Man or Machine ? Guardian article.

I came across this intereting article over at www.guardian.co.uk. Worth a read.

This week's image is a bag from the New York branch of Forbidden Planet. If you know who the artist is then let me know.

Hammerstein by Kev Walker.

The Hammersteins were developed by Howard Quartz's Ro-Busters corporation in the pages of 2000AD. Hammerstein, the best of these units, became the leader of the legendary ABC Warriors, a group of robots who continuously found themselves on seemingly suicide missions against impossible odds.
Hammerstein's success on the battlefield was largely down to the fact that he had been programmed with both emotions and a conscience (allowing him to distinguish between combatants and civilians). Whilst his right hammer-hand gives him his name, it's his head that is, to me, the most distinctive part of him. A great design.
His likeness was also used in the first Judge Dredd movie, the one with Silvester Stallone.
This great little Convention sketch is from the pencil of Kev Walker, one of a gresat line up of artists to have illustrated the character (created by Pat Mills).

I'm also fortunate enough to own this painted art page from Kev.

with an acetate layer over it to hold the text.

Looks like Hammerstein has seen better days.

Mr. Benn The Mechanic

I've been a fan of Mr. Benn probably longer than I've been a fan of robots.
I grew up watching his adventures on TV and was intrigued by the possibility that there actually were shops out there where you could buy adventures as readily as a costume.
Imagine my joy then at coming across a Pippin Annual today at a Vintage Fair in Stockport. Not only does it have 4 great Mr. Benn stories from the magical mind of David McKee but also one sees Mr. Benn take on the role of a Mechanic, and he has to fix a robot.
Mr. Benn and Robots in the same story.
Here's the page in all its glory.
Enjoy.

I did my own Mr. Benn cartoon a few years ago, if you're interested you can see it over on Strange Times.

The Adventure Annual - 1953

I came across this great looking cover recently in an old book store (on both counts, it was a store selling old books and the store itself was old) in Chester. The book itself has been through the wars a bit but who could resist buying something with a cover that impressive.

The robot has a surprisingly CGI look about it for something that was created back in 1953, and artist Denis McLoughlin does a really good job of both the colour cover and internal black and white pages, and even makes a typically human error with the number of eyes his robot has (as shown on the sampled panel at the top of the posting).
The story itself, by Colin McLoughlin, is typical of the time, a bad guy, the hero's girl needs to be saved, the solar system needs saving at the same time and it all resolves itself very nicely for all parties (except the bad guy of course).

The hero Swift Morgan had the feel of Dan Dare and Flash Gordon about him, and I found a little information about the book on the Dan Dare Info website which is nice.

I do love the feel of 1950's Science Fiction, and this story has it all.

Cylon by Michael Lark.

This is the classic Cylon design from the series that aired back in 1978 in a show called Battlestar Galactica. A favourite show of mine at the time, as it was set in a universe where man had created robots only to have them turn on their creator and almost wipe him out.
The more recent re-imagining of the show was actually a great improvement, although it let me down a bit in the end as it moved from hard science fiction into fantasy (by my definition) but I enjoyed the journey.
I came across Michael Lark's work in a comic called Terminal City which had some great robot design's littering an excellent tale by Dean Motter. His work is very gritty and fits the tales he illustrates particularly well, for me the peak being his run on Gotham Central which follows the police trying to stamp some kind of authority in Batman's Gotham City. But that said his run on Captain America was also great.
Michael visited the UK in 2006 and attended the Birmingham Comic Convention (BICCs), which sadly no longer takes place. I mentioned his commissioned Cylon image (which he did for me in 2005 through web contact) as he did a great convention sketch for me of one of the main robots from Terminal City (I'll post it up sometime soon), hopefully it made a nice change from Batman and Captain America.

C-3PO by Seth Fisher.

C-3PO is a protocol droid (the robots were all called droids, I don't remember hearing the term 'robot' at all), more of a talker than a fighter, designed to serve human beings (and probably a few other races), and is fluent in "over six million forms of communication", or do he says.
He is the comedy element in the movies and for me the highlight of the whole Star Wars series.
I first came across Seth Fisher's artwork on the DC graphic novel, Green Lantern : Willworld, and I was stunned by his ability to let his art just flow seemingly with a mind of its own.
In talking with Seth over email for this commission I got to know him a little, as much as such communication would allow. He chose the robot and the design himself, I just asked for a robot commission and left his mind to do its thing. This digitally coloured piece arrived before the inked page and I couldn't be more pleased with either.

It has a spiritual aspect that was important to Seth, who was living in Japan at the time and exploring the country and its culture.
Sadly Seth died not too long after this piece was finished. I only ever met him face to face at a San Diego Comic convention in 2001 (where he did me a quick Green Lantern sketch) and didn't mention this when he was doing the commission as I would have been one amongst a sea of similar fan-boy faces, but he was a genuinely nice person and a pleasure to talk with. A real loss.