2035, humanity has not only failed to address climate change, but the world has fallen to fascism. By 2045, society has collapsed into anarchy. Intrigued by the possibilities described in Wells' book, she ventures to the year 802,701 to verify the original Traveler's tale. There, in an inexplicably lush landscape, she faces enemies who drive her toward Earth's final, hellish days."

The narration/dialogue takes some getting used to, but once you get over it, this is a wonderful commentary on our world today! Interesting take on time travelling and the art style is right up my alley.

This is an engaging sci fi graphic novel with a good story and great artwork. The protagonist travels to the future in a Time Machine built by her ex husband. She hopes to find something that will resolve climate change and other problems. It is an entertaining story and a good read.

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The graphic novel explores the concept of time travel in a lighthearted yet thought-provoking way, blending humor with deeper reflections on life and choices. Lay’s art style is charming and perfectly complements the narrative.

I really enjoyed the unique take on time travel, with each vignette offering a fresh perspective. However, some of the story arcs felt a bit rushed, leaving me wanting more depth in certain areas.

Overall, My Time Machine is a delightful exploration of time, memory, and the moments that shape us. It's a fun read that manages to provoke some serious thoughts while keeping the tone light.

This graphic novel was so interesting. It takes inspiration from HG. Wells Time Machine, I loved this. Time travel has always been a huge interest for me, so I had to read this. I loved that the main character wants to go into the future so she will know what to do to make the world better. I recommend this book to anyone who likes time travel, graphic novels and/or is passionate about the environment.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really liked it, stuck with me & would recommend
I thought this charming and bleak all at the same time. Following HG Wells formula for The Time Machine, Lay uses the creation of a modern time machine to postulate what could happen, given our environmental apathy and the future of AI. 

I loved the quirky artwork and the midlife perpective and female point of view of the main character. I also appreciate the relationships to her friend and pet as she goes back and forth into the future.

Thank you to Fantagraphics Books, NetGalley, and author Carol Lay, for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review. My Time Machine is out October 22, 2024.

I am so thankful to Fantagraphics, Carol Lay, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

Well, this one wasn’t for me. Here’s why:
- Something about the narration felt odd to me.
- The art wasn’t for me.
- Sometimes I felt like I was reading about science instead of a fictional story. It got really boring, occasionally.

My Time Machine dares to imagine a world where nothing ever happens. Carol Lay’s new comic is an intentionally mundane take on time travel. The blasé attitude is charming at first but quickly exhausting, as this comic drowns you in dialogue and exposition. The art does not do much to enhance the story or emotion with its stiff figures and simplistic design. This approach is interesting conceptually—the Time Machine moves only in time and never in space and so our intrepid hero experiences the future first in small jumps and then millions of years ahead. There are some potentially compelling techniques you could use to make this conceit visually exciting or compelling in ways unique to comics. (Richard McGuire’s Here comes to mind, with its single POV unchanging over millennia). 

There is no such flair here. The backdrop changes a bit in the near future but our traveler never moves beyond the confines of her home. As a result we the readers experience this future only through pages of characters talking. She does not encounter the future and neither do we.

In "My Time Machine: Carol Lay has created and intelligent and thought provoking book that will engage and challenge readers. Nominally a time travel adventure story, the book uses H.G Well’s famous story "The Time Machine" as the basis for a deep and nuanced look at the current state of global affairs. Part cautionary tale, part literary tribute and complete nerd fest this is a book for readers who love introspection and fear that the future might be just as bad as we imagine,

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Fantagraphics Books, for providing me with a eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Fantagraphics, Fantagraphics Books, and Carol Lay for the opportunity to read this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.

Generally set in 2020, My Time Machine follows an older female character whose ex-husband has built a successful time machine. His experiments come from the H.G. Wells novel "The Time Machine," as he considers it so be fact rather than fiction. With this mindset, he stays in the past while his ex-wife travels into the future to look for a solution to climate change.

The various decades offer an interesting glimpse of a possible future based on people's ways in today's world. This graphic novel is a harrowing tale that shed slight on the changes humanity needs to make TODAY in order to exist TOMORROW. Readers will certainly identify some political bias, though anyone interested in science, climate, change, and the future will find this an intriguing read.

