Somebody adapted Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders' Five Fist of Science for the stage.

And this got me thinking about the odd relationship Atomic Robo shares with 5FoS and its creators. Yeah, there's the obvious Tesla connection. And we've already hinted at the Edison vs. Tesla theme in the back-up story Atomic Robo vs. Rasputin. But it goes deeper than that!

The artist, Steven Sanders, was gracious enough to draw the cover to my novel. He was very nearly the artist for Atomic Robo, but by the time that came around he was too busy with more reliably paying work. It's just as well, because shortly thereafter I found The Sweggers. Scott and I enjoy an unusual working dynamic of equal parts respect and resentment. I mean that in the best possible way, which may be difficult to understand and that's a shame because it's just as difficult to articulate. What it comes down to is that Scott and I trust each other to do the best possible work, but we also won't hesitate to push each other to do better (usually through the device of childish insults). It's as appreciated as it is annoying. Working with Steven was a pleasure, but he may have been too kind to push me the way Scott is unafraid to, and the way that, frankly, is needed for Robo to be the best it can be.

Steven was then very nearly our cover artist. He may have been too busy to pump out twenty-two pages a month, but surely he could squeeze in one page a month! But then Red 5 wanted our cover art to be consistent with our interior art, so there went that idea.

Matt Fraction, of course, co-wrote my favorite monthly title since Amazing Spider-Man's JMS and JRJR days, Immortal Iron Fist. I'm disappointed to see him go, but he's at the helm of a new Iron Man title, a character most comics fans wouldn't think of as needing two books a month, but have you looked at how many cameos this guy gets since Civil War? Make all the "Wolverine's on a dozen teams" jokes you want, but Tony Stark took that mantle from him for the '07 season. Frankly, I was surprised that Iron Man didn't get a second title sooner, but of course they were waiting for it to coincide with the movie's release. Iron Man is one of my favorite characters, so I'm looking forward to what The Frac, as I'm calling him now, can cook up for the old shell head.

The Frac also writes Punisher: War Journal, which Scott drew for two issues. It's a shame we didn't have any Guinness people out for it, because Scott set a land speed record in pumping those issues out on time. War Journal's a slightly controversial title among fans for it's borderline slapstick approach to Mr. Punisher, a traditionally grim and gritty character. I quite enjoy this take on the character, though I can see how it'd ruffle the feathers of some. Way I see it, there's nothing wrong with Grim and Gritty Punisher. The problem is that G&G Punisher makes no sense when interacting with the Marvel Universe, and War Journal is a comic about making Punisher interact with the Marvel Universe. You can do that with the grim and gritty Punisher, but it's like putting Dirty Harry in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Anyway, the first comic I officially "collected" was Punisher #1. My favorite character from those collecting days was Iron Man. My favorite character now is Iron Fist. The implications are clear. The Frac is stalking me backwards through time.

We get that a lot. Positive reviews use it as a hook to get people to check us out, negative reviews spit it out like an accusation we ought to be ashamed of and defend against. I prefer to ignore it as I'm of the school of thought that says reacting against petty things gives them far too much validation. But, the sheer ridiculousness of it is on my mind, so here we go!

I know no one will believe me, but for the record, I came up with the major elements of Atomic Robo several years before I'd read a single page of Hellboy. At the time, all I knew of the series came from the trade paperback covers. I was convinced it was a comic about a monster, apparently called Hellboy, who plagued mankind in some way.

Book, cover, judge, don't.

I could never find all the trades, or I didn't know if I could because they weren't numbered back then. I can't stand starting in the middle of something, so I avoided reading it. This is why Robo is written so that any issue is a great starter issue even though I realize the futility in doing so. The kind of person who would most benefit from that is the kind of person who, like me, would never open a random issue because it's not starting at the beginning. But I'm a big fan of Norse mythology, so I choose futility.

Anyway. Little things like Tesla's involvement hadn't been decided upon yet, but the big things, like Robo owning a company dedicated to investigating/fighting weird-science emergencies all over the world, being old, tough, and funny were all there. These dimensions to his character weren't decided upon at random, and they could not be changed. They are a natural part of his character. Robo doesn't exist in a vacuum. Who and where he is at any given point is a direct consequence of his presence in the world. His existence would necessarily have impacts on technology, industry, science, politics, and religion. How people in those spheres of influence reacted to Robo over the years would necessarily affect Robo himself.

