The Love Pangs of a Caffeinated Robot
Comic Pilot Season 2024: April Week 3 New Comic Book Roundup
I’d like to blame this week’s delay on trying out a new format, wherein I focus a little more on the book of the week, and a little less on everything else. I’d also like to blame it on a something new I’m working on, that should hopefully hit your inbox this weekend. Unfortunately, the addicting nature of Spellcaster University might have something to say about these excuses.
Nonetheless, this week’s books feature surreal robots found by sapphic astronauts, a lonely wildlife photographer who witnesses something gruesome, and a clothes inventor given an important watch. The Book of the Week is a heartwearming, and wrenching, story of a robot, his cat, their coffee, and the longing journey for love. Enjoy this week’s comics, and as always, let me know what you think.
Weekly Roundup | Below are this week’s new series — enjoy! You can find the scorecard explanation and glossary here.
Book of the Week
Love Me: A Romance Story #1
I use the unfortunately-named League of Comic Geeks site/app to track my comics on a weekly basis, both for my own collection and to assist in the writing of this roundup. It’s basically Letterboxd but for comics, including having community reviews, though they tend to be a tad less smarmy than the typical Letterboxd user. I’ll often peruse these reviews for the week’s new series, simply to get a temperature check on a book. Am I hotter on a book than the average, did I completely miss what is a hit, and so on. The community reviews for Love Me: A Romance Story were mostly what I expected — enjoyment of the slow, sweet romance it’s name suggests, and especially for the art and colors from Stefano Cardoselli and Lorenzo Scaramella. But there was a consistent caveat to this enjoyment that begat a reduction of that venerable 5th star (or in more severe examples, a 4th): simplicity.
This confuses greatly, as it suggests an underlying desire for complexity above truth.
In both its narrative and art, Love Me has a fondness for truth above fact and sincerity more than cynicism. There are only two characters of importance — a big round robot named Jojo, and his sharp-tongued cat, Frida. The former is described by the latter as “annoyingly kind” and “incredibly positive.” Jojo drinks good coffee, waters his dying plants, and listens to Nina Simone over breakfast, knowing that it’s music Frida enjoys. He leaves every morning to drive an old taxi, a job that he loves.
What Jojo is missing, is “someone to see [him] and care.”
Jojo meets a beautiful woman in his cab, and talks at length about Nina Simone records and old black and white movies, and he falls in love. His heart soars as he prepares for their date at the local movie theater, where he waits patiently.
And waits some more.
And keeps waiting.
Applying the word “simple” to this story is, while accurate in the strictest sense, a missed-opportunity to engage in the beauty of its truths. These truths are never more present than in Cardoselli’s line art, here using the same exaggerated expressions and rough, inconsistent shapes in Caffeinated Hearts. Frida’s large, oblong eyes filled with geometric points of light, are contained within erratic, lopsided shapes of fur and ears and whiskers when she declares that no matter the future of this date, she will still be here, waiting at home, for Jojo to return. This is truth. And when Jojo, the big, round robot, stares dejected at the ground so late into the night it’s whispering of a new morning, with a limp rose in one hand and an empty cup of coffee in the other, this is also truth. The mesmeric concentric circles of focus and shadow, as well as the narration box declaring “Love always complicates everything…” tells us so.
This is a story of slanted details, of smudges and the ghosts of lines later-erased, that suggest something deeply personal, held within the hearts of Franceso Perillo and co. Do not reject it’s familiar, painful emotions as simplicity, only because it does not layer on a larger cast of characters or a more complicated plot. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit beside something soft (ideally an animal companion), and simply feel.
Recommendation: Series Pickup.
This Week’s Other New Series
7174AD #1
Recommendation: Pass. This type of surrealist, experimental book just isn’t for me. There’s some really interesting use of line art vs. finished art to showcase time and existence, but the lack of clear narrative makes it a tough pickup.
Blow Away #1
Recommendation: Pilot Pickup. Definitely a The Thing vibe going on, but with the twist of single-point of view storytelling. I don’t know if a polar bear would let you take a trap off its paw, but I’d like to believe in a better world.
Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine #1
Recommendation: Pass. It’s overly familiar, leaning on derivative character setup and even basic plots. Inventor kid who just can’t get anything right is torn between family and his future, screws up his presentation, and discovers a bigger world of whimsy and danger. Just watch Big Hero 6, it was great.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s Pilot Season Comics Weekly Roundup. If you do pick up any of these books, definitely let me know what you think in the comments.
If you’ve enjoyed these roundups thus far, I would love it if you could share with friends who also enjoy comics, or maybe those who have yet to try their first book and are looking for somewhere to start.
Enjoy your weekend, and see you next NCBD (New Comic Book Day)!