In My Time Machine, our protagonist (who bears a striking resemblance to author Carol Lay) literally travels millions of years into the future, in a time machine built by her ex-husband. Finding herself stranded, waiting for the machine to reset, our traveler remembers her previous stops just a few decades ahead of 2024, and things do not look good for the human race.

This graphic novel was absolutely terrifying. The predictions of how California will look mere decades from now makes for brutal reading. Especially upsetting was a brief mention of the eventual fate of household pets. And given the upcoming election, there were a few sections that were just a little too close to home right now.

But I loved reading My Time Machine. Lays illustrations are clear, and her visualizations of the act of traveling through time are really beautiful. The one thing I really appreciated about this book is that it’s set in a world where H.G Wells novel, The Time Machine, is treated as fact, and the blueprints for the titular machine were inherited from Wells. A really beautiful touch.

My Time Machine is a genuinely exciting, thoughtful adventure, with a wonderful protagonist.

Thank you the NetGalley for this review copy.


I will not be finishing this book. This book couldn’t keep my interested. The writing style wasn’t for me and I found the story boring. It could grab my attention.

My Time Machine takes the Time Traveler story to spin it around current issues such as climate change, authoritarianism, and the loss of the world we knew. In this graphic novel, our hero is an older woman whose genius ex-husband builds a time machine after the Time Traveler’s blueprints. She’s determined to try it out and she does - taking us further through 2040, 2045, and then much, much further, to 800,000 and beyond. The book follows her thoughts, her relationship with her divorced husband and with her cat, Buddy, and jumps from memory-to-present, creating another sort of time-travel within it. I was caught in its philosophical whirlwinds which ask some of the right questions, in a very simple way. Delightful!

Although the story is very much inspired by H G Wells' “The Time Machine”, it’s a beautiful read even without having read Wells’ work.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Fantagraphics Books for the e-arc!

Carol Lay masterfully uses the visual approach of the graphic novel to explore elements both realistic and fantastic. The art and artistic storytelling are well worth favoring.

As a fan of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, I had to read this one. It’s a modern take, filled with funny pop culture references and reflections on what might have been wrong with the first machine—and what someone might actually do with such a device. And it’s a tough question to answer. Should I do this? Should I try that? Should I go back and kill Hitler (of course)? And so on. It’s a fascinating exploration of what could happen… but clearly, this traveler takes way too many stupid risks after being so cautious initially. By the end, I felt like I needed therapy. And a hug from my cat.

I received this DRC from NetGalley.

The artwork was fine, but the colors were mostly bland. The blurb on this sold it really hard and told the entire plotline so there aren't any surprises, and I didn't find anything particularly funny or suspenseful about it regardless. It does comment on climate change and presidents (without naming names) very directly. But really, the whole thing felt pretty anticlimactic, and it's not like they're going to do anything to save the earth; they're only going to take a few measures to make sure their own lives are a bit better, so really, they hardly did anything except allow an older woman to take a fun trip that should have allowed for some cool artwork when she gets to the far future. The references to California were nice, though.

Once I realised what this comic wouod be covering plus how short it was I very quickly came to the realisation that it wasn't gonna be enoigh pages to do the concept justice, therefore I've made the decision to dnf this, I had access to the arc so I'd like to think there will be time for them to rethink the length but I doubt this wilk be the case so as of now it's a no for me.

This reminds me of The Martian by Andy Weir. In this graphic novel the main character travels through time in hope to find a solution for climate change. It first shows us her stop 30 million years into the future. While she’s there, to pass the time she writes a journal log of her adventures. And we see the whole story play out from there.

It was a very entertaining read and the art was wonderful. This book focused on the climate crisis and the grim future we could face. Do I think this book is realistic in terms of how our future will look? Yes and no. I think the idea is right at least. That we’re heading down a gloomy path.

What if you could go to the future, see how things are, in order to come back and make things better? That is the plot of this graphic novel by Carol Lay. At times bleak and frightening, it also always has a sliver of hope that it is not too late to make things better.

My Time Machine: A Graphic Novel by Carol Lay is an interesting, funny and visually interesting combination of science fiction, social political satire and adventure. A strong female protagonist embarks on a emotional eye and mind opening journey through time to save humanity from itself and spark meaningful change.

The use of colorful art, flashbacks, and interesting thought experiments and having science and artistic type characters in witty playful banter keep the storyline quite literally "moving forward".

This cautionary tale is slyly serious and timely in a blink and it's happening again kind of way.