So, imagine my surprise when the Hellboy movie came out years later and I was finally able to find all the trade paperbacks. In them I found an old and tough character who stomps through history at the discretion of an agency dedicated to eliminating threats outside the norm.

Oops.

Of course, as soon as you go beyond those surface details, the comparison becomes ridiculous. You might as well say that Spider-Man is nothing more than a Batman rip off. Think about it! Both have a tragic past that haunts them, both combat a mix of petty and super crime, both are excellent fighters, both are very intelligent, both use/invent gadgets, and -- most damning of all -- both swing through their cities!

Of course, no one says that Spider-Man is just a Batman rip off because 1) that's stupid, and 2) there's no reason to. Everyone knows who Batman is. Everyone knows who Spider-Man is. You don't have to say "He's a funny Batman". Atomic Robo is the new kid in town and there's only one other comic remotely like it, so we hear, "He's a robot Hellboy," because that's the quickest way to communicate the basic idea even if it's technically inaccurate.

So, when people say it to try to hook new readers, I cringe internally, but I know what they mean. It's like when you pitch a movie in Hollywood. You've got to sell it and you've got to do it quick. The fastest way to do that is to hit them with something they're already familiar with. "It's Star Wars plus Dracula!" is far more immediately engaging than a twenty minute discourse about your space opera with vampires.

It's where the "robotic Hellboy" idea is supposed to be used against us that I get confused, because it makes exactly as much sense as saying Spider-Man is a Batman ripoff, which is to say, none.

I guess both Robo and Hellboy go on missions and exist in history? I mean, are we seriously saying Mignola invented putting characters in the past or going on missions? Are League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Planetary just Hellboy fanfics?

I'll grant that both characters are old and tough. Robo's a robot, so of course he doesn't age and he's tough -- that's what robots do. Are we now suggesting that Mignola invented old, tough characters? Should Ellis give the royalties to any of his "century babies" stories to Mignola? Kirkman's Brit? Pretty much every member of the JSA? Tom Strong? Captain America?

What's funny about all this is that my complaint here is that the only complaint we get is idiotic. We must be doing something right if our detractors are A) few and B) objectively wrong.

I mean, if you want to accuse us of ripping anything off, here's the list: Ghostbusters, Buckaroo Banzai, Indiana Jones, Dragnet, Rocketeer, Iron Giant.

Industry professionals and retailers, the Eisners are now open for voting.

Atomic Robo was honored with nominations for Best Limited Series and, thanks to Ronda Pattison, Best Colors.

Now, I'm not going to tell you to vote for us, but I will remind you that Atomic Robo is the only nominee in any category to show you why Stephen Hawking is a bastard.

First of all, thanks to everyone who came out. It was great talking with you folks. It was surprising to see so many people who weren't yet into comics but were excited to get into them. But, hey, Free Comic Book Day is all about suckering new readers into the hobby, so way to fall for our trap, you fools!

Second, let me just say that Chuck Dixon is my new hero. He's a pro's pro.

Third, apparently the Robo & Neozoic FCBD issue was one of the fast movers at most stores and a lot of people missed out on picking up a copy. Do not despair, Team Robo looks out for the reader! We guarantee that story will be available at no additional cost to you and in a format that will make it available to our international friends as well. It might take until February or March '09, but it'll be there.

This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day. It's an annual event where you can go to a comic book store and, in case there's some confusion about the name, get some free comics. Most stores participate, but not all of them, so it's best to check ahead of time. If your store is worth the space it occupies, they'll have ordered Red 5's FCBD offering with all new original Atomic Robo and Neozoic stories.

I'll be signing at Sci-Fi City from about noon until question mark. It would not be out of the question for me to make surprise and totally unofficial appearances at the Bad Apple Comics by UCF or maybe A Comics Shop across from Full Sail. Maybe if I did that, I'd give away some of these copies of Atomic Robo #1 to people who haven't yet taken the plunge on the series. But who can say? The future is a terrifying place filled with uncertainty.

Meanwhile, Scott will be signing at Jetpack Comics from 9am - 12pm, Double Midnight from 1pm to 4pm, and Larry's Comics from 5pm until whenever.

Oh, and I guess Iron Man and GTA4 and Mario Kart are all happening too. If that's what you're into.

