Image: art by Fred Fordham via Tor.com

Philip Pullman is best-known for the His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy; its first book, The Golden Compass, was adapted into a feature film in 2007. Now the author is trying something new with his first graphic novel, which has a most excellent premise: it’s about a time-traveling ghost ship.


The book is titled The Adventures of John Blake: Mystery of the Ghost Ship, and is actually a collection of panels illustrated by Fred Fordham that have already been serialized in a British weekly story comic, The Phoenix. Though it’s aimed at a younger crowd, the description on Tor.com makes it sound like it’d be a fun read at any age:

Trapped in the mists of time by a terrible research experiment gone wrong, John Blake and his mysterious ship are doomed to sail between the centuries, searching for a way home. In the ocean of the modern day, John and the crew rescue a shipwrecked young girl his own age, Serena, and promise to help. But returning Serena to her own time means traveling to the one place where the ship is in most danger of destruction. The all-powerful Dahlberg Corporation has an ambitious leader with plans far greater and more terrible than anyone has realized, and he is hot on their trail. For only John, Serena, and the crew know Dahlberg’s true intentions, and only they have the power to stop him from bending the world to his will…


To reiterate: TIME-TRAVELING GHOST SHIP. The Adventures of John Blake will be published on both sides of the pond in June 2017.

[Tor.com]