Okay, So I Ripped Off J.K. Rowling: It's Table-Turning Time!

The "Time Turner," a time-traveling device that figures so prominently in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) and the current Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was the obvious inspiration for the "Time Turntable," a contraption that first appeared in Megaton Man #1 (1984) and later used as a dimension-hopping device for the Man of Molecules in The Savage Dragon vs. The Savage Megaton Man #1 (1993), admits satirist Don Simpson.

The first appearance of the Time Turntable: Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, December 1984), by Don Simpson.

"Fans are totally right," the cartoonist confesses. "I traveled fifteen years into the future and swiped the idea for the Time Turntable from Jo Rowling, just as I swiped the idea for Megaton Man from Ben Edlund's The Tick -- two or three years ahead of time. No detail is too insignificant to escape the notice of discerning comic book fans!"

Megaton Man uses the Time Turntable to hop dimensions over to the Image Universe in The Savage Dragon vs. The Savage Megaton Man #1 (Image Comics, 1993) by Erik Larsen and Don Simpson.

Despite the discovery of Simpson's blatant "homage," the creator reveals that the Time Turntable still figures prominently in the just-complete Megaton Man graphic novel, Return to Megatropolis, and will play a significant role in the new prose work-in-progress, Megaton Meltdown. "I expect the chronology police to be on my tail even more when I introduce the Time Turnstyle into the narrative," says the cartoonist.

No timetable for publication was divulged.

(Just kidding, JKR fans! See what Don Simpson really thinks of HP and the wonderfully inventive, brilliantly orchestrated Prisoner of Azkaban here!)

See also: Alan Moore Ripped Me Off! | I Ripped Off Alan Moore!