{"id":6852,"date":"2014-02-10T17:18:17","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T00:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=6852"},"modified":"2021-05-23T13:30:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T19:30:48","slug":"the-robots-of-love-writers-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=6852","title":{"rendered":"The Robots of Love – Writer’s Commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get your copy of “The Robots of Love” out, because it’s time for you and me to go through it page by page.\u00a0 Like a DVD commentary, this will be the first in a series of “Writer’s Commentaries” that I’m going to post for the comics I commissioned.\u00a0 You can also read a little more about the behind-the-scenes aspects of my comics in this post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I finished lettering “The Robots of Love” on the last day of the year in 2008.\u00a0 I finished uploading the last page about 45 minutes before the start of 2009.\u00a0 So it’s been just over five years now, and I still love this comic.\u00a0 I only wish I had made it longer.<\/p>\n

What is also quite amusing to me is that some time after I posted the completed comic, it was downloaded and translated into Portuguese.\u00a0 That version is called “As Rob\u00c1\u00b4s do Amor”, and I was able to find the first 11 pages and the cover.\u00a0 You can download them here.<\/a>\u00a0 If anyone wants to translate this comic or any of my others into another language, by the way, I would love to see that happen.\u00a0 Contact me in the comments if you can help with that.<\/p>\n

Page 00<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the cover, and it started some things that I would repeat with every cover of every comic I’ve done since.\u00a0 The credits appear in the bottom-left, of course, but above that is a field containing two bar codes and a string of binary code.\u00a0 These actually say something.\u00a0 The barcodes are single words and the binary code is a number, though I’ve long since forgotten what they are.\u00a0 If anyone has a barcode scanner and a scientific calculator handy, you can decipher them for yourself.<\/p>\n

I also parody the seal of the Comics Code Authority<\/a>.\u00a0 I approve.\u00a0 And like most of the covers for my comics, this was made after all of the pages had been drawn, inked and lettered.<\/p>\n

I did have the idea sketched out in my head early on though.\u00a0 The cover depicts one of thousands of identical Erica robots operated by Robot Control.\u00a0 This is the only one that Vida will meet, though.\u00a0 She’s walking through the Robot Lab, past some other beautiful robot ladies who don’t actually feature in the story.\u00a0 Erica is walking to go get her facemask, which has just been repaired and recalibrated.\u00a0 After that, she will make her way upstairs where we will see her again on Page 03.<\/p>\n

Page 01<\/span><\/p>\n

Here we see Vida, the human.\u00a0 And contrary to the usual Fembot Central plot twist, Vida actually is a human.<\/p>\n

Page 02<\/span><\/p>\n

As obvious confirmation that Vida is human and Nadine is not: Vida is overwhelmed by the “sleeping gas” sprayed at her while Nadine is unaffected.\u00a0 Nadine drives the van far out of town to Robot Control Station 804.<\/p>\n

Page 03<\/span><\/p>\n

Erica and Nadine have been standing still and unmoving for many hours while Vida has been passed out.\u00a0 As soon as she comes-to, Erica goes into her pre-programmed speech.<\/p>\n

Page 04<\/span><\/p>\n

Nadine performs her awkward but extremely effective seduction tactic on Vida.\u00a0 Since Robot Control knows that Vida loves female robots more than anything, it risks revealing so blatantly that two of its agents are robots to Vida.\u00a0 Normally, only the series 558 robots are permitted to interact with humans.<\/p>\n

Page 05<\/span><\/p>\n

None of the girls on this page know it, but it will be impossible for the robots to learn how to “love”.\u00a0 But Vida will keep on teaching.<\/p>\n

Page 06<\/span><\/p>\n

When I first lettered this page, there seemed to be something missing.\u00a0 So I put a little “thought bubble” full of binary code above Nadine’s head.\u00a0 I liked the effect so much, I used it in many more comics that followed.<\/p>\n

Page 07<\/span><\/p>\n

I tried to use different fonts to signify different voices.\u00a0 The more “computer looking” font that Nadine talks with is meant to show that she has a robotic monotone voice.\u00a0 The shape of the speech bubbles are also meant to convey this.\u00a0 Mostly, a rectangular speech bubble is used when the character is speaking in an emotionless way.\u00a0 Sometimes I had to use the rectangular shape because I didn’t have room, though.<\/p>\n

Page 08<\/span><\/p>\n

My favourite part of this whole page is the way Erica just stands at attention throughout the whole thing.<\/p>\n

Page 09<\/span><\/p>\n

Here I tried to convey through Erica that Robot Control doesn’t understand what love is, which is why they have decided they need Vida’s help anyway.<\/p>\n

Page 10<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first panel, Erica repeats the word “Processing…”.\u00a0 This means that things would have gone much differently for Vida had she said no to the offer.\u00a0 Erica is actually communicating with the Main Computer in the Robot Lab and getting new instructions sent to her.\u00a0 It’s good for Vida (and us) that she said yes.<\/p>\n

Page 11<\/span><\/p>\n

The “door scanner” has a female monotone voice, of course, and after Nadine has typed in an access code, it scans into Nadine’s eyes to confirm that she is one of Robot Control’s agents.\u00a0 Only then does it open the door.<\/p>\n

