Every so often, a cover comes along that makes you stop, stare, and wonder if you’ve accidentally wandered into the adult coloring book aisle at Walmart instead of the sci-fi/fantasy section. Full Throttle to the Past is that cover.
Let’s begin with the obvious: the whole thing looks like someone tore out a page from Coloring Books for Midwestern Mechanics and slapped a title on it. The crosshatching. The neon red-green palette. The stiffly posed mustachioed men. If this isn’t “relaxing afternoon with colored pencils while reminiscing about your 2005 Chevy Malibu,” I don’t know what is.
And speaking of that car—yes, dear reader, the Chevy Malibu gets a front-row cameo here, proudly stamped with the year “2005” as if this is a time machine of mediocrity. Forget DeLoreans, apparently the secret to temporal travel is a mid-range family sedan that screams “divorcee starter pack.”
The title, Full Throttle to the Past, is delivered with the same energy as a dad joking about “flooring it” while merging onto the freeway. Pair that with the two lookalike men (seriously, are these clones? or just one man in different shirts?) glaring into the middle distance, and we’re left with a cover that feels less like time-travel literature and more like an HR safety training pamphlet gone rogue.
Nothing about this artwork suggests polish, professionalism, or—frankly—storytelling. Instead, it lands with the dull thud of amateur illustration, a DIY project where the ambition of “retro comic book vibes” collapsed into “clip-art for boomers.”
Verdict: A tragic mashup of time travel and Crayola’s My First Noir Coloring Book.