Comic+Creation+Analysis


 * Robot Heart: A Web Comic

Ricardo Segura

995991315

CCT 300 H5

Professor Michael Jones

November 5, 2009**

//Description://

In an age where technology is at the forefront of our emotions, we have shifted our human love to the machines that facilitate our lives. However, the feelings of love and attachment that we feel are temporary and shallow. //Robot Heart// is about a robot that loves his owner. He has developed a deep sense of attachment, one that human beings used to dominate. However, Lilly does not see this. She sees the calling of her name and the Robot’s willingness to be with her an annoyance. We are present with a shifting of methodologies, as the Robot is the one with the heart and the human being is the one that is heartless. The title evokes a play on words as the reader realizes at the end that the title referred to the actual heart of the robot, not the popular saying describing one’s disrupted sensibility. Increasingly, it seems that humanity has become technologically determinist. Human beings have begun to put the faith of one’s existence to a machine. This comic intends to combat this notion of the soulless human being by clearly exemplifying someone that cannot even love a machine. This web comic is intended to convey emotion, a deep sense of regret for the things we have taken for granted and disposed of. The true goal of this narrative is to invite the individuals who have lost their ability to love to break from the forces of apathy and become human once again.

//Analysis://

It is clear that the most prominent quality of this web comic, or any web comic for the matter, is imagination. As McCloud states, “All I ask of [the readers] is a little faith – and world of imagination” (McCloud, 93). The first imaginative structure that is present in Robot Heart is that of time frames. As a web comic that is strictly restricted to using Action-to-Action frames, the information left between the gutter is substantial. The importance with the web comic medium is that the reader must impart one’s own closure better than with any real comic they have been subjected to. Since web comics are not as eloquent and spacious as physical comics, the “intervening moments creating the illusion of time and motion” (McCloud, 94) must be left to the mercy of the reader.

In //Robot Heart//, the pacing of the story is made possible by the limited use of text as well as the use of an elongated panel. As McCloud comments, “Shape can actually make a difference in our perception of time… it has the feeling of greater length” (McCloud, 101). Panel 4 in //Robot Heart// presents the reader with a longer panel. This is used to convey two emotions to the reader, that of emphasis and timelessness. When the reader approaches the fourth panel, the emotions that the characters are feeling at that particular moment deserve emphasis. This is the part of the narrative where the Robot’s heart breaks and Lilly exemplifies a mechanic use of love. The fourth panel is the most important structure in the narrative of the web comic, which is why it deserved the reader’s special attention. Furthermore, the panel exemplifies timelessness in the way that the emotions that the characters are going through must be felt for a long time for the web comic to take effect. The ‘heart break’ is a climax moment for the narrative of the story. Therefore, this elongated panel invites the reader to feel the ‘heart break’ for as long as possible; to become the Robot’s broken heart.

Colour has been described by McCloud to have two primary applications, for “color and technology” (McCloud, 186). In the web comic //Robot Heart,// the colours definitely stand out. This is because the medium of the Internet has allowed for our eyes to become blind to the insignificant objects, the ones in black and white. The theory behind the colours used in //Robot Heart// is to attract the attention of the public and interest them until the end of the comic. It is a wide known fact that individuals on the Internet only view web pages in spurs of information. Because of the fact this web comic must be read in its entirety in order for it to be effective, the reader must be kept interested throughout every panel. The use of blue and green as the background and furniture colours respectively add a sense of excitement to the story. Furthermore, colour is paramount to the emotional conveyance of love. As the reader can witness in Panels 6 through 8, the heart plays an important part to the denouement of the story. The fact that the heart is red proves that the Robot’s heart was human. Thus, it stirs up a discourse of the true contents of technological determinism. In other words, the readers will ask themselves, what does technology contain if it drives social and cultural change? The reader will then realize that every machine has a part of us. Whether it be social networking sites such as Facebook, to image collecting websites such as Flikr, to physical mechanical objects like the iPod, the content is all our own. Technology is jus a medium for which to let our creativity speak to the masses. By showing to the reader that the Robot’s heart is bright red, it brings the humanistic element back to technological objects. In the case of //Robot Heart//, colour does not just convey a mood, it conveys a statement of the dangers of humanity becoming as soulless as the technology that we create. As the reader realizes towards the end of the web comic, Lilly exemplified less affection than a machine. Thanks to the use of colour, the readers sympathize with the Robot as he is the one that shows altruistic qualities, qualities that society is quickly losing and must regain in order to be human once again.

//Robot Heart// is a web comic of love. It invites the reader to feel again, to open up their hearts and evolve sentimentalities that perhaps they had lost years ago. The main reason why this web comic was created is the current underlying concern that society does not seem to be changing; they only seem be becoming machines at a faster rate. Through the medium of a web comic, the most massive inter-cultural medium, it is my intention to break the boundaries of a loveless society. //Robot Heart// asks the viewers to become immersed in feelings of love, sadness, confusion, and abandonment. Even though the former are not positive feelings in any way, they are the strongest feelings of human emotion. These emotions are inherent within all of humanity from birth, which is why I chose to illustrate these feelings. By acknowledging this medley of emotions, the reader is brought back to a childish time, an innocent phase of life where everything was surrounded by the veil of emotions. This is successful through the use of proper closure, frame length, and colour, as well as a short but direct narrative. Human emotion is capable of anything. In this case, this web comic is asking human emotion to feel once again.