Tim Traveller

Tim Traveller was a fictional character and comic strip in the UK comic The Beano. He first appeared in issue 2862, dated 24 May 1997, as part of a continuing set of six new comic strips where the one with the most votes would be voted into the comic by readers.

The first strip featured Tim looking for a bicycle in the town dump, and finding an unusual one. Pulling a dial at the front he was transported to caveman times, at which point he realised the bike could travel through time. He and Crazy for Daisy were the joint winners of the poll, beating Camp Cosmos, Have a Go Jo, Sydd and Trash Can Ally. It was drawn by Vic Neill until his death in 2000. However, Neill strips continued to run for some time in the comic as they had been stockpiled. Once these had run out, Keith Reynolds drew it up to 2004 when the strip was dropped. Only 5 strips appeared in the character's final twelve months in the comic. In the 2003 Beano annual, his strip was drawn by Richard Elson.

The plot of the strip was simple, but had proved so popular with readers that it is now considered a classic. Tim Traveller would use his bicycle to travel back and forth between time, encountering all sorts of crazy mishaps, occasionally getting in so much trouble he had to rush back to the present day to avoid it. Some of his trips resulted in him causing or learning the truth about various historical mysteries, such as why the Leaning Tower of Pisa leaned (It fell over in an earthquake and Tim only managed to partly pull it back into position) or what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste (Tim visited the ship and fell into a large fish, appearing to the crew as a sea monster, causing them to dive overboard).