THE PATROLMAN Brings Dark Dystopian Sci-Fi to Time Bomb Comics

Time Bomb Comics is stepping into its 20th anniversary with something fresh, weird, dark, and just twisted enough to get my attention. The Patrolman: Book One, from writer Nick Twyford and artist Will Chetwynd, is kicking off a planned five-volume dystopian sci-fi series, with the first book heading to Kickstarter at the end of September.

The book will officially launch at Thought Bubble Comic Con in November, with both Twyford and Chetwynd in attendance. For an indie publisher hitting the 20-year mark, that is one hell of a milestone, and Time Bomb is not treating it like some quiet little anniversary dinner either. They are using the occasion to roll out new projects like The Patrolman while also bringing back what they are calling definitive versions of some of their classic titles.

Now, here is where The Patrolman gets interesting. This is not your clean, shiny, hopeful future where everybody wears silver jumpsuits and somehow owns a flying car. The series drops us into an alternate London controlled by a corrupt Lord Mayor and the corporate vultures keeping him comfortably in power. The whole setup already sounds like somebody looked at politics, capitalism, and superhero mythology, tossed them into a blender, and said, “Yeah, make that uglier.”

The twist is even better. The Lord Mayor’s heroic archnemesis, The Patrolman, is dead. Instead of celebrating and moving on with his miserable little empire, the Lord Mayor gets bored. So what does a bored authoritarian do when he no longer has a hero around to fight? Apparently, he decides to train a replacement.

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That right there is the kind of hook I can get behind. You have a villain who actually misses having opposition, a city rotten from the top down, and a new Patrolman being shaped by the very system he is eventually supposed to challenge. There is a lot of room in that premise for satire, action, comedy, and some seriously messed-up power dynamics.

Time Bomb publisher Steve Tanner is clearly confident in what Twyford and Chetwynd have built, and the company is already laying out a regular release schedule for the series.

“Nick and Will have created something special with The Patrolman, and I’m thrilled to be publishing it as Time Bomb approaches its 20th anniversary year. A new volume, every six months, until the full story can be told!”

That six-month schedule is ambitious, but I like seeing an indie publisher come in with an actual plan instead of dropping one book and disappearing into the fog for three years. If they can stick to the schedule, readers will be getting a new volume twice a year until the full five-book story is complete.

Writer Nick Twyford also sounds like somebody who knows exactly how much work has gone into this thing, while still keeping expectations grounded.

“Patrolman is new, it’s (hopefully) fresh, and if we’ve done our job right, it’s interesting, exciting and funny. And even if I haven’t, it’s worth it alone for Will’s art… We’ve been working on this for a long time. We’re throwing everything at it and doing our best to get it right. Hopefully that enthusiasm and passion will show on the page.”

I dig that answer because there is no fake Hollywood sales pitch in there. They have been grinding on the book, they believe in it, and they want the work to speak for itself. At the indie level, that passion matters because readers can usually tell when a project exists because somebody genuinely needed to make it versus somebody just chasing whatever genre is hot this month.

With five books planned, a dystopian London setting, superhero mythology getting flipped on its head, and Time Bomb Comics heading into its 20th anniversary, The Patrolman could end up being a very interesting piece of the publisher’s next chapter. Now the real test comes when Book One lands in readers’ hands and we see just how nasty this version of London really gets.

You can sign up now to be notified when The Patrolman: Book One launches on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/timebomb/the-patrolman-book-one

For more on Time Bomb Comics, check them out below:

Time Bomb Comics on Bluesky

Official Time Bomb Comics Website

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