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Atomic Robo

From Sardapedia

The current and only Atomic Robo logo, now remastered in animated form.
For the character, see Atomic Robo (Character)

Atomic Robo is a pulp action comic written by Brian Clevinger and drawn by Scott Wegener, with colors by Ronda Pattison and lettering by Jeff Powell. It was nominated two Eisner Awards in 2008 for "Best Coloring" and "Best Limited Series", falling short of The Umbrella Academy. The comic began as a six-issue mini-series published by Red 5 Comics since October 2007. The first six issues has been collected in trade paperback form as Atomic Robo Volume 1: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne. Two more volumes have appeared since then. The third volume, Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time, will also be scheduled to be released in trade paperback form in December 9, 2009.

Contents

[edit] Summary

The comic chronicles the adventures of an atomic-powered robot with "automatic" intelligence created by Nikola Tesla in 1923. This robot, named "Atomic Robo", was subject to controversy from scientists and religious groups alike for months. It was then that he was eventually accepted into society and began studying, earning a PhD in Physics at Columbia University.

The comic begins when Atomic Robo was ordered in 1938 by the U.S. Military to track down and capture an evil scientist known as Baron Heinrich von Helsingard. Fighing and eventually defeating him in his secret base in the Himalayas, Atomic Robo was granted full citizenship status as a human being in America. It is later on after Tesla's sudden death when Atomic Robo finds Tesladyne, a company devoted to new scientific innovations and inquiries. Decades of fighting all manners of weirdness (such as moving pyramids and giant ants), Atomic Robo forms the Action Scientists League, and they became the go-to defense force against these oddities...

[edit] Characters

  • Atomic Robo- a robot created by Nikola Tesla in 1923. He is a unique robot in that he can think for himself and others, known as "artificial intelligence". He has qualities of both a human and a robot in which he is quite humorous at times and is prone to becoming insane as a human would. Otherwise, he focuses on the mission at hand.
  • Baron Heinrich von Helsingard- a German scientist who is under arrest for crimes against humanity. Since his defeat in 1938, he has become Atomic Robo's archnemesis. He is deeply resentful of the destruction of his "Vril Organ" that he has stopped at nothing since to seek and destroy the robot. His body was destroyed and multiple clones of his brain were created to fit into large battle gear to fight Atomic Robo...
  • Action Scientists League- scientists who fight alongside Atomic Robo. They are a colorful bunch and are often only referred to by their last names, much like soldiers in a military. Notable scientists include Jenkins, a survivor of the vampire dimension and an ex-Seal, Vikram, an African-American, and Ada, the female who often is the brains of the group and the one who participates most in the missions.

[edit] Reception

The release of the first mini-series was given positive feedback by many critics. Many praised the series for it's return to the pulp action genre, as well as it's blend of wit, action, and science fiction themes. The series was nominated an Eisner Award in 2008 for Best Limited Series and Ronda Pattison was nominated for Best Coloring. According to the official site, Clevinger and Wegener promised a "no cheesecake, no angst, no delays, no filler, and a coherent continuity", which was something of a norm with comics since the 80's and 90's. The second series was also praised for it's continuing art improvement by most critics, but the World War II theme was something of a down point with others.

Because the series became so popular in the independent comic industry, Renoir Comics struck a deal with Clevinger to make an official translation of the first volume in Italian. The book is to be unveiled at the 2009 Lucca Comics & Games Convention, with Clevinger and Wegener coming to personally talk about the comic.

Recently, Atomic Robo came at 296 out of the Top 300 comic sales of September 2009, as well as Top 20 in Diamond's top selling small press comics of the same month.

[edit] Comic Scripts

[edit] External Links

Official Atomic Robo Website

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Works by Brian Clevinger
8-Bit Theater • Atomic Robo • Nuklear Age • Warbot in Accounting • Emerson Wild: Monster Hunter • How I Killed Your Master
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