Robby The Robot by Ramon Perez.

At this year's Thought Bubble comic convention in Leeds, I came across Ramon Perez sat at a table busy working on a commission. I didn't recognize him and he didn't have his name visible anywhere. So I asked him who he was and what he'd worked on.
'Ramon Perez', he politely responded, 'I'm currently working on the X-Men and Wolverine but I also illustrated A Tale Of Sand'.
I actually have a copy of A Tale of Sand, it's based on a film script by Jim Henson that never saw a camera's lens. I remembered being struck by how fluid the artwork on that book was and so promptly asked him for a robot commission.
He asked what robot I wanted, and I said that I'd happily leave that up to him.
He suggested I come back tomorrow.
Which I did, and was pleased to collect the image of Robby the Robot, from the classic 1956 movie Forbidden Planet.

Very nice indeed.
When I collected this I took the opportunity to get Ramon to sign my copy of A Tale Of Sand, of course.

Kryten by Robert Llewellyn.

I met Robert Llewellyn last weekend at the Thought Bubble comic convention in Leeds. His main reason for being there was to promote his books, yep, he's a science fiction writer when he's not on TV. He came across as a genuinely nice bloke, and I picked up a copy of the first in his trilogy of books,

It sounded an interesting concept where his trilogy explored the idea of what would happen if something significant in the world we know was the complete opposite.
Free with every copy of his book, but not the reason I bought it honest, was a signed photo of him as Kryten.

Still one of my favourite Sci-Fi characters.
(Note - you should check out Robert's blog... very interesting stuff).

RobotMan by Duncan Fegredo.

Robot Man is Clifford "Cliff" Steele a human mind in a robot body, and DC hero who is part of the strange superhero team that is Doom Patrol.He has appeared in all versions of the Doom Patrol comics, although his powers have varied a little along the way, and I'm not sure if his human brain wasn't replaced by a CPU at one point.
A great design though and a great character who had to constantly fight the depression that was caused by him living in a metal body.
Duncan Fegredo is one of the nicest comicbook artists on the Con circuit. He always seems to be enjoying himself, regardless of the daunting queue at his table, and his talent has recently landed him the job of bringing Hellboy to the comic page, which is the highest praise.
I got this quick convention sketch back in 2000.

CLANK !!

The Coffin by Mike Huddleston.

Phil Hester and Mike Huddleston produced a really interesting mini-series a while back called The Coffin.
Dr. Ashar Ahmad a brilliant but heartless scientist was intent on proving the physical existence of the soul, going as far as to create an impenetrable cybernetic skin that would trap the human soul after the body within has died - a walking coffin. As you might expect, a dying Ahmad ends up encased in one of his prototypes and then realizes how he'd wasted his life. Things go from bad to worse as The Coffin begins a desperate race to reclaim his technology from an evil corporate overlord and and the same time save the life of his estranged daughter.
I enjoyed the book and loved the design of The Coffin (who I guess you could argue isn't really a robot).
I was lucky enough to get out to the San Diego Comic Convention back in 2001 and got this convention commission sketch from Mike himself.

The Terminator... from StarBlazer No. 174.

StarBlazer was a Science Fiction version of Commando.
The same format, the same quality of story telling and artwork.

What StarBlazer had above Commando though was that it wasn't constrained by fact and historical events.
in Issue 174 (from 1986) then we had The Terminator, which was kind of a mix between Judge Dredd and Robocop.

There are some neat little ideas in here, and whilst the story is told in the typical way (these books did tend to spoon feed the reader a bit too much at times) it's a great little read.
It doesn't shy away from death, and the robot follows its programming to the letter. It announces the reason for the judgement and then carries it out. No messing.

Of course, as usual, humans are behind all the bad things that the robot does, he is after all 'only following his programming'. Marshal Skarr soon finds himself being hunted by the Terminator, his only crime really being that of 'getting in the way'.

It turns out that there's an alien invasion threat and human greed behind it all and Skarr saves the day, despite escaping almost certain death a few times on the way.

An interesting robot design. Almost as if he doesn't have a head, and 'Yes', The Terminator movie came out a couple of years before this saw print so they probably used the title to try to attract a few more readers, and made the robot look completely different to avoid a lawsuit or two.

Robot Archie uses, then loses, his head.

Robot Archie has two stories in the 1970 LION annual.

In the first we find the mechanical marvel in India and whilst wandering around a local bazaar, with Ted Ritchie and Kan Dale, the robot begins to experience problems with his balance.

It seems that a crystal that is his movement co-ordinator has worn out (maybe we all have these and they are effected by alcohol... just a thought). This crystal is a semi precious gem, which whilst not expensive is not going to be easy to find in India. So they all set off for the biggest jewellery firm in town.
And you just know something is going to go wrong.
Yep, just as they arrive robbers who have just hit the firm are making a quick exit.
Archie, being the hero that he is rushes off to catch them.

But his balance is off and he catches the tram instead of the crooks.

The crooks make their escape and the even worse news is that the jeweller doesn't have the gem required to repair Archie (and you were thinking that he'd say the robbers just took the only one he had didn't you). But fear not, The Mad Maharajah has one. He sounds like the kind of person who would be only too happy to help, from behind his 'high walls' (as he never leaves the palace).

A short trip, avoiding a booby trap, being shot at, minor elephant crushing and head butting a heavy wooden door sees Archie behind the walls and chasing down an escaping helicopter (yep, it appears that The Mad Maharajah didn't get rich by lots of hard work (maybe not so mad after all then)).

Except that The Mad Maharajah had in fact died years before and the criminals had just moved in and pretended that he was still around, spending without a care.

In the second story, this time illustrated text rather than full blown comic pages, we see Archie pit his abilities again 'Head Hunters'.

In this tale the three get attacked by a tribe of head hunters, who manage to steal the transmitter that controls Archie before beating a hasty retreat back into the jungle. The heroes then allow themselves to get separated and finally catch up with Archie to find him having his head unscrewed by the Head Hunters.

It all looks pretty bleak for them all until Professor Zing turns up and saves the day. Why the Head Hunters had never removed the Prof's head is a mystery that is neither questioned nor answered, leading me to suspect him of being some evil matermind or somesuch, but I guess I may never know.

 

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...