REVIEW: Robochuck #3

In Robochuck #3, our robotic hero continues his search for a young girl’s missing mother, in a world which is basically a representation of a culture where everyone and everything is an animated cartoon, complete with its own story of creation, which as we are told, started with a dot. The artwork appears to have been created by CGI, a nice touch to add a sense of believability to the world.

The search for the missing mother, who made soap that Robochuck is fond of as he likes his “whites exceptionally white”, leads Robochuck to go through a written list of all the usual detective cliches, eventually interviewing the witnesses but finds them to be of little help, with some brilliantly stereotypical dialogue that represents how the different cultures would speak and behave in an animated world. A cute blue teddy bear says that he only saw rainbows and happiness. After all, would you expect him to say that he saw fire and brimstone?

Unfortunately our hero does not seem to value the case of the girl’s missing mother too highly, even stating that he is surprised that the case has not solved itself yet.

Writer Chris Callahan also seems to be critical of the direction that the animation industry is currently heading in. John Lasseter-style character Don Masshurter, the head of Piczar, literally has money rain down on him. Later, he is contacted by a sinister robot-like figure who apparently is his superior, but it remains unclear how any of this ties into the story of Robochuck and the missing woman.

Meanwhile Inksplatt Magee is on his own personal crusade to bring down Piczar. This plot strand seems to be given the lowest priority, as it only occupies several pages, but overall, having three plot strands makes the story somewhat convoluted. By far the most interesting of the plot strands is the story of how Robochuck seems to be a useless detective but of course will inevitably solve the case, at at times the others seem like a distraction. However, at least all three of the plot strands seem to be pointing in the direction of an exciting conclusion.

Get your copy of Robochuck here!

About the author

Davidde Gelmini