Immortal Iron Fist has been my favorite Marvel title since its first issue. I love it because it relies entirely on its own mythos and only borrows what it needs from the larger Marvel Universe. The closest it's come to doing the usual "HEY THIS IS IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE HERE'S A CAMEO" is that it made a couple narratively logical nods to Civil War's fallout.

I mean, there's more to the title's success than just that, but its ability to create and then rely upon its own mythic momentum is pretty much never brought up, which is odd, because I tend to think that's its greatest strength. You don't need to know a damn thing about Iron Fist, because the character's history is recreated in the issues we're reading. And it doesn't matter what ridiculous horseshit is going on in the rest of Marvel's line, Iron Fist is left alone to do his own thing. This makes for a very fun and accessible title.

Unfortunately, the current creative team is moving on to other ventures. It is almost inevitable that the folks coming into it will completely miss that Immortal Iron Fist has more than enough self-sustaining mythos to cherry pick its involvement in the rest of the Marvel Universe. And if they don't, then the people in charge will miss it. I could see a sales slump or increase being used to justify a ton of cameos and crossovers that can only choke the series -- "Sales are down, do camoes to boost 'em!" or "Iron Fist is popular now, do cameos to reflect is greater involvement!"

Oh, well. It was a fun ride while it lasted.

Team Robo was recognized in two categories.

BEST LIMITED SERIES

Atomic Robo, by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener (Red 5 Comics)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, by Peter David, Robin Furth, and Jae Lee (Marvel)
Nightly News, by Jonathan Hickman (Image)
Parade (with Fireworks), by Michael Cavallaro (Shadowline/Image)
The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

BEST COLORING

Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! (Renaissance)
Steve Hamaker, Bone, vols. 5 and 6 (Scholastic); Shazam: Monster Society of Evil (DC)
Richard Isanove, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (Marvel)
Ronda Pattison, Atomic Robo (Red 5 Comics)
Dave Stewart, BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut, Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC)
Alex Wald, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)

It's a shame Umbrella Academy will win for best Limited Series. Still, just to get nominated on our first book is amazing enough. Here's hoping that Ronda can pull out a win for us though!

The jerks at Penny Arcade (not actually jerks) reminded me of something I'd completely forgotten.

Transdimensional TMNT was the first RPG book I ever bought. It's only a supplement and pretty much useless without the core book, but how could a ten year old hope to deny that cover?

It had The Turtles, a T-Rex, and a Giant Robot at the same time. As if that wasn't enough, and it was, it was a book about time travel, a subject I'd been 100% gay for since 1985. Hell, it's still one of my favorite covers (of anything) and probably my all time favorite RPG book because the intervening twenty years have done nothing to reduce my fondness for The Turtles, a T-Rex, Giant Robots, or time travel.

My favorite picture in this favorite book is that of the Saurinoid. See, you could play as different kinds of dinosaurs. I mean, this is a setting where turtles can become ninja. Introducing dinosaurs into this process is surprisingly logical. Anyway, the Saurinoid was a catch-all dino for Dromaeosauridae, only this was back in 1988 so they looked more like Jurassic Park than a parrot. What was particularly fascinating about it, though, was that he was wearing clothes.

It blew my dumb 10 year old mind. Here's this dinosaur and it's wearing clothes. Suddenly, every other dinosaur in the book nude. Thus, I was immediately aware of what clothes meant. They were no longer merely a statement of utility or fashion. They were a statement of personhood.

That Robo has always worn clothes in his every iteration is a direct descendant of that revelation one Sunday afternoon twenty years ago.

Dr. Dinosaur, one of the Robo's more active protagonists in the modern era, is a clothes-wearin' time-travelin' tribute to that plucky Saurinoid.

I didn't mean to talk about it so soon, but what the hell, it's on my mind.

I'm often asked what my inspirations are for Atomic Robo scripts. My answer is that if the scripts I write feel like they could come from Buckaroo Banzai, Indiana Jones, and the Ghostbusters, then I'm on the right track. I omit my final primary influence because those first three present a coherent answer that requires no further explanation -- you hear it and you instantly know whether or not Atomic Robo is for you.

But that final influence? Dragnet. It's easy to see how sci-fi comedies might influence a sci-fi comedy, but Dragnet's a police procedural. It's about as far from sci-fi or comedy as you can get. Which requires a little explaining.

