Syfy Insider Exclusive

Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!

Sign Up For Free to View
SYFY WIRE AfterShock Comics

John Layman And Karl Mostert take a temporal plunge in The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time #1

By Jeff Spry
Time Slice 4

In the genre of speculative fiction there's no more entertaining way to exploit futuristic technology than to dance across the decades in some sort of time-traveling machine, whether it's a souped-up DeLorean, a shiny Federation starship, or a bright blue police box.

Adding to the legends and lore of wild time-centric tales skipping through multiple centuries, AfterShock Comics is powering up a joyous new sci-fi fantasy romp this February from multiple Eisner Award-winning writer John Layman (Chew, Eleanor & The Egret) and newbie artist Karl Mostert titled The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time #1 — and SYFY WIRE is delivering a timely expanded preview of the debut issue.

Time

For Layman, this wild action adventure began as a wacky idea that arose when he was in a furious brainstorming session searching for time-travel ideas. This creative effort developed into a humorous narrative exploring the hypothetical butterfly effect, then taking it to an extreme level of absurdity by driving the consequences into ridiculous territory.

Time Slice 6

"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," says Layman. 

"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."

Time 6

Newcomer artist Karl Mostert, in his debut mainstream book, has the Herculean task of illustrating Layman's unbridled imagination, and here the comics greenhorn comes through like a true pro with a flurry of crazy, chaotic artwork that perfectly captures the Back to the Future-style madness.

Now jump into the time-space continuum in the full gallery below for a sneak peek at AfterShock Comics' The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time #1, with vivid colors via Dee Cunniffe and variant cover from Larry Stroman (X-Factor, Tribe), then mark the minutes before it arrives on Feb 5.