P2

CHARLES BURNES' ROBOT LOVE

a) Genre

b) Content and style

Charles Burns art is clearly influenced by the bold black and white clear line style of American cartoonist Chester Gould. Gould’s Dick Tracy stories were famous for often featuring grotesque characters, explicit violence and broad humour as well as a visual style that relied on heavy outlines and contrasting areas of white and black.


In this frame, we see multiple grotesque characters dancing at a club/diner of some kind. The background has heavy contrasting blocks of black and white. Burns uses the white to draw our eye to the robot DJ's, as they seem illuminated between the heavy shadows of the room. Every character is illustrated with clean, thick and thin lines and minimal rendering, similar to Chester Gould's style.

c) Meaning

Charles Burns explores darker themes within Robot Love, especially with the main influence of a cyborg filled future. This is done by using the Detective and Tim, the man he has been hired to find. The detective and Tim show the difference between older and younger generations which relates to how older generations stereotypically are becoming more distant with how technology has developed and changed and how we have adapted to how technology changes the way we live.

This is more apparent when the detective finds out that Tim wants to be a robot, even if the detective tries to advise that it would be a bad idea. The use of darker comedy during the end of the comic helps to reveal to the reader that it's the older generation that's to blame for how technology has come around and how it has changed the way we live. Personally, I think that this is Charles Burns' way of showing his views on an issue that is widely discussed over media and in general conversations too.

d) Target audience

The target audience of the comic seems to be late teens. This is because of the language, themes and style of the text. In multiple occasions, it has more sexual/mature themes. Such as in the below screenshots:

There is a large amount of violence within the comic. There are also around 3-4 pages worth of text in which the protagonist is smoking. For modern times I suggest an 18+ rating but during the times it was written I think it would have been rated around 12+. This is because of the Nudity, Smoking and Drinking of alcohol which isn't suitable for children.

e) Characters

The main protagonist was based on Mexican wrestlers which the artist saw a lot on the television when growing up. He loved the action (although it was completely staged") and used lots of that within his character creation, especially the mask that the character wears during the comic. It's styled like a wrestlers mask and pays homage to its roots. The whole character's personality has been based off his friend John Borba who's personality he wanted to immortalise.