The Infinite Loop by Pierrick Colinet and Elsa Charretier

The Infinite Loop by Pierrick Colinet and Elsa Charretier is a self-contained comic book mini-series. The blurb caught my eye on NetGalley because of the time travelling lesbians element, which it absolutely delivered on. (I couldn't find a nice cover image for the collected volume, so the image to the right is from issue #1, but I gather the same art is being used for the collection.)

A science-fiction series that asks the age-old question, "What would you risk for a chance at true love?" Meet Teddy, a young woman who lives in a faraway future where time traveling is a common practice and her job is to maintain the status quo by correcting time paradoxes. But when she meets Ano, "a time paradox" and the girl of her dreams, Teddy must decide between fixing the time stream or the love of her life, both of which have unique consequences. A dynamically graphic, science-fictiony, poetical, paradoxical wunderkind of a sexy, time-traveling, adventure-packed comic.

The story is about Teddy who is part of what we could loosely call the time police. Her job is to travel through time and space dealing with anomalies — things that shouldn't be there like dinosaurs in the 20th century. Dealing with anomalies involves erasing them from the continuum so they don't continue to cause trouble. But then Teddy meets a human anomaly, with whom she falls in love.

The somewhat odd thing, that isn't addressed as much as I would have expected, is that the society of future time travellers does not believe in love. They view it as a quaint historical phenomenon and so are shocked when Teddy falls in love. (And also shocked by the fact that the anomaly, Ano, isn't a proper person because she is an anomaly.)

What follows is Teddy running away from the world, discovering a huge conspiracy and fighting to fix everything despite said conspiracy. There are a few confusing time loops — but it's not a proper time travel story if there aren't confusing time loops — and Teddy's path crosses with alternate reality versions of herself.
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And because I was a bit concerned when I was reading, there is indeed a happy ending.

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Overall this was a fun, if slightly confusing, read. I was glad to read a self-contained comic that wasn't part of a longer series. Recommended if you enjoy time travel stories and/or lesbians.

4 / 5 stars

First published: December 2015, IDW Publishing
Series: Yes, but this volume collects the entire series
Format read: eARC
Source: NetGalley