Thoughts, reviews, rants, laments, and general chatting about the wonderful world(s) of comic books.
Sep 28, 2017
The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 58 - The Complete Rog 2000, July 1982
I can't for the life of me remember where I got this book. I got it recently, I know that, but where from has completely escaped me. I think it must have been a cheap bin somewhere, as I've made my feelings about the work of John Byrne known pretty clearly. That said, this also represents some very early Roger Stern work, so I suppose it has a place of some distinction in my collection.
Rog 2000 started out as a fictional robotic editor for a fanzine called CPL. It seems the character fairly oozed personality from the moment he was put upon the page, and a series of short stories, all collected here, followed.
Rog's adventures are silly. They know exactly what they are and aspire to be nothing more than an entertainment, a diversion. Rog hunts a slime creature, visits a "haunted" house, encounters a little old witch. There's no continuity, no recurring characters, no need to invest more than a surface read of the piece. Which, for me at least, is a very odd phenomenon. I as telling my classes today that we can certainly choose to read a piece of art with the express intention of an escapist, surface reading, but that there is almost certainly a deeper reading we can perform. I'm not sure if that's the case with Rog 2000. I mean, I sure one could, but I'm also fairly sure that there was nothing of the sort in the minds of those writing and drawing the tales within.
Seems like a terrible thing for someone who attempts to teach critical reading and thinking practices to say, but every now and again we have to acknowledge that, in some cases, there is only surface to some works of art. This doesn't make them bad...just simple.
Onward.
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