The first police procedurals were novels, but it was a radio (and later television) show called Dragnet that really crystalized the genre. It's easily the most influential police procedural ever produced. While Law and Order has had a significantly longer lifespan and several successful spin-offs (which, themselves, helped to invent police procedural sub-genres), all of those shows draw a line straight back to Dragnet. Even those shows that deviate from the Dragnet formula do so consciously -- that is, even in changing the formula, they are still working with it.

It's a formula that's been going since the '50s and it's never stopped being popular with audiences. Clearly, this is pretty good stuff. So, what is it?

First and foremost: realism. For Dragnet this went as far as using actual LAPD case files and changing nothing but some names. All you really need is the sense that the events could happen or, even better, that they probably did happen. This element's gotten a little lax in recent years. L&O, and more-so it's spin-offs, has made some fascinating leaps in forensics -- including, but not limited to, "Enhance!"-ing blurry security tapes into near-HD resolution -- and CSI basically is science fiction.

But the whole point of the police procedural is that it's supposed to be grounded in absolute realism. Everything else comes from that or plays into it.

Second: never talk down to the audience. This means no exposition. These shows would grind to a halt if they had to stop every three minutes to explain a particular piece of jargon or the legal minutia behind why an obscure law or certain kind of evidence will make or break a case. Interestingly, the jargon of law (and especially that of police work) has entered into common usage in large part due to Dragnet's adherence to this part of the formula. Cutting away all exposition keeps things punchy and fast paced; it keeps your dialog and action from falling out of step into an awkward digression. And this ties back to realism. People who share specialized knowledge will naturally speak in jargon and it makes no sense for them to explain what it means to each other. You have to trust your audience to figure things out for themselves on the fly.

Third: focus on the job. The show wasn't about the characters, it was about the characters doing their jobs. This doesn't mean that characters or characterizations are unimportant or even secondary. It just means that what we learn about the characters comes through the lens of their jobs -- their interactions with co-workers, subordinates, superiors, the public, etc. Again, this ties into realism. The workplace isn't where you talk about your feelings, personal motivations and life goals, but you can learn everything there is to know about a person by observing them in the workplace.

And it's that final piece that really makes the Dragnet formula work. Through discreet moments of characterization, any given episode of Dragnet is as good a starting point as any other. The same goes for any good police procedural on television today. Since characterization is inherently nuanced and delivered in minute doses, you have to continually communicate enough about the character in every episode to keep him "alive" and to move his or her story forward without bringing it into the foreground where it might disrupt the flow for regular viewers and confuse new ones.

And since the doses of characterization are small, regular watchers aren't turned off by any repetition -- it's come and gone in three seconds anyway. Small doses favor the newcomer as well -- if you don't know the context or history around those moments, then they feel like slices of life and it's only natural that you'd not know the full contexts or histories around them yet.

What this boils down is is that if you enjoy any given episode, then you are almost guaranteed to like all episodes. Repeat customers are the best customers.

This philosophy runs the risk of making episodes feel very similar to one another. While this is a greater problem for a cop show -- "Is this the episode of Law and Order with a murder?" -- something like Atomic Robo ought to be able to use the strengths of episodic police procedurals while drawing from a large enough pool of weird history, weird science, and weird people to keep things relatively fresh.

Or so I hope.

First, Red 5 is working on its first movie deal! It will be very cool to watch this unfold from a semi-insider perspective.

Second, Atomic Robo and The Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne, the first trade paperback collecting Issues #1 - 6 (including all pin-ups and bonus stories) is now available to order! It should hit shelves June 11th, but you might want to claim yours sooner rather than later. The Robo buzz keeps building. I mean, Issue #6 pretty much went to a second printing the day it came out.

By the way, so you don't have to go searching through Previews for the order number, it's APR084084.

Not a lot going on, really. Team Robo pushes forward into Volume 2, Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War. Scott's pumping out the best pages I've ever seen him do -- the way he does on every goddamn issue -- while I wrapped up the script for Issue 2.2 last weekend and started 2.3 shortly thereafter.

The first two issues are all about storming Sicily and killing the hell out of some top secret Nazi weapons. These are easily our most action packed comics yet. Especially Issue 2.2, as it's pretty much an action scene leading to another action scene leading to another action scene. Oh, don't worry, we squeeze in ample character moments and one liners for you folks out there obsessed with content. Still, I predict we'll see a fair amount of complaints about how these two issues read way too fast. Sorry, hypothetical reviewer, you can find your decompressed comics filled with turgid dialog elsewhere. We're too busy making a robot punch other robots to bother with that junk.

