Posted March 5, 2015 at 11:00 am
You might have missed it, but I shared some behind the scenes Secret History of Atomic Robo on Twitter yesterday. It's the story of where we came up with this issue. There's eleven tweets in all, numbered for your convenience, and they start right here!
Meanwhile! Did you know we take questions from our Patrons and answer some of them every week? It's true! Here's the latest pile of questions that get answers.
Ahoy!
I have two questions I was curious about and hoped you might answer in your mailbag one week.
(1) Do you guys have any favorite real or fictional robots?
(2) Did teen Robo ever make a mixtape for someone he was crushing on? If so, what was on it?
Thanks!
Vanessa L.
I suppose it would be unfair to mention Atomic Robo for either part of that first question, so let’s take him off the table.
Favorite real robot, for me, right now, is the Curiosity Rover. Chang’e 3 is a close second just for how its mission ended. It might take a robot mission to Europa or Titan to trump these guys.
Fictional robot is a toughie! Might have to go with G1 era cartoon Optimus Prime.
Did they do mixtapes when Robo was teenagerish? I think he kinda jumped over that stage of development anyway. Like, he was activated and already late teens or early twenties. Maybe a bit childish, especially for that era, but hell, the guy just needed some life experience!
Will we ever see the origin of Robo's bug phobia? Will we see more undead Edison? How about Ada Birch?
Ben
Edison? Oh my, yes.
Ada? Well. People who are not explicitly in Volume 10 might be dead. Or alive! We’ll make the call on a case-by-case basis when the time comes. I’m inclined to side with most of these guys living. It should be more interesting to see how familiar faces have adapted to the new status quo we’ll introduce than to just kill a ton of the cast off panel.
I don’t think there’s a definitive “origin” to Robo’s bug phobia. I tend to think of it as something that developed over time. The rest of us, we have skin and hair to keep things from getting into us and we have immune systems to destroy the few things that get through.
Robo does not! So, for him, I think it’s just the idea that it’s statistically inevitable that things are going to get into his body where they will be crushed to death and their gross bug goo and organs will be gunking up his insides and there’s nothing he can do about it other than try not to OBSESSIVELY AND VIVIDLY PICTURE THAT GOING ON ALL THE TIME.
Harder than it sounds.
First off, thanks for making such a great character and such awesome stories. I have been buying single issues, trade paperbacks, and electronic issues and whole volumes via Comixology. Atomic Robo is really one of the best books out now, and I'm grateful to have come across it. So, on to my question now...What kind of failures, or setbacks have you guys run into prior to your Atomic Robo success? Thanks for your time!
Jonnie
Well, Atomic Robo was rejected by every publisher we approached. Before that, my dumb novel was rejected by every publisher I approached.
The default state of this business is failure and setback. It's why when there's a success, it gets franchised to hell, i.e. Wolverine being in every Marvel comic book, then it was Deadpool, now it's putting "Avengers" on the cover, etc.
Failures and setbacks are discouraging as hell when they hit you, and after enough of them they make you want to pack up and quit. But they're a sign that you're participating. People who don't try don't even get to fail. Failures and setbacks are a step up. Everyone who is succeeding in this business is failing. Almost every single corporate gig I got after my success with Atomic Robo went belly up before the first issue was released. This new The Phantom mini-series from Dynamite is the first one in five years that might actually come out in full.
You just don't hear about the failures. No one puts out a press release for My Pitch Was Rejected because that's not news. Because, again, failure and setback is the default state.
Are there any plans to do stories of the original Ironhide? I would really be interested in learning about him.
Steven
So, some years back we got the idea to do Tesla’s 11. Step 1: who the hell is on that team? That was largely a matter of researching a bunch of cool historical scientists and adventurers to find a batch of them who would be alive and at an appropriate age within a plausible window toward the end of the 19th century.
We only came up with seven. And we had to cheat for one of them -- Wong Kei-ying died in 1886 but we figured, hey, why not fake your death and come to America for a while? We're lucky to be able to use history as a guide without being shackled to it.
Anyway, seven characters instead of eleven. Just as well since it’s hard enough to satisfactorily share screen time across just that many characters.
An unintended side-effect of this "wide net" approach to the casting call was accidentally inventing prior action science teams! See, a lot of the cool historical scientists and adventurers we looked into were born too early to make the cut for Tesla’s late 19th century team. So, you start to imagine different teams they were on. Mid-19th century. Early 19th-century. And their American, European, Asian, and African contemporaries. And then you keep working backwards. Renaissance, Crusades, Greece, Sumeria.
Uh, where was I?
Right, the original Ironhide. Like I was saying, we totally made room to tell that guy’s story, and a few dozen others, by accident. We already have some vague thoughts about what to do with the first Ironhide. But our Real Science Adventures spin-off series is in something of a limbo. It’s a matter of figuring out when, where, and how to make them. I think it's just to early in this new Webcomic Phase to tell how that stuff will play out yet.