Tag Archives: Comics

Published prior to Asimov’s famous “Three Laws of Robotics” and after Capek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots, Al Capp’s ‘savage’ robot comic fits within an interesting place of robot history. A brief time line to illustrate this:

1921 – R.U.R. premiers in Prague and popularizes the term robot
1927 – the silent science fiction film Metropolis by Fritz Lang is produced in Germany and released featuring a female robot
1937 – Al Capp publishes his Lil’ Abner comic strip featuring the “savage” robot
1938 – a 35-minute adaptation of a section of R.U.R. was broadcast on BBC Television
1939 – Elektro, the “first true robot built in the United States” was unveiled at the World’s Fair in New York, popularizing robots in the United States
1942 – Asimov introduces his “Three Laws of Robotics” in his short story Runaround

By focusing on Al Capp’s comic, I’m trying to decode the influences of his robot character. Can anyone point me in the direction of literature that would augment my understanding of early robot history, pre-Asimov? I would be interested to see if the rhetoric I commented on in my previous post occurs in other instances as well.

The term “robot” literally means, “forced labor” in Czech – the language that Rossum’s Universal Robots was originally written in. That may help explain this panel:

A complete version of the comic was originally posted on Paleo-future.

Paleo-future has posted a Lil’ Abner comic that ran in the July 18, 1937 edition of the Charleston Gazette, featuring a robot that suddenly turns violent. Visit their blog for the complete strip. I’ve featured one part of the comic that stands out the most, where the professor refers to his robot as perfect, yet capable of being a “savage” and “murderous.” This early development of the robot archetype seems to parallel attitudes toward Native Americans in early American history. I would be interested to see if this is merely a coincidence, or if there is a pattern.

The comic also reminds me of the short but comical book by Daniel H. Wilson entitled “How to survive a robot uprising.” In his book, Wilson plays upon fears within popular culture that technology, specifically robots, will one day destroy humanity. Focusing on recent appearences of robots in popular culture, like the movie I, Robot he shows this as a contemporary problem, however I wonder if there is a larger historical framework that could be developed. Wilson sits on the jury at the Robot Hall of Fame, and just released a new book entitled “Where’s My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived.”

Here is a very lengthy video where Wilson discusses his first book, and digs deeper into robot fears within popular culture.