Small Press: Reviews

Information: Dave West and Colin Mathieson at Accent UK comics have always hoped they’d get around to do this anthology. Anyone that knows them knows that robots are their favourite science fiction concept. Bigger than ZOMBIES, ROBOTS was launched at the Bristol Comic Convention 2008. It contains 41 seperate stories from a huge number of writers and artists.






Review: I was one of the lucky ones to buy a copy of this at Bristol for a very nice price of £8. Trust this is a bargain for near enough 200 pages of quality printing. The hard part of doing this review is mentioning everyone’s work, which will be impossible on my ikle Blog so I will just review my favourite comics in here. First up is…

Ned Iudd’s Museum – by Jim Thompson & Shaun Mooney
One of the final comics in the anthology is a marvel of story telling with regards
man’s ongoing quest to get machines to do all their shit for them. The comic revolves
around Ned Iudd who is a curator at a museum that deals in old robots from years gone
by. He narrates a story about how machines became the dominant intelligence on Earth
as man passed over more and more responsibilities to the machines. It’s a very dark
tale and the artwork by Shaun matches brilliantly to the feel of the story.

Divinity, Existence and Toast – by Benjamin Dickson
This is one of the better comics from an artistic point of view (well more to the style
I like should I say). The comic is about a woman who buys a robotic toaster that
wakes up one morning to decide that it is in fact God. The humour comes from the
relationship of the woman and the ego mad toaster and makes a very enjoyable
section in the anthology.

The Creator – by Tony Hitchman & Leonie O’Moore
Not great art wise but a cracking read with an excellent twist at the end.

Made Men – by Jay Eales & Charley Spencer
For some reason this reminds me very much of a Garth Ennis comic. Very dark and
violent and with a hero who is a complete bastard but you can’t help but love.

Teruo – by Paul Bowles & Marleen Lowe
A story based on a gangsters’ moll and a Ronin robot samurai that is charged to look
after her. Very good artwork with hints of Tim Sale about. The characters are nothing
new but you feel for them and especially the lead female character.