A vintage comic panel from Gold Key's tie-in to The Time Tunnel shows two men, Doug and Tony, tumbling through a brightly coloured, surreal time vortex. Speech bubbles read, “Doug, we’re slowing! We’re going to stop, but where?” and “Not where, Tony—but when?” Art by Tom Gill.
The first thing that grabbed me about The Time Tunnel was the opening sequence of Doug and Tony tumbling through the time vortex. Even on my grandparents’ old black-and-white television back in 1968, the effect was utterly mesmerising. Artist Tom Gill’s interpretation of the time vortex for the two issues of Gold Key’s Time Tunnel comic was very different, but equally effective in its own right. Of course, you have to get past Tony’s sweater being yellow instead of green, and whatever getup Doug is wearing instead of the Norfolk suit he wore on the telly. I also liked that, in the strip, the two American scientists were allowed to have a chat as they fell through time. Gill’s interpretation of the time vortex is not unlike the Negative Zone as seen in the Fantastic Four comics (In fact, I’ve long wondered whether Kirby himself might have been inspired by The Time Tunnel when creating Reed Richards’ portal to another dimension). It’s a surreal mix of swirling shapes and giant chain molecules. I think it’s wonderful, and I’ve often wondered what it might look like as a practical effect onscreen. Well, today it occurred to me that AI could most likely realise Tom Gill’s artwork as it might have appeared onscreen, so I fed in a prompt and voilà! Okay, the scientists don’t look like James Darren or Robert Colbert, but the AI was working from a scan of a panel from a very old comic. I think this ‘real-world’ version of Gill’s time vortex is every bit as delightfully surreal as I’d hoped.
Artist Tom Gill’s surreal take on the time vortex in Gold Key’s Time Tunnel comic was very different from the 1960's TV version, but just as effective. I’ve often wondered what it might look like as a practical effect, so I asked AI to bring it to life… voilà!
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