IGN actually had an interesting point in their latest review. The short version: "While every issue has been outstanding in its own way, they've also felt very similar to each other, which could present problems if Clevinger and Wegener don't mix things up a bit with the upcoming ongoing."

I think this is an example of looking for something to complain about for the sake of a review, but still, it's an interesting observation. Are we overly formulaic?

One of our goals is that Atomic Robo should be the most pick-up-able book on the racks. Every issue is meant to be a jumping on point. We accomplish this partially by not being tied to a convoluted continuity that makes no sense even if you already know it, and partially by making every issue serve as a microcosm of the series as a whole. This is my Dragnet Theory of Writing, a concept so important I capitalized it and will blather about in greater detail another day.

I do think the concern that issues could be too similar to one another would be a bigger problem if we were doing an ongoing. But Atomic Robo was never going to come out twelve months a year. The game plan from day one has been to release mini-series after mini-series with short gaps between them. Each mini-series will revolve around a particular era, or theme, or foe while adding to the overall mythos. This, and our ability to hop around the twentieth century while doing it, ought to keep things sufficiently stirred up without compromising our goals vis a vis accessibility.

Volume 2, for example, is six stand-alone issues that make up three loosely connected story arcs that can each be summed up as "Robo takes out a top secret Nazi superweapon." I mean, it's basically Issue 1.1 times six, right? But we go from a WW2 beach invasion to a midnight train heist to a laboratory of horrors to a covert mission to save London gone wrong in those six issues. Three very different adventures all spun out of the same basic premise. So, are we too formulaic? I dunno, certainly doesn't seem any worse than "Batman fights crime."

In lieu of actual content tonight, I'll just assume Scott or I said something insightful or interesting in one of the following interviews.

Alternate Reality Podcast and The Gigcast interviewed us back-to-back on the same night. We're going to have to get Skype so we don't sound all garbled and delayed and dumb on these things.

And if podcasts aren't your bag, then newseedcomics.com has got you covered there as well.

Scott's got some interesting thoughts on Volume 2 regarding fiction, history, and how to mix them without insulting the reader or the source material.

As should be obvious, history is a big part of Atomic Robo. We've always sought to present history with a sci-fi twist but without trivializing the efforts of people who lived through the real events. Scott and I both had grandfathers who fought in WW2 and these men were heroes to us -- and would have been with or without their military service -- so we felt a personal need to be extra careful with the World War 2 content of this volume.

Mostly, we manage to respect history when we play with it by having Robo's adventures happen on the fringes. It's our theory that tackling history in this way is the best way to tell entertaining stories in historical settings without invalidating the actual contributions of real persons. It also has a side benefit of being Anti-Forrest Gump Insurance. The last thing Scott and I want is for Robo to be at the center stage of every major moment of the 20th century. He's an important person, yes, but the forces that mold history and shape the future are far larger than any single person. If he's at the fringes of history, then he can't be perceived as the primary motivator of it.

An example of fringe historical adventure would be Issue 1.1 (first volume, first issue). It's a classic early anti-Nazi pre-war pulp comic. It was an easy story to do because it was entirely fictional. While the Nazis had an interest in Himalayan peoples and history, and there was genuine interest in vril-like occultism, they never built a mountain base there to research it, so we were free to go nuts. You can't mangle a history that never happened. Conversely, Issue 1.4 put Robo right in the middle of the Viking I mission to Mars. He's on the rocket -- not exactly a position on the fringe. But nothing Robo does for NASA lessens the contributions of the scientists and engineers responsible for Viking I and II's successes. He is literally there for the ride. It's not a story about how Robo saved unmanned space exploration, it's a story about how there's nothing for him to do. The men and women of NASA get the job done at every step.

So, we had to find a way to put Robo into World War 2 without trivializing the sacrifices made by the soldiers on both sides and the civilians trapped between them. Again, our theory of fringe historical adventure seemed like the best path to take. The danger was in going too fringe. I mean, if we had Robo battling 50ft tall Juggernaut Mechanazis, that's clearly something that never happened (like the premise for Issue 1.1), so we should be in the clear. Right? Well, we couldn't shake the feeling that it was insultingly fictional. As if we would be saying that the real WW2 wasn't "interesting" enough.

