Graphic Novel Reviews: The Clock

There’s something very unsettling and meta about reading a graphic novel about a pandemic DURING a pandemic. While we survive daily with the threat of COVID-19, the people of THE CLOCK are dealing with a very fast terminal cancer. What unveils for them… let’s just say I really hope we aren’t dealing with government corruption and control regarding Coronavirus….

Ambassador Joe and his son Jack are on a relief mission to Nigeria, taking food and supplies to small villages who are sick and hurting. Jack, a virologist, is also taking blood and tissue samples from the tribespeople to help diagnose the origins of this particular strain of cancer that is gaining speed. What he finds? This new cancer is killing anyone and everyone with a predisposition to cancer. He estimates that within weeks, 3 billion people will die. While making this speech only to a group of top government and military officials, Jack soon learns that “we have a problem” is never something you want to hear anyone say… and the assassination bullets ring home that fact.

Author Matt Hawkins (THINK TANK, SWING, TALES OF HONOR) states in the post pages that only the first two of these four issues came out before our COVID pandemic hit in March of 2020, and that this graphic novel is the first place issues 3 and 4 are being published. Given the plot of the story, it made the seriousness of the outbreak sink into the reader much deeper, or at least it did to me. THE CLOCK will be very interesting to go back to in a few years and see if we dealt with our aftermath the way they dealt with theirs. 

Regardless of where your opinions lie on the pandemic we wear our masks daily to avoid are, THE CLOCK reminds readers that things are not always what they seem AND that in today’s world, panic escalates much quicker than we can usually contain. 

A timely read. A recommended read. Ages 14 and up.