At the center of the series is Sean Bennett, a low-level lab worker who — after a chance meeting with his own future self — decides to use a prototype time machine to fix his life with one small jump back in time, just seven days. Things, as you might expect, don’t go to plan.
“When he comes back, all time has been screwed up,” Layman explains. “Dinosaurs walk the earth, [as well as] samurais [and] 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 facing 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.”
There’s also an element of mystery to the story, the writer adds. “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 also has to get to the bottom of things. If it wasn’t his time-traveling actions that screwed everything up, whose was it? Whodunnit? And why?”
The Man Who F#%&ed Up Time is illustrated by newcomer Karl Mostert, something that Layman pretends to be apologetic about. “This book is his first mainstream gig, and he’s got the unfortunate job of having to draw all the crazy things I throw at him, which is essentially everything in all of human history — and more!” he jokes, adding, “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.”
The series will debut digitally and in comic book stores on Feb. 5, 2020. Below, some of Mostert’s interior art for the first issue, as well as his cover, and the variant cover artwork from Larry Stroman (X-Factor, Tribe).
