Some Simple Rules

Posted by | Published on February 9, 2008

In no particular order, Team Robo promises you:

  • No angst

  • No “cheesecake”

  • No reboots

  • No filler

  • No delays*

    • This started off as a blog post, but it’s gotten enough attention over the years that we decided to make it a little easier to track down. We also updated the post as it was originally written in 2008.

    *that we can control.

    Posted in comics, nonsense | 71 Comments
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    • http://www.dakotagraves.com/ Dakota

      I just discovered Atomic Robo and loved it. Its everything I love about comics, the art, writing and concepts are even right up my alley. But especially now that I’ve read your rules, I believe you are my new heroes. Thank you good sirs. I will be following you both on Twitter.

    • http://www.dakotagraves.com Dakota

      I just discovered Atomic Robo and loved it. Its everything I love about comics, the art, writing and concepts are even right up my alley. But especially now that I’ve read your rules, I believe you are my new heroes. Thank you good sirs. I will be following you both on Twitter.

    • C. Baker

      Mad props dude. Your rules should stand as a shineing example to general-audience comic book artists everywhere. :)

    • C. Baker

      Mad props dude. Your rules should stand as a shineing example to general-audience comic book artists everywhere. :)

    • A.R.C.

      A no cheesecake rule?

      You know, I’m tempted to buy this comic just by this rule alone. When writers at Marvel tell women to stop reading their comics if they find them sexist, it’s tragically a breath of fresh air when a comic says it has no cheesecake and doesn’t suffer for it.

      But you’ve also summed up why I don’t read comics from the Big Two. Comics are hard enough to get where I am without delays, and seeing ridiculous reboots or retcons or -whatever- just makes it too ridiculous. After One More Day I’m too scared to ever read Spiderman again, and I love him as a character.

      Anyway, I appreciate you guys trying to bring some deceny and class to this industry. I’m gonna try and get an issue as soon as I can! :D

    • A.R.C.

      A no cheesecake rule?

      You know, I’m tempted to buy this comic just by this rule alone. When writers at Marvel tell women to stop reading their comics if they find them sexist, it’s tragically a breath of fresh air when a comic says it has no cheesecake and doesn’t suffer for it.

      But you’ve also summed up why I don’t read comics from the Big Two. Comics are hard enough to get where I am without delays, and seeing ridiculous reboots or retcons or -whatever- just makes it too ridiculous. After One More Day I’m too scared to ever read Spiderman again, and I love him as a character.

      Anyway, I appreciate you guys trying to bring some deceny and class to this industry. I’m gonna try and get an issue as soon as I can! :D

    • http://www.nuklearpower.com Brian!
    • http://www.nuklearpower.com Brian!
    • TimothyT

      These are awesome and with these rules most (if not all) comics would be better off. However, you missed one thing. Atomic Robo deos not do this, it's less stupidity and more bad writing/drawing (and atomic robo is neither).

      I mean when they have the main character thinking/narrating what happens. You know, “Oh no, the caves collapsing around me! Must… reach… the boat in time!”. Its the sort of thing that really bad actors do and it drags the comic book down into bad acting. I know its not possiable to show perfectly whats going on in a comic book but there are better ways of doing it without resorting to cliche/bad lines.

    • FU_JQ

      I was a big Spiderman fan back in the early 90's, then I stopped buying for almost ten years. Why? Two words. CLONE SAGA. It was one thing to do crossovers with all four titles for major events, like “Maximum Carnage”, but they started doing it for EVERY ISSUE. You had to buy four comics every month just to follow the story that made no sense and wasn't going anywhere anyway. Eventually I realized I just didn't care any more. I got back into it when I noticed JMS was writing, and I started loving it again. Then “One More Day” happened. I am now boycotting ALL Marvel comics and merchandise until they un-F*** up Spiderman and get rid of Joe Quesada. Just because he's got mother and wife issues doesn't mean he should be screwing up every Marvel character by forcing his neuroses on the readers.

    • Mathias Emil

      Great example of this “deep angst”:
      I was reading a “What If” comic today, “What if the Impossible Man got the Infinity Gauntlet?”
      Infinity Gauntlet, in my eyes, was awesome. There was no angst, no drama, merely a problem, an unsolvable problem, and they had to beat it. And the Impossible Man? How can this not be great? And what do I read but a plothole-riddled sob story about the Silver Surfer, instead of what should be a very intertaining miscreant with god powers.

      Long story short, you guys make comic book fans everywhere proud. Keep up the good work.

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    • Bill4935

      I already own Robo TPB #1, but based solely on how much I approve of your cheesecake rule, I’m buying the rest. Comics as a medium won’t grow up until we have equal numbers of female fans & creators, and that won’t happen without some basic respect.

      ps. I was sorry to hear that you became a fan of comics in the 90s. I was lucky myself to be a fan only up to 1989, and missed the abysmal “hypermuscle and giant guns” years that really warped a lot of young minds.

    • Xiphias133

      Rule number three makes the loudest statement for me. I’ve got like 3 issues of captain america where he dies, and two where spider-man bites it. I feel that now, it’s just some sort of adrenaline surge to get readership up again because everyone KNOWS that they’re not going to cancel the comic because the hero dies. He’ll always turn out to have a spare clone body, his soul be in another dimension, or forming a cocoon underneath the brooklyn bridge only to burst out perfectly fine.
      Rebooting comics in my opinion is a cheap cop out on actual story progression. Peter Parker was actually evolving as a charater ( he was a science teacher, the ” Other” arc expanded his super powers) when all of a sudden, someone at the marvel studios got cold feet and decided to POOF make it all not happen and revert him to the daily bugle-photographer-aunt-may schmