A new series is on our horizon as part of AfterShock Comics’ 2020 plans with The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time. The first issue is set for a February 5th, 2020 debut priced at $4.99 for the 32-page installment. It comes from writer John Layman with Karl Mostert on the art duties working with Dee Cunniffe for the color design. Layman’s also lettering this and we get a great variant cover you can see below from the incredibly talented Larry Stroman.
“The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time started off as a funny, goofy idea that hit me when I was brainstorming time travel ideas. First off, the title made me laugh, which is always a good thing, and from there it expanded to an exercise to try to take the notion of butterfly effect to the crazy, most absurd situations possible. One small change to the space-time continuum, and a million crazy repercussions as a result.”
“The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time is the story of Sean Bennett, a low-level lab worker who meets his future self in a bar, who convinces him to use the prototype laboratory time machine and go back a week —just a week— and make a few minor changes to order to improve his life. Only when he comes back, all time has been screwed up… dinosaurs walk the earth, samurais, Vikings, and they are all ruled under the tyrannical iron thumb of Emperor Abraham Lincoln IV. Poor Sean is tasked with setting right the space-time continuum, or face the wrath of the cyborg Future Police. To do this, Sean has to undo everything he did previously, but every action he takes seems to make things worse and worse.”
“The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time is also a mystery. I’m calling it a ‘Butterfly Effect noir,’ because, even amid all the absurdity of fixing a crazy, f#%&ed-up space-time continuum, Sean Bennet also has to get to the bottom of things. If it wasn’t his time-traveling actions that screwed everything up, whose was it? Whodunit? And why?”
“Poor Karl Mostert! This book is his first mainstream gig, and he’s got the unfortunate job of having to draw all the crazy things I threw at him, which is essentially everything in all of human history—and more! But I have to say, he’s stepped up in a huge way, drawing all the madness I’ve asked him for, and then upping the scale and scope every issue. I suspect when we finally meet face-to-face he’s going to punch me right in the face. I also suspect this book is but the first of many comic projects you’re going to hear from Karl, because he’s monstrously talented and super hard working.”
“The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time gives me a chance to return to AfterShock, following up the weird and beautiful adult fairy tale Eleanor & The Egret I did with Sam Kieth for AfterShock a couple years ago. It’s also a chance to work with my favorite editor in the comics biz, Mike Marts. Eleanor was a strange, beautiful book I’m proud to have on my bookshelf. Looking forward to having The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time next to it on the shelf!”
Plot Concept: Sean Bennett is just your everyday, ordinary lab worker in a high-tech lab with a proto-type time machine. And, yeah, he’s got the same temptations any of us would have about going back in time, just a bit, to correct mistakes of the past and right old wrongs. So, when he meets a version of himself from the future who encourages him to do just that, Sean takes the temporal plunge. Only…can you guess what happens next? Did you read the book title? Yup. All of TIME is f#%&ed up now, and it’s up to Sean to correct it-or else!
