EDITOR's NOTE: Wall-E #0 will be in stores on November 11th.

“Working to Dig You Out”

Wall-E is the latest in BOOM! Studios’ long line of Disney/Pixar adaptations. As with many of the other Pixar-based comics, it’s a prequel story that takes place before the events of the movie. Whilst that approach might have proved fairly limiting for some of the other properties, it’s slightly more welcome for Wall-E, as quite a lot of the character’s history was left relatively unexplored by the film. So, this book gives readers the chance to see what the cute little robot was up to before he embarked on the space-bound adventure that we saw in the movie.

The voiceless nature of Wall-E poses some interesting challenges for the book’s creative team. Just as the movie impressed audiences with a virtually dialogue-free opening 30 minutes that told its story almost entirely visually, Morgan Luthi is called upon to relate the events of this issue almost entirely through his artwork. Luckily, he’s up to the task, with a strong grasp of form and texture that brings the barren landscape of the future planet Earth to life in a way that feels vividly evocative of the film’s initially downbeat atmosphere. The artist also manages to capture Wall-E himself very accurately, with a crisp, clean inking style that defines the robot and his environment very precisely.

Luthi also has a gift for panel-to-panel storytelling, bringing Wall-E’s more slapstick actions to life with a strong sense of comedic timing. The sequences that show Wall-E attempting to help one of his gradually deteriorating brethren and, later, to escape a coming storm, carry the same sense of airy whimsy and fun that the movie did. There are also some neat subtle visual nods to the film here, in the form of the human accoutrements that the character collects over the course of the book, all of which will be recognised by eagle-eyed readers as ornaments from Wall-E’s home in the movie.

One problem that the artist doesn’t quite manage to overcome, however, is Wall-E’s limited range of facial expressions. Wall-E is a robot made of solid metal, and as such there’s no scope for the artist to actually alter his “face” (short of setting the eyepieces at different angles). And whilst the movie’s animators were able to suggest emotion through Wall-E’s movements, it’s a lot harder to capture the subtleties of such movements in sequential static images than it is in animation. Still, Luthi does his best, giving Wall-E slightly exaggerated body language that feels faithful to the character’s depiction in the movie, and ensuring that all of his actions are as clear as possible.

The lack of dialogue, combined with Wall-E’s fairly limited personality as a character, means that there’s a limit to the depth of storytelling that writer J. Torres can provide. It’s impossible for Wall-E to embark on lengthy soliloquies or to convey his feelings (if he even has any, at this point) via an internal monologue, as to do so would be to violate the basic concept of the character. Yes, writer Torres is able to have occasional monosyllabic sounds emanate from Wall-E’s speakers, but they’re often fairly ambiguous (and sometimes meaningless) especially without the added information that viewers can glean from the subtleties of movement that we saw in the film.

Still, Wall-E’s occasional outbursts combine with a wealth of onomatopoeic sound effects to at least eliminate any possible sense of deathly silence that could have afflicted the comic, and gives audiences something to actually read whilst they’re looking at Luthi’s illustrations. However, these dialogue balloons aren’t extensive enough to make the book a useful tool for teaching children to read, and there’s so little speech in the book that the reading experience will probably be over quite quickly for readers of all ages.

As with many of the other Pixar adaptations, your enjoyment of this book will probably depend largely on how much you enjoyed the original movie. If you’re a fan of the original Wall-E (as I am), then you’ll probably enjoy his antics here. However, if you’re not already a Wall-E lover, you might find this book to be a little light and a little too thin in terms of story to really hold your interest, despite the great artwork.

---

What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!

---