There is something to be said for persistence, for a creator’s steadfast devotion to a concept over the course of many years. We’ve seen it in books, in print comics, on the web – Stephen King wrote his best sellers but always had some portion of “The Dark Tower” floating around the back of his head; Orson Scott Card returns to the Ender and Alvin Maker series; Harvey Pekar continues to plug away on “American Splendor.” So I have to give credit to Joachim Lipski – he’s been working on some aspect of ad1997 for close to 8 years now if I read the background notes properly. That amount of time spent thinking about the characters and the world shines through in his author’s notes. He obviously enjoys these characters, this setting, and the process he’s gone through to develop them. And many of his pages show a lot of care taken in the design and layout.
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I hate to say it, but something about We The Robots by Chris Harding that just doesn’t click for me. I’m going to try in this review to work through what it is that doesn’t click for me.

The problem is not the art, which is clean and consistent. The characters are distinct and recognizable; no worries here about the characters all blending together. The coloring is interesting because it’s not your typical computer coloring job.  Rather than using a color scheme that “pops” and is almost too garish, Harding mutes his pages by giving everything a sort of “old newsprint” grayish cast.  The coloring actually adds to the sense that these characters live in a drab world of oppressive work and school conditions with not a lot of hope for a change any time soon.

The problem is not really the characters either. The focus is mostly on a robot named Bob, who works in a cubicle, has a horrible boss, and tends towards existential dreams regardless of whether he’s at home in bed or asleep at his desk. Bob is a highly sympathetic character, as is the rest of his family – pre-teen son Mickey has a teacher who stifles his creativity, teenage daughter Sandi has peer pressure issues (and seems to be that rare breed of preternaturally aware teens who know that giving in to peer pressure is more trouble than its worth), and Bob’s wife suffers through their angst without having a name of her own. The most consistent supporting characters are Bob’s coworkers, especially bearded Stevo, who are there mostly to set up situations for Bob to deal with.

The problem is also not with the humor. I appreciate a good fart, potty or sex joke just as much as the next person and am far from being easily offended. (Case in point: a lot of my fellow gay men would be offended that Bob’s Uncle Mike comes to visit and makes a comment about the crayons in a restaurant not being the “normal” colors, and that “everywhere you go, they’re trying to turn you gay;” I recognize that this is the viewpoint of a particular character in the strip, and a particularly obnoxious character that neither Bob nor his wife even like – so why take offense?) The strip varies its humor nicely, with an equal proportion of “base” humor and more thoughtful intellectual punchines.

I think the problem is with the pacing. Most of the jokes / sequences either run a day too long (beating the punchline into the ground) or just seem to end abruptly with a blank look on a character’s face. It’s almost like watching recent seasons of Saturday Night Live; jokes run out of steam or just sort of peter out. This type of “non-ending” to a comedy sketch or a comic strip works for some people, so your mileage may vary. I’ll keep checking back in with We The Robots because there are some genuinely funny installments, but I can’t give it my highest recommendation.

Rating:

We the Robots
by Chris Harding
http://www.wetherobots.com/
review by Anthony Cardno

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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