One could maybe argue that we were over thinking it at this point, but really, you can go to just about any other big action comic book to find aliens and giant warbots. We wanted to do something a little different. It was always our goal to be as realistic as possible. Or, perhaps more accurately, to be as plausible as possible. Yeah, our main character is a walking impossibility, but other than that we aim for plausibility. And frankly, the Germans just didn't have the time/resources/tech to build giant robots. Intercontinental cannons and orbital weapons are another matter, of course...

In the end, we decided to give Robo missions that went alongside actual World War 2 events. Issue 2.1 concerns the Allied invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky. Robo is tasked to destroy key targets concurrent to the invasion. An interesting dualism kind of generated itself in this arc: the actual invasion is a background event to Robo, while Robo's mission is a background event to the invasion. I just now noticed that, but I'm totally taking credit for it if anyone thinks it's cool.

When we first started thinking about a World War 2 arc, we were talking about this exact set up for Operation Overlord and the Normandy landing. But, really, everyone does Normandy. We wanted to help raise awareness that there was more to WW2 than Normandy. Hell, there'd have been no Normandy without the costly lessons learned in Sicily, but that's another topic altogether.

The invasion of Sicily and the Italian Campaign that followed are these fascinating, pivotal moments in the war, but they've been forced to the fringe of public awareness by the Hollywood-ization of World War 2 and an almost fetishistic focus on Normandy. In essence, even though Robo's missions are critical to the success of the war effort, we've managed to put him at the fringe of a fringe. Hopefully, he won't step on any toes there. Dude weighs a quarter of a ton, it'd really hurt.

Scott's about a quarter done with Issue 2.1 and I'm about half done with Issue 2.2. Despite what everyone has said so far, this second volume will actually be the first time we see Robo fight Nazis. It's true!

Issue 1.1 pitted Robo against Baron Heinrich von Helsingard, a supergenius working with the Nazis. The mooks Robo fights in that issue aren't wearing German uniforms or using German firearms. Their helmets even have little "H"s on them to brand the soldiers as Helsingard's own personnel. There are a couple Nazi banners in the base, but there's just as many Helsingard banners too. And, when Helsingard gets powered up, he talks about how his power and glory over mankind -- almost like he wasn't exactly loyal to the Nazis...?

Now, all those "hints" were very easy to overlook. I'm pretty sure everyone did, so don't feel bad if you missed them. It wasn't vital to the story for the reader to distinguish between Actual Nazis and Working For The Nazis, so we never went out of our way to establish the difference. It would have made the otherwise rapid fire action/comedy of that issue come to a screeching and awkward halt. "So why bother to make them non-Nazis in the first place?" you might ask. Because of the larger continuity. It's not important to the reader now, but it will be one day. And in the larger scheme of things, it makes no sense for Helsingard to be a Nazi. Helsingard is...well, he's not "bigger" than the Nazi party, but it would be accurate to say that he viewed them as his pawns. We'll explore more of Helsingard's role in the 19th and 20th centuries in later issues, but for now let's just say that it benefited the Baron to have German resources available to him at that time. All you needed to know for the story to make sense was that bad guys were working on a superweapon; it would be bad for everyone in the world if they got it; and Robo was in the unique position to stop them.

Interestingly, this is the same set up as the FCBD story. Only this time it's the early '60s and a different scientist who'd been working with the Communists. One could accuse me of being lazy about my set ups, and one would not be entirely incorrect. But, honestly, if you are a government with relatively easy access to Robo, you are not going to ignore him as a potential resource. One has to wonder how many times Robo's been coerced into this kind of service. It's abundantly clear from panel 1 of page 1 that Robo is unhappy about the military coming to him for a mission in 1961. Yet he seems completely on board for his military actions in the '40s. That's quite a turn around.

And that's a big part of the challenge and fun for me as a writer: Robo doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's actually one of our smaller rules that complement our big rules. I'll have to cook up a post about them sometime. Anyway, Robo's attitude and opinions change over time. It can be pretty subtle because he's got to maintain a certain level consistency. I mean, there's always a baseline amount of delighted arrogance to him. But his experiences mold who he is at any given point. And since we skip from one time period to another, it's a bit of a juggling act on my part to make sure his motivations, experiences, and goals line up without contradictions. It's kind of like putting together a puzzle made of discrete pieces of time instead of images in space.

