Acid Box Blends Time Travel, '90s Nostalgia, and Music Culture

We at IGN have long been big fans of writer Kieron Gillen, whose Immortal X-Men won IGN's Best Comic Book Series or Original Graphic Novel of 2022 award. So when Gillen sings the praises of another comic, we're always going to sit up and take notice. That's why Acid Box, a new graphic novel heavily steeped in the UK's '90s music scene, is now on our radar this year. Gillen writes, "Dancefloor history meets family history via psychic reality-skipping quest. Take your brain to another dimension. Pay close attention.”

With the crowdfunding campaign for Acid Box now live, IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of this stylish graphic novel. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

Acid Box is a collaboration between writer Sara Kenney and artists James Devlin, Emma Vieceli, and Ria Grix, with colors by Sofie Dodgson, and lettering by Hassan Otsman-Elhaou. The book is being published through Avery Hill.

Here's the official description for Acid Box:

In Acid Box, Jade Nyo just wants to listen to some music and to get wasted. And then, late one night while out clubbing with her brother, Jade meets a mysterious trio of women who call themselves the Liminals, who tell Jade she must help them avert a global disaster. They give Jade an Acid Box, which controls portals through space and time. Only the Acid Box is broken, and when Jade travels back in time to 1994, she discovers that changing history might be too much for just one person to fix....

“Is your happy place a bouncing dance floor?” said Kenney in a statement. “Are you nostalgic for the parties of the ‘90s? Are you determined to have fun even on the brink of disaster? Do messy main characters give you life? Is supporting art communities and youth access to those communities important to you? Do you just love comics? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you will not want to miss Acid Box.”

"Telling a story that combines music, time travel, and adventure, Acid Box is an emotional graphic novel about the state of climate change around the globe, and an important commentary on personal responsibility," said Avery Hill Publisher Ricky Miller. "When Sara contacted me about Avery Hill getting involved in putting out this book, I was immediately attracted to the themes and subject matter. It’s a story about power, control, and nature, as well as dancing, recreational drugs and dance music in the '90s! As someone who is from the '90s I could identify with this, although I was too nerdy to go to raves; I was probably at home reading comics. This is a really enjoyable read for those who were there in the '90s and even for those who weren’t there (and if you remember it then you probably weren’t there anyway, right?)."

The Kickstarter campaign for Acid Box is live now.

For more on the world of comics, learn more about what to expect from Jonathan Hickman's Imperial, and check out our exclusive interview with the writers of TMNT: The Last Ronin II.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.