Most depressing, this:

“It’s nice to see the development of Roberta as a character. Starting out as little more than an animatronic answering machine with big glasses, she slowly evolved into a permanent fixture in the FF's lives. Seeing her grow from being an inconsequential appliance in the 80s to slowly gaining a sense of self during the DeFalco "mechanized human" days, culminating in her current status quo as a fully independent Robot American...she has come a long way. And still, she remains so delightfully courteous...”

Why do all robots have to “evolve”? I WANTED Roberta to be an “animatronic answering machine”. That, at least, made her something DIFFERENT.

Ah, well. No cliche is to be avoided, it seems!

••

Archie Goodwin asked me if I would be interested in writing and drawing a fill-in issue of STAR WARS. I was, and I used the opportunity to address a point that bothered me in the first movie, namely the fuss made over the damaged Artoo after the attack on the Death Star. Seeing the way Droids were treated in the rest of the movie--basically talking furniture--it seemed odd to me that there would be any concern.

So my story had Artoo turning out to be beyond repair and simply junked. Threepio then goes on a quest to a robot junkyard planet to find parts that will allow Artoo to be fixed.

Time and tide did not permit me to do my story, but it does reflect my general attitude toward robots. They are amazing machines (the fictional one), but machines is all they are. We anthropomorphize our cars, so not surprising that we do the same with something that actually LOOKS like a human.

But isn't. Sorry, Rogie!