When it came to a real battle of the Robots, Archie was king...

The 1976 LION annual has two Robot Archie Stories.

In the first we find an illustrated tale of Archie meeting a robot adversary in the shape of Robot Reg. Ted Ritchie finds himself in an angry confrontation with a man only ever referred to as Harrison. After an initial clash, in which Archie appears to be sent flying by Robot Reg's repulsor beam, Ted is taken captive leaving Archie and an injured Ken Dale to lick their wounds.

But all is not what it seems, and Robot Archie has been onto Harrison all along, playing the role of a weaker robot in order to draw him out. He soon sets off with Dale and tracks down Harrison, Robot Reg and their captive.

Turns out the repulsor was a dud. Archie threw the fight and always knew he was the superior robot. This he demonstrates in the final conflict where he knocks Reg's block off.

A fitting end to the tale, and Robot Reg. Although to be fair to him he was only doing what he was programmed to do and was merely a tool being used by Harrison.
In the second story, this time a comic book tale, we see Robot Archie and friends in the Caribbean.

This eight page story sees Archie combat The Living Dead. Yep. Zombies. 'Beware  - I am Archie Lord of the Scrapyards' is Archie's challenge to Baron Samedi, Lord of the Graveyards, who turns out to be a bloke on stilts...

and the Zombies ? Well, they turned out to be men who had been hypnotised. Nothing is as it seems in the world of Robot Archie. Except Robot Archie himself.

Kryten by Roger Langridge

Kryten is my favourite character in Red Dwarf (no surprise there) and is the one who changes the most as the series progress. Second to Marvin, the paranoid android of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, Kryten provides a great comedy double act to each of the other characters, but in different ways. Always put upon by Rimmer, largely ignored by the Cat and taken under the wing of Lister, Kryten is your robot without a cause. A robot who is happy to fulfil his programming despite Lister's attempts to get him to rebel and take more control of his existence.
There are some great lines delivered by Kryten throughout the series and his look is how Marvin appeared in my head when I first read Douglas Adams's Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy. Simple design but effective.
Roger Langridge has been a regular of the UK Comic convention scene for many a year and now enjoys success as writer artist of Snarked! and is always popping up in the Muppets comics. Roger is always happy to produce a great little convention sketch.

Cyberman by Adrian Salmon.

It was always the Cybermen that scared me the most.
I grew up with Jon Pertwee's Dr. Who but still remember a few episodes of Patrick Troughton's character. I bought Tomb Of The Cybermen on DVD a few years ago and was stunned that I actually remembered some of the scenes. They stuck in my mind all these years, waiting to claw their way out, much like the Cybermen did in the third episode.
Epic.
Scary.


Adrian Salmon Convention sketch from 2005

I came across an artist called Adrian Salmon who was already drawing a Cyberman for another Dr. Who fan, albeit a younger fan than me but some years. I asked for a sketch of one of the earliest versions of the monster and Adrian was more than happy to produce this whilst discussing all things Who.
OK, purists might want to argue that Cybermen are more Cyborg than Robot, and I would agree that you have a point but for me Cybermen stray into the robot mold as they aren't, typically, left with any human emotion or intelligence. They've been re-programmed.