It should be fun for the reader to watch the continuity resolve itself as the puzzle becomes more complete with every issue. It'll probably be easy to overlook at first. We don't spoon feed you. Exposition is clumsy and a barrier to new readers. Ideally, Robo's world will build around you without you noticing (like Issue 1.1 and the Nazi-Helsingard thing). Once we release enough issues, the mythos of the Roboverse will reach a critical threshold and you'll experience little eureka moments when you reread older issues given the new context afforded by more recent ones.

That's the theory anyway!

Most people who work in comics are comics fans. It only makes sense. I mean, you don't become a auto mechanic if you hate cars. And this is what's wrong with most comics. They're written and drawn by people who think comics are doin' just fine. If Atomic Robo has any kind of advantage, it's that its co-creators kind of hate comics.

See, Scott and I collected comics in the early '90s because that's when we were stupid teenagers. The state of the industry and the benchmark for quality in those days eventually pissed us off and we both gave up on comics. It would be years before we'd come back to them, and it would be a slow and grudging effort.

We enjoy the idea of comics and take great pleasure in a number of titles from a number of companies and creators, so maybe it's unfair to say that we "hate" comics. More accurately, we hate the reality of the state of American comics today; what comics have become in an overall gestalt sense; what people come to expect out of a comic. We see so many titles making the same mistakes that pushed us away from comics in the '90s, and the tragedy is that these are wholly unnecessary elements and easily remedied. But it feels like no one ever does.

So, when we were brainstorming on what we wanted Atomic Robo to be, we came up with a list of rules. It was nothing formal, but things would come up in conversation, like:

"Man, I hate it when comics do X."

"I know! Let's never do that."

"Agreed."

So, a little while ago, I put together a list of things that Team Robo guarantees you'll never see in one of our comics.

In no particular order, Team Robo promises you:

No angst: Loading characters up with angst was a revolutionary move on the part of Marvel Comics back in the '60s. I haven't looked at a calendar today, but that was four decades ago. There are other emotions and motivations available to characters. Atomic Robo is not a comic that will be 100% sunshine and jokes, it would idiotic to portray a complicated life of 80+ years as a nonstop party with scientists, but we aren't going to delve into melodrama either. You are not going to see Robo mope about his lack of emotions, or pine to be human, or throw a tantrum over daddy issues, or whatever childish nonsense passes for characterization in most comics these days.

No "cheesecake": This is nothing more than Scott and I having the audacity to treat women like human beings. I mean, come on, 99 times out of a 100, there is no reason at all to frame a panel from the perspective of a girl's ass. Grow up already.

No reboots: They're frustrating, unnecessary, and a jarring reminder that all fiction is a thinly veiled series of lies. The major events of Robo's lifetime were plotted years before we worked on the first page of the first issue. Anything Scott and I add to that has to fit organically into the existing framework. If it doesn't fit as naturally as if it'd been there all along, then we skip it and move to the next idea. This is a much better solution than making a deal that the character would never make with the devil he'd never deal with to change "one" thing that alters the entire universe in ways that no one in charge seems to fully comprehend or address. Ahem. Everything that happens will fit into the larger mythos; everything that happens will happen for a reason; and nothing that happens can be "undone."

No filler: This one's pretty simple. Why should we devote a month of our short lives to creating an issue if it isn't worth reading? And then why should we try to sell you an issue that isn't worth buying? The main source of filler issues seems to be due to moving set pieces from the aftermath of one event to set up the next one. Since we have no reason to follow Robo's life as a linear chain of events, we're free to jump straight from one adventure to the next. Maybe Robo fights a sea monster. Maybe we follow the lives of Action Scientists when off duty. But it ain't filler.

No delays: This one's even simpler. The industry's gotten so bad about delays that they have become the norm. No one is surprised any more when a comic is delayed. And when a comic has no delays, there's that unspoken "yet" or "in a while" tacked at the end. Red 5 Comics was constantly praised, praised, merely for delivering books on time. What kind of industry is this? Think about it for a minute. Imagine if you were lauded by co-workers and supervisors just for showing up to work on time. It's ridiculous. We could make more money if we gave you 12 issues a year, but we take a break between each mini-series to build up a buffer on the next one. We'd rather deliver nine issues a year exactly on time than promise you twelve issues and deliver one of them late.

