Story & Art: Alex Sheikman
Colours: Joel Chua
Publisher: Archaia Studios Press
This has been a difficult review to write because the creators of Robotika have obviously put a great deal of thought and hard work into their title, and that’s great to see. Sadly, the thought is in places wrong-headed, and the hard work is occasionally wasted and would have been better applied elsewhere.
Although the setting is one that has a certain familiarity to it, the creators put a great deal of work into fleshing out the details, going as far as providing illustrated appendices exploring various aspects of the world; completely unnecessary and irrelevant to the narrative, but a sign of great commitment to creating a realistic setting. However, this commitment isn't nearly so apparent in the plotting or characterisation; the protagonist is a bit of a generic wandering tough guy on a bit of a generic rescue mission, and while the setting does have that rich sense of context to it, I'm not certain it's altogether wise to rely too heavily on that aspect of the comic to carry the rest. Perhaps the weaker areas will improve in future issues, but a four issue miniseries doesn't really have that luxury of time; it needs to be firing on all cylinders from the beginning.
One quick and easy fix to make would be to sort out the dialogue of the protagonist’s companion; although she’s only introduced a handful of pages before the end of the comic, her presence is enough to hamper enjoyment of the book as a whole. Her dialogue is presented as running from top to bottom, like the writing of Japan, Korea and China, and it’s clear that the intention is to mark her as originating from some such exotic and distant locale. Although it’s a clever attempt to make use of the unique features of the comics medium to present information about a character, it’s hampered by the simple fact that it’s brain-frazzingly difficult to read English text presented in such a manner, so much so that the comic’s narrative tempo grinds to a painful halt as soon as the character speaks.
The art is one place where the creators can rest easy; while there’s some ropey anatomy in places, Sheikman’s storytelling is clear and dynamic, and there’s a pleasing thickness to his linework. Sheikman is also unafraid to try some interesting visual techniques, such as the tapestry-like “chapter breaks,” and the way certain characters in black (like the governess cyborgs or the special forces types at the story’s beginning) are rendered almost in negative. Chua’s colouring is a good fit for the art, with an emphasis on solid areas of colour and a minimal but well chosen palette rather than potentially distracting special effects.
It’s a shame this book suffers from a couple of small but distracting flaws, as otherwise it’s an entertaining and interesting comic that I’d like to see more of. I couldn’t ignore the obnoxious sidekick or the slightly humdrum story elements, but you might have better luck.
What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!