MARK MILLAR & SEAN MURPHY Go Time Travelling with CHRONONAUTS

Back in 1969 as the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong said it was one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

However, Armstrong didn’t have a time machine with him that day. Two of the hottest contributors in comics today are set to leap even greater, with Chrononauts, a comic to be released under Image. Mark Millar, most-known as the writer of titles such as Kick-Ass and Jupiter’s Legacy in his own Millarworld imprint, teams up with fan-favorite artist Sean Murphy, who worked on Vertigo titles The Wake and Punk Rock Jesus, to bring this surreal story to life.

With a merging of the concepts of time travel and space exploration, Millar on an interview with Entertainment Weekly‘s Shelf Life described it as Apollo 13 meets The Time Machine. “‘Man’s first step into the past’ was really the starting point for this, planting an American flag in the soil the day before even Christopher Columbus arrives. But of course it all goes horribly wrong and so we have these two guys stranded in the time-stream, trying to get home, but at the same time at this incredible advantage the people around them don’t have.”

Murphy said that it wasn’t just Millar who thought he was perfect for pencilling this book. “When Mark first sent me the pitch, I remember showing it to my wife. She looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God—this book is so you!’ I rarely get to work on a script with comedy, so this entire project has been a real treat,”

As regards to the technology present in the title, Murphy did some time traveling of his own found ideas from what was seen in the past. “For the sci-fi designs, I created the suits to be a bit retro—like F1 racing suits from the 1960s. It’s a bit more fun and whimsical, and fits the tone of the characters better. A lot of sci-fi tries to reinvent the wheel; for Chrononauts, I went through the last three decades and picked a mix of the coolest stuff that would also feel familiar. That way the readers can focus more on the story and less on the tech.”

With the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and Back to the Future opening fans to the ideas of space and time as driving forces for incredible stories, Millar hopes to get the best from both worlds. “It’s essentially a buddy story about two best friends who can jump around between 16th-century Persia, the American Civil War or New York in the ’20s,”

Matt Hollingsworth and Chris Eliopoulos will be joining Millar and Murphy on coloring and lettering duties, respectively.

Chrononauts blasts off with its first issue on March 2015.