Life-Time has a lot going for it, but then it also has a lot going against it. It’s bold in its visual storytelling, but then at times too bold. Falls back and forth from interesting to confusing, but ultimately isn’t a bad comic book. It’s just not quite a good one yet either. I find books like this to be the hardest to review. When they’re so down the middle that you have to be careful that your criticism doesn’t come off too harsh or heap too much praise. To put it plainly, Life-Time is a book that needs some work, but it’s starting off in decent shape.
The issue spends about half of the book showing our main character running with time paused, from some masked me. It honestly took me a minute to process a few of these scenes because the context wasn’t quite there. Even with the clock in the panel froze in time. The confusion comes when the main character grabs ahold and climbs some pigeons in midair. Since this is a comic, it wasn’t exactly clear as to what… was happening.
After this chase scene we meet the main man’s crew. A woman who may or may not be a cop that helps him with evidence and a man who may or may not be immortal. The story then heads to France for a spell and introduces the main character and his friend again. It’s unclear how the two timelines are connected at the moment though and even more confusing when a third timeline is briefly introduced at the end of the issue.
The first issue is confusing. There’s no way around that even if I wasn’t moderately interested after the opening. It’s just that the book spends a lot of time setting up the first/main time line and demonstrating the gimmick of time stoppage. Which isn’t bad. On this week’s podcast I even said that if the book had stayed there and then as a cliffhanger, introduced France it would have been better. Give the audience time to get to know the characters in one timeline before running off into another because the results are that we don’t get enough of any one timeline to understand what’s happening.
The art is good. Aside from the one scene that took me a minute to process, the art for the stopped time comes across on the page. It’s not perfect, but once you get it, you get it. It’s a difficult thing to convey the fact that time has stopped in a medium that has no movement to begin with, so I convey the effort. I honestly don’t know how Pramit Santra could show this any other way so it’ll probably always be a bit difficult for people to wrap their heads around.
Life-Time has potential depending on what the second issue accomplishes. If it slows down (no pun intended) and does a clearer job of establishing not only the timelines, but their importance to the plot, then the series will be interesting. Right now though, I feel like I don’t know what’s happening other than a lot of time stuff.
Score: 2/5
Life-Time #1 Creator: Pramit Santra Publisher: Worth It Comics Price: $2.99 Format: Digital Purchase: Amazon, Drive-Thru Comics
Title: MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM THE ORIGIN Ⅲ Dawn of Rebellion
Available from: May 21st, 2016
Let me first start off by saying and you can quote me on this… THIS IS THE GREATEST CINEMATOGRAPHY I’VE EVER SEEM. Yes, it took some while to finally decide that it was. Being a filmmaker myself, I know what it takes to even light one small shot, or nailing the perfect exposure outside, and this film BLEW me away! This film was filmed in 100% natural light with no use of artificial light and I could not believe what I was seeing. Beautiful landscapes, smoke and fire, fog, epic wide close ups, long battle shots. I was sitting in my seat completely stunned by what I was seeing. I would see the film JUST for the visuals.
I’m going to be honest, I was trying to like this film. I really was. I tried with every muscle I had to watch this and feel like I was watching an award winning film, but I couldn’t. Nothing felt right to me. Let’s talk about the cinematography. This film changed its aspect ratio several times for some effect. Now a lot of films have done this such as 
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The words in the opening credits are shorthand for Kimmy Schmidt's themes: "they alive, dammit. But females are strong as hell". The four women we see emerging from a bunker in the pilot episode's cold open had been held captive in there for fifteen years by a deranged preacher, the leader of a doomsday cult. The first face we see is that of the main protagonist, Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper). It's not what you might expect. She's not cowed, scared, broken or defeated. Instead, she smiles as bright as sunshine.
The Image Revolution tells the story of Image Comics, from its founders’ work at Marvel, through Image’s early days, the ups and downs of the ’90s, and the publisher’s new generation of properties like The Walking Dead. It’s the amazing account of a dynamic group of upstart comics entrepreneurs battling against not only major companies, but sometimes each other.
SHOUWA GENROKU RAKUGO SHINJUU – Yes, Fuck Yes!
MYRIAD COLORS PHANTOM WORLD – Maybe
The fighting itself though is clearly not to the strong suit of this creative team. Monsters get grabbed and then we don't see the result. The panels that do contain appealing and kinetic bits of action are few and far between and get crammed into the smaller bits of a page, overshadowed by the more stilted set-pieces that dominate the fight. While this fits 
Pencil Head #1 follows McKeever’s avatar, Poodwaddle, a freelance comic book artist who works on books like Monorōl (one of many thinly-veiled references to real-world books and people; in this case, a shout out to McKeeever’s Metropōl). Poodwaddle has become disenfranchised with working at mainstream publishers, thanks to the prevalence of annoying industry trends and even more annoying editors, manifested in this case by Gargle Plottz, a stand-in for the very real Carl Potts, former Marvel editor and creator of Alien Legion (which, with other misnamed books, is given a shout-out).
In an eerie coincidence that only Phonogram could have pulled off, the issue hinges on the fateful night when Michael Jackson died and the effect that it had on the music-listening world at large—this issue, of course, drops only a week and a half after we lost David Bowie. Even more unsettling, the after-the-credits short story is about the healing power of “Modern Love” on a man who’s hit his mid-thirties and realizes he should probably start to figure his shit out. This book is sometimes pretty on-the-nose about music being magic (intentionally, of course), but Gillen McKelvie couldn’t have dreamed up a better button for the series if they tried.
My Kingdom for a Bumpire! What we have on the page is a complex and large-scale society existing in the plain eye of us normies with homes and jobs. The whole society of bumdom is a complex blend of irony and industry; from support groups like Bums Without Thumbs to business fronts and complex trash collection coordination. All of this serves to remind the reader not to take things too seriously. Despite the dire consequences you’d expect in a political upheaval each terribly violent event carries with it small reminders that this is supposed to be silly and fun (see Iggy losing his bum buddy Stooge to start the book).
While these two threads are connect, they are divided by having entirely clashing tones. Anita's story is comedic and angst-ridden, like a trippy YA novel while Wolfe's is pure supernatural horror akin to a John Constantine story. It feels in this aspect, and a number of others, that five issues in, Kot is still unsure what he wants Wolf to be. It's not that the story needs to fit into any pre-existing category, but it needs to establish some sort of constant tone so that we can form some sort of connection with the world and the characters. Wolfe's predicament is horrific in a surface-y sort of way, but there's no reason to really care about what happens to him. Similarly Anita's journey of self-discovery is undermined by her complete lack of sympathetic characterization. She's an angry teen werewolf who seems to be rebelling against... something.
And that’s exactly the fun and innocuous humor rampant throughout the entire issue. Anything from the creative world of Pendleton Ward is saturated with the goof (def: frequent incurable sillies) and clever puns; even taking the time to call out the overkill, just the type of self-awareness that makes satires so entertaining.
This series continues to be one of the best new series from Valiant. I sincerely hope that Venditti sticks with Wrath of the Eternal Warrior for as long as he’s stuck with X-O Manowar. The weight he’s added to this character is amazing. He’s not just Valiant’s “Wolverine” because there’s a real process he must go through to be reborn. And before you say anything, I know that Wolverine had something similar added to his lore, but let’s be honest they’re not going to hold true to that. That’s why I like what Valiant and Venditti have done here. It feels like a real element has been added to Gilad’s character and one that isn’t going to drop off just because someone figured out a new way to kill him or some other Marvely crap.