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Behind The Machines
An Essay About RoboFlan By Marshall Ricks
RoboFlan is a crazy comic about a Blue Robot who has a band. However, I think the comic is at it's best when the sub-themes take over, and the many secondary characters make most the jokes. The comic takes place in a)the not-so-distant future b)the distant future or c)right now. We still haven't decided, and probably never will. In the RoboFlan world, everyone is of an ethnically benign background. (I mean come on, where the hell is Blue Robot's #1 Fan from, anyway?). Since the comic is gag-ian in nature, it doesn't really tackle issues very often. This provides for smooth sailing all-around. Anyway, more about the characters. Blue Robot's band (called "Robot & Roll", for any curious parties) gigs at a bar owned by Short Man. Eventually, Short Man gambles away all his money, and can no longer afford to hire the band. So that is where RoboFlan starts. It's essentially a comic about a robot and his friends wanting to rock and roll all night, and having crazy mis-adventures along the way. Enjoy!
About the history of the comic (how it came to be). Late in the summer of 2002, I had been out of the web-comic business for awhile. Droll Street hadn't existed in over a year. With the original Droll Street, I had made over 60 comics, never missing a Monday, Wednesday or Friday between September 4, 2000 and March 16, 2001. After that first break, I returned in the summer of 2001 with repeats for a month, before I started the new Droll Street, which lasted only 2 months. On the other hand, Lewis had been making The Steeve Show on-and-off for about the same time period as I had been making Droll Street. So anyway, back to summer of 2002. I had really lost my intrest in web-comicc, and Lewis was preparing his last Steeve Show run. I remembered how much fun the original Droll Street was, but also how much work I had to do. (Believe it or not, there was a lot of work involved). So I started thinking (being the lazy man I am), how could I make a comic that could still be funny, but would be easy to make. The idea came while reading through some old Droll Streets, where I saw a prototype for Blue Robot in one of those comics. I went over to my computer, and proceeded to design the main characters, as well as "draw" the first week. These comics sat on my computer for a few months, as I had sort have tossed them aside. Then, awhile later I brought up the idea to Lewis, and we tossed around ideas for the comic. What we setteled on was a gag-based copy/paste comic about robots, where we would have storylines, but focus on jokes. It was a lazy cartoonist's dream. Within a few months, we had everything ready to go (much to my suprise... I had forgotten about the comic, and Lewis had gotten everything ready). How the comic works, is Lewis will upload a series, which I will then download and add jokes (plus I make the spelling corrections, and resize). Or I will upload a series which Lewis proofreads. Lewis has most the storyline ideas, and I just add on to those for my weeks. We have a good old time doing this comic, and I think it's well worth it. The American Robot Anti-Defamation Council might disagree, but who needs them, anyway? Am I right? Am I right, people?
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