Robot Archie in the 1968 story "Robot Archie and the Shark Monster of Aronda Bay"
Created by Professor CR Ritchie, originally Robot Archie was remote controlled by Richie’s son Ted and his friend Dale After a while he gained a mouth, then a voice. At first it was just Ted and/or Ken talking through a speaker (usually to screw with the heads of superstitious natives) but slowly Archie began to speak, think and act on his own. He developed a pompous, boastful personality and while Ted and Ken liked to pretend they were in charge Archie often had his own ideas about how to save the day. And more often than not his were a whole lot better.
He was the creation of writer E. George Cowan and artist Ted Kearon and in 1952 appeared in the very first issue of Lion as The Jungle Robot.
At first his adventures were fairly prosaic adventure stories, most often set in Africa and Central America. But soon Archie was facing super weapons, monsters and even travelling through time and became one of Lion’s breakout stars.
Robot Archie is without question my favorite British comic character for a lot of reasons. To begin with he’s a robot and since childhood robots have always hovered near the very top of my personal hierarchy of super cool stuff (their only real competition being gorilla’s and dinosaurs, with Frankenstein coming in a strong #4). Especially wonderfully old fashioned ones who were built like boilers, like Paul Guinan’s Boilerplate (I can definitely see a family resemblance).
And while there have always been a lot of robots in American comics
except for some aborted attempts back in the Golden Age (Bozo the Iron Man, Marvex, Flexo, Electro, Robotman, Mekano, etc.) they’ve never had strips of their own. But in the 60′s and 70′s British comics had Tomtin and Buster Brass, The Iron Teacher, The Tin Teacher, Uncle Ironsides, Danny Drew’s Dialing Man (which was sort of Dial H For Hero — except with a robot), Klanky. Barney and Boing and The Steel Commando.
Then there was the art by Ted Kearnon; these pages of his original art will give you some idea just how good he was.
But mostly I love him because, damn it, he was an original. Back then with a few memorable exceptions (I’m thinking specifically of Valiant’s psychotic Captain Hurricane) a proper British hero was expected to behave in a certain way. Tough as nails and cool under pressure of course, but regardless of class they were supposed to be modest about their talents and accomplishments. In short good sports and gentlemen in the truest sense of the word. Being a mere robot Archie got away with things the bland and interchangeable Ted and Ken (seriously, if there was any way to tell them apart other than hair color I haven’t been able to find it) never could. Take, for example, this panel from the conclusion of one of his adventures during the 1960′s:
For one thing while not strictly prohibited females were rarely seen in British boys comics unless absolutely called for by a story’s plot. So for a pretty young girl in a bikini to gratuitously appear and rub oil on Archie’s back in plain view of his obviously envious human ‘masters’, well, it’s pretty unusual to say the least.
Another one of my favorite moments came in this special Christmas issue of Lion where the editors decided to take a break from their regularly scheduled ongoing story so Ted, Ken and Archie could enjoy a Christmas feast. Without explanation. No, seriously, the guys came to a clearing in the jungle and there waiting for them, piping hot, was Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.
To give you a self contained sample of what I’m talking about I present from the 1974 Lion Holiday Special an adventure of Robot Archie. Sadly cover featured is a fairly late entry in the British robot derby The Steel Commando who was an unimaginative cross between Captain Hurricane and Robot Archie himself. Try to imagine the DC character G.I. Robot played for really lame laughs.
Robot Archie also appeared in the Dutch weekly Sjors
and after his English language adventures ended when Lion was cancelled in 1974 they continued there in new color stories drawn by the artist Bert Bus. They were later published in English in the British all-reprint title Vulcan.
Robot Archie was also published in France, the Netherlands, Germany and India.
In 2005 Robot Archie appeared in Albion, a series that was supposed to be Watchmen for the Fleetway adventure characters but suffered from both overcrowding (too many characters, not enough screen time) and the lateness of the last few issues. But clearly something had gone wrong with Archie during his long years in storage. Instead of taking the lead as he should have he just wandered around in the background before eventually getting blown up. It was a very sad send off.
And, finally, here’s a piece featuring Robot Archie by John Byrne.
—
Steve Bennett
