Maria by Kev Crossley.

Kev Crossley was a regular of the comic convention scene, and may well still be, I tend not to get too much time to wander these days. He does these really angular sketches and I was intrigued with what he'd do with Maria.

Amazing. I'd love to see Kev's interpretation of the whole movie in comic book form...

One-Eye by Dave West.

I thought I'd put something a little different up here for this posting. A while back I started playing around with paper mache and found objects (or rather objects that I salvaged from broken household appliances and the like).

One of the results was One-Eye, who I used as a table display at Comic Conventions.

As you can see, a bit of silver paint certainly helps to bring all the bits together.

But I liked to make it possible to still be able to read some of the words from the electronics books that I used to make him.
Good fun but it took a lot longer to make that I can fit in these days.

Robot Maria by Matt Boyce

Maria just has to one of the best robot designs ever created.
She has stood the test of time and influenced so many that followed her, notably C-3PO being one of the most famous, and I really enjoy seeing artist's interpretation of such a classic.

Matt Boyce appeared on the comic scene a while back now. A very funny, very genuine bloke who produced a couple of mini-comics, contributed to a couple of independent UK anthologies and then just stepped away from the comic creating world. A real shame. I do see Matt about once a year or so, he pops up at what seems to be a random Comic Convention (although I'm sure there will be a pattern), and we chat.
He did this sketch for me at a Convention when he was 'doing his comic book thing' and asked me to scan and email it to him so that he could colour it.
I jumped at the chance and got this great little image back.

Fabulous.

Terminator by Garry Brown.

Well, as Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to resurrect his acting career (I use the term loosely) with his return to the role that made his a household name, I thought it appropriate to have a Terminator commission up here.
I watched the Terminator films as they came out but lost interest with the third and didn't bother with the fourth until the DVD was cheap. They really need to do something fresh if they are going to capture my interest again.

Garry Brown did some work for the earlier Accent UK anthologies and I knew from the offset that he'd do well in the industry. Since those days he's gone on to work for the major companies and at the moment is illustrating The Massive for Dark Horse.
As you can see, he does great black and white images.

Steel Commando.

Also appearing in the 1976 LION Annual is a story about the Steel Commando.
More Beano than Lion, this character is a World War II secret weapon put under the control of Lance Corporal Ernie 'Excused Boots' Bates. What could possibly go wrong ?

You can tell what sort of story you're going to get when you discover that the man who created the robot is called Professor Brayne.

and it starts to play out in this story as a short circuit causes the Steel Commando to go 'loopy' whenever anyone says 'Blockhead'.
This 8 page story sees Bates and the Steel Commando go behind enemy lines in to try to get hold of an important map. They come across the German's own robot, which for some reason is used as a butler rather than a soldier, and there's a nice toouch when the Steel Commando is disguised as the robot Butler in order to get closer to the German command.

Not my cup of tea but it is a robot, so it's not all bad.

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.