In the Moment v1 cover image detail for header
|

“In the Moment” – A Time-Based Romantic, uhm, Thriller?

Talk about your high concept comics.

This one posits the concept that we are Chrono People, living our lives in seconds, minutes and hours.

But there’s also the Decimal People. They’re the ones who live in nanoseconds and femtoseconds.

They live amongst us, but never touching us because that would cause our deaths. Their lifespans are such that they’ll die before we ever move. And they move so fast that we never see them all around us, living between our moments in the space we don’t occupy.

Here’s how they explain it in the first volume:

A page from "In the Moment" v1 that explains the high concept of the book.
Click to see the full-sized page.

This is the story of the Decimal Man who falls in love with the Chrono Woman, the troubles that causes, and a desperate attempt to solve all their problems.

It’s wacky, it’s high concept, it’s slightly tragic, and it’s just plain bizarre.

I loved it.

Chrono-Credits

Cover to volume 1 of "In the Moment"


Writers: Hanco Kolk
Artist: Hanco Kolk and Kim Duchateau 
Colorist:Marloes Deckers
Translator: James Vandermeersch
Published by: Ballon/Europe Comics
Number of Pages: 138 (total)
Original Publication: 2016

What’s Going On?

Sylvia steels herself to get some work done, after some bad experiences downstairs.

Sylvia arrives in Sag Harbor (way out on Long Island), determined to get some work done while staying at a quaint bed and breakfast type of place. Just as her finger heads for her laptop’s power button, Decimal World’s Rafael bursts through her door and she freezes.

The lettering of the narration changes. We’ve just switched worlds into his, where we’ll be for nearly the rest of the two book series. Rafael’s world works much faster. His world shares the Chrono’s world, but works around them. He helps himself into his bed (her bed in her time’s world) and spends the night before her finger can move even a millimeter forward. The worlds are so different, he’ll be dead of old age before her fingers moves a millimeter.

But, he finds himself falling in love with Sylvia. He wants to watch over her. He quits his job to work in the hotel so he can continue to watch her. And as creepy as that sounds, he’s there to help her when she’s put in danger, even if he doesn’t fully understand her.

Rafael expresses confusion living in the land of the Chronos, when he is a Decimal.  A panel from "In the Moment" v1

It’s in the second book where he and Sylvia are on the run. It’s a death sentence to touch her, but she’s in a wheelchair. He can push her chair around without making contact with her. And given the differences in time, he can push that chair all sorts of places you might not think of at first — like over water.

To save Sylvia, Rafael will do anything, and he’ll spend the rest of his life at it. We’ll meet other rogues in the universe, spend some time in hiding, visit the worst, most congested place you could imagine wanting to visit as a Decimal, and finally find out just how successful Rafael was.

It’s all laid out and explained very easily, so don’t worry about the math hurting your brain. If you’re anything like me, you’ll gloss a little over the femtos and nanos and just trust that the author got it all straight.

Misreading the Signals

Do you remember those stories about people from the future misinterpeting our present based on what little evidence remains of our existence? I seem to recall a book with that plot that was popular when I was a kid, so I know it’s not a new idea.

It would be easy to be wildly wrong with our assumptions on how people lived based on incomplete evidence.

There’s talk today of that being true with our visions of dinosaurs. Beyond just the feather thing, there’s talk of dinosaurs that might have been super fat but we don’t know about it because the fossil record can’t show it. Or what if their feathers had a specific funky color pattern that made them the ugliest dinosaurs ever?

We’d never know.

What is Sylvia pointing at?  (Her laptop power button)  Rafael thinks it says a lot about her.

In Rafael’s case, he lives in a world where the Chrono people are stuck. There’s talk about how some of them are more than a day old, which is a ridiculously long lifespace for a Decimal person. They celebrate nanoseconds as if they’re new year holidays, after all.

In this book’s case, Rafael spends the book interpreting Sylvia’s pointing motion. He reads all sorts of things into it. What’s she trying to show him? Is she pointing in the direction she wants to go? Is she pointing to danger?

No, she’s just reaching out for the power button on her laptop. But he manages to read so much more into it. It’s comical. It’s also a good lesson in making assumptions based on incomplete evidence.

The Decimal People

There’s a large part of the first chunk of the book that’s spent addressing the issues of a world where Chrono People live in a Decimal People’s existence.

There’s a fundamental lack of understanding for basic things. The Decimal People study the Chrono People as if they’re part of nature, like the whole world is a zoo. (Rafael starts the book as an employee of the Long Island Nature Inspection Chrono Dept.)

Chronos at a table are a museum display for the Decimals. From "In the Moment" v1

The Decimals treat the Chronos like museum displays, but also obstacles to be avoided. The masses need to be taught everything they know about the world and their co-habitants.