Pick up any Big Two title and you've got a 50% chance of finding one, some, or all of those rules broken between its covers. Pick it up for a year, and it's a 90% chance. This is what's wrong with comics today. I mean, honestly. What kind of maladjust goes out of his way to read melodramatic borderline misogynist stories with incomprehensible continuities that constantly shift when there's a story at all if it shows up on time?

It's not that people don't like what mainstream comics are about. NBC's Heroes proved that. So it's got to be something else. Do you really think Heroes would've taken off if every scene involving Claire or Nikki was shot at ass- or boob-level? If the events of previous episodes changed with every new episode? If the show occasionally aired an hour, or a day, or six weeks late?

You can blame cable television, and DVDs, home entertainment systems, and PC and console games for the decline of comics readership. I don't doubt for one second that those contribute to the problem. But, maybe, just maybe, people sought other forms of entertainment because it is a rare comic that treats itself or its readers with respect.

Good god. I accidentally hit the rich text option while trying to post something. I guess "rich text" is shorthand for "clusterfuck"? Because even after switching back to HTML, and deleting and reposting the entry four times, LJ is still convinced that rich text is the way to go.

Too bad it's not quite as cool as it sounds.

Apparently there's a scene in the upcoming Superhero Movie that takes place in a comic book convention where Red 5 Comics has a booth. Among the booth's props is a 6ft tall cut out of Robo from the first printing of Issue #1. No idea what kind of screen time we'll have, but it's got to be tough to miss something like that.

If there was any kind of immediate feedback system in theaters, I'd ask folks to watch it. The message, "I paid eight bucks just to see Atomic Robo in a movie," would not be a subtle one. But, alas, there is no such immediate feedback system in place.

You know how back issues of Atomic Robo are really hard to find? Well, Heavy Ink's got them, but there's no telling how fast they'll go so don't slack around.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I finally got around to picking up Burnout Paradise. It's nice to finally enjoy a Burnout game again. It's not the return to the franchise's origins; it's not the Burnout game I would've made; but it's a game I'm glad they made.

Three things.

First of all, thanks for all the suggestions for Volume 1. You jerks did not make it an easy decision, as there were about half a dozen that made us go, "Oooh, man." But, just like immortals, there can be only one (every time you need to make a movie). I'd like to thank mechapolis.com reader NLink for his title suggestion Atomic Robo and The Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne. We very nearly went with another title, but I used my power of veto that 1. comes with being the continuity and story guy, and 2. I made up. Volume 1 doesn't really have a theme or on-going story, but it is an introduction to Robo and the Action Scientists of Tesladyne (who sometimes fight). So that's the the title! NLink, e-mail me.

Second, you should buy an Atomic Robo T-shirt. They come in a variety of colors and sizes. Their quality is high. And it hasn't been proven that they don't prevent cancer. By that faultless logic, not buying one could kill you. Think about it.

Lastly, I'd like to take a moment to point out how amazing Scott's art has become in the last year.

Here's an action scene from Issue #2, originally drawn Nov '06.

And here's an action scene from our FCBD story, originally drawn Jan '08.

The difference is pretty striking. More character detail, more (any!) background detail, more interesting angles, more dynamic composition within and across panels. Our little Scott's all grown up!

So, here's the thing. We're preparing the trade paperback collection for the current mini-series, but we can't think of a title!

We (by which I mean I) want our trade titles to go along the lines of Atomic Robo and.... For instance, the next volume? Atomic Robo and the Howling Commandos. The one after that? Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific. Or maybe Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time. Not sure if we officially decided which one would be Vol 3 and 4 yet.

Anyway.

We need a title for Vol 1 in that general vibe. The difficulty is that Vol 1 doesn't really have a unifying storyline or theme like the upcoming volumes will. My original title for Vol 1 was Atomic Robo and the Brain That Wouldn't Die. But Scott pointed out that most people who pick up the trade will be experiencing Robo for the first time, so it might feel to those folks as if issues 2 - 4 are filler because they don't address a brain that won't die the way 1, 5, and 6 do. P.S. pick up Issues #5 and #6, there's a brain that just won't die in them.

We're still tossing around ideas for the title, but nothing's really grabbing me. And so, I turn to you folks. Think of a title for me! If we pick your title, we'll get you a free copy of the trade when it comes out later this year. It's win-win!