And of course, every woman inside those booths is a robot.<\/p>\n

Page 12<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my favourite pages in this comic, for obvious reasons.\u00a0 Both Maria and Laurie were supposed to be naked, but they ended up not being naked.\u00a0 That’s okay with me, as Maria does look hot in that lingerie.<\/p>\n

Page 13<\/span><\/p>\n

I originally wanted to include more scenes with Maria, and some extended scenes between Vida and Laurie, but I couldn’t afford that many pages at the time.<\/p>\n

Also, I love the look on Vida’s face as she watches what Laurie is doing with Nadine.\u00a0 Laurie is downloading data from Nadine to see how she’s been functioning lately.<\/p>\n

Page 14<\/span><\/p>\n

Erica’s purpose in activating Sharla is to show Vida how to do it.\u00a0 Robot Control wants Vida to explore and interact with as many of its fembots as she can.<\/p>\n

Page 15<\/span><\/p>\n

More demonstration, courtesy of Sharla.\u00a0 The location of the recharge port was drawn to high up Sharla’s back at first, which is why her hands are reaching above where it actually is in one panel.<\/p>\n

Page 16<\/span><\/p>\n

Like all Robot Control girls, Sharla removes her facemask to apply makeup.\u00a0 When she’s done, she puts it back on.\u00a0 I got the idea from this image<\/a>.\u00a0 Vida likes it too.<\/p>\n

Page 17<\/span><\/p>\n

Sharla shows herself to be helpful with Vida’s human desires, while Erica stands at attention and waits again.<\/p>\n

Page 18<\/span><\/p>\n

When Robot Control hacked into Vida’s computer, they not only discovered she lusted after female robots, but they also determined just what kind of woman she would consider to be “the ultimate woman”.<\/p>\n

Page 19<\/span><\/p>\n

Turns out the ultimate woman for Vida is based on Sara from NiteFlirt<\/a>, who has an excellent robotic monotone voice, by the way.<\/p>\n

Page 20<\/span><\/p>\n

Her eye colour is wrong in this comic actually.\u00a0 Sara’s eyes are a lovely bright blue.\u00a0 But I still really like the way the comic version of her turned out.<\/p>\n

Page 21<\/span><\/p>\n

Another goof is that Sara was supposed to be already dressed in black lingerie when she was on the table.\u00a0 Instead, she was drawn naked for two pages, and I got them when they had already been inked.\u00a0 So I agreed to have Sara dress in lingerie in this page.\u00a0 And that panel in the top-right is one of my favourite in this comic.<\/p>\n

Page 22<\/span><\/p>\n

You might notice that my comics leave a lot of sex and kissing sounds to the imagination.\u00a0 I’ve seen other comics that would have had something like “SCHHHLLLORP!!!” plastered all over that cunnilingus scene in gaudy yellow letters.\u00a0 I think the work of the artist and the colourist stands on its own in these scenes.<\/p>\n

Page 23<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m not as good at conveying or writing-out malfunction scenes as other artists and writers at Fembot Central, but I think I did a pretty good job with this malfunction.\u00a0 Looping speech malfunctions are my favourite malfunction artifact, and they also happen to be one of the easiest to depict in a comic.\u00a0 I also like the way the “glowing LED” behind Sara’s eye looks.\u00a0 That was added by me when I did the lettering, as were all the LEDs visible in open panels and when facemasks are removed.<\/p>\n

Page 24<\/span><\/p>\n

The malfunction continues, even though Sara has attempted to reset her systems.\u00a0 She has interpreted Vida’s command to “keep going” in a “do not stop” kind of way.\u00a0 There was actually a very long break in time between when this page and Page 23 were drawn.<\/p>\n

Page 25<\/span><\/p>\n

This page too had a goof.\u00a0 Sara was at first drawn with her facemask on.\u00a0 It was a shame to have to change it, because the expression drawn on her face was very blank, and it looked quite lovely.\u00a0 You can see the first version here.<\/a>\u00a0 The “faceoff” look was photoshopped onto this page from Page 24, and it turned out pretty good.\u00a0 Note how the LEDs become dark once she’s been deactivated.<\/p>\n

I’ve always wanted to continue this comic.\u00a0 The story line would be easy to extend.\u00a0 Vida would see Sara get put onto a table and opened up for repair.\u00a0 Vida would then play around with Erica, and find out that she’s been programmed for sex too.\u00a0 Vida would also play with Maria and Laurie, and explore the Robot Lab a little more and activate some more fembots, if only just to watch them play with each other.<\/p>\n

But there’s another comic that would get a continuation first.\u00a0 I’ll talk about that one later.\u00a0 I don’t have money to afford such things right now anyway, so it’s just daydreaming at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get your copy of “The Robots of Love” out, because it’s time for you and me to go through it page by page.\u00a0 Like a DVD commentary, this will be the first in a series of “Writer’s Commentaries” that I’m going to post for the comics I commissioned.\u00a0 You can also read a little more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-6852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asfr","category-fembots","tag-my-comic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6852"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11297,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852\/revisions\/11297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}