It just reminds me of those science fiction short stories I read in my teenage years, which were based on one scientific fact being altered and all the effects that would have on humanity, both larger and small. This book explores it, but only as far as the points it needs to make for this specific story. It could be interesting to see more stories set in this world to see what other unintended side effects of living between the nanoseconds there might be.

But, Wait, There’s Another Twist!

You may have noticed in the credits that there are two artists listed. That’s not because one is the penciler and one is the inker. That’s so North American-thinking of you.

No, the book is drawn in half, basically. One artist handles all the Chrono People, while the other handles the Decimal side of things. It looks like the Dutch Kolk draws Sylvia and the Chrono world side of things, while the Flemish Duchateau handles Rafael’s side in the Digital world.

The styles are very different. Kolk’s is sleek and spare. His linework is almost minimalist, but has a good flow to it. Lines are deliberately weighted and leave wide open areas for the water colors to do their work. It feels almost fashion-influenced, particularly when you see how some of the bystanders are posed.

Duchateau’s art is far less sleek. It reminds me a bit of an indy auto-bio comix artist of the 90s. The characters are awkward and cartoony looking. None of them are particularly good-looking. It works well in the guise of this book. It shows the marked difference between the two worlds instantly. There’s never any doubt as to which part of a scene comes from which world, either in characters or backgrounds. That’s important for the story.

A Chrono couple is frozen in the hotel room as Rafael makes their bed.
Rafael makes the bed. The Chronos are moving very, very slowly…

That’s helped in the coloring, where the ink lines of the opposite world are often grayed out to help differentiate between the “layers” of the worlds. When Rafael is working in the hotel and making a bed, the young lovers about to jump into the bed are frozen in space in all their glory. Rafael is all gray lines and desaturated colors.

In both cases, the style of this book isn’t like the traditional French album. It’s not five tiers of panels, each tier with multiple panels and lot of background details. This one is much more open, by comparison. Panels fall into each other and across the page. It’s very much a page turner. This book reads quickly, both because it’s interesting and you want to see what’s next, but also because there’s less material on each page. These are larger images.

Even given how talkative this book can be, that always comes second to the visuals. You need to look at the page to read the story, not just read the balloons and let your mind fill in the rest.

It’s a big idea that’s well illustrated as a story. It isn’t reliant on flashy technology or some other kind of futuristic mechanicals. It’s very down-to-earth. The art matches that, while sticking with a good amount of style.

Recommended?

Volume 1
Volume 2

Yes, it’s a nice high concept science fiction tale. You might want to wait for a sale, since it’s a single story over two $9 books. Each is around 70 pages, so you’re not being cheated, necessarily.

Also, the break between book 1 and book 2 has a natural cliffhanger that will get you opening the next book immediately.

The dual artists is more than just a gimmick. That gimmick helps to sell the story, but it doesn’t take it over. It’s not all about the two art styles on each page. It’s still about Rafael and Sylvia.

The ending is — surprising, interesting, and well conceived given everything the books set up prior to it. I think your final enjoyment of this book will depend on whether you buy into the ending or not. I found it as well thought out as the rest of the book, but I wonder if some people expecting a different type of ending will just be disappointed.

If you’re looking for a more science fiction-based time travel story, give “Aion” a try.

— 2019.011 —

Buy It Now


What do YOU think? (First time commenters' posts may be held for moderation.)

7 Comments

  1. Intriguing.
    The start sounds definitely creepy, he’s basically a stalker.
    For me to buy into SF like this there must be some degree of consistency, like the factor of speed between one world and the other. there are very clear implications, from a physics perspective, that would make this highly impractical. for example walking on water never did fly by me back when I was reading the silver age Flash.
    The art looks interesting though, so I’m curious, I’ll see if I can find it over here, what’s the original title?

    1. Yes, it has the potential for creepiness, though it doesn’t cross any physical line. He does come off like a bit of an obsessed idiot, though, but that shifts a bit to a more helpful role for the second half of the book. And there is some physics stuff involved that I think you’ll like…

      The original title was “De Man Van Nu”. which I think is Dutch…

  2. I have an enormous backlog of stuff to read at this point but if I come across this I’ll definitely give it a try.
    Any idea why this page does not show up as a link on the main one or in the review section?

    1. It’s maddening. When I load the page on Chrome, I get the two most recent articles. When I load it in Safari, I don’t. Let me go check Firefox…. It’s missing in Firefox, too, which I always keep in Private Mode, so it’s not like it’s reading from a cache. This is nuts. Thanks for letting me know. I need to go find some more settings to tweak. Sigh

        1. No worries. Many times over the years I considered having my own blog, but when I imagine how much energy you must spend on maintenance, based on knowledge that I do not have, I shrug.

  3. De Man Van Nu is Dutch. You should also try the Meccano series by Hanco Kolk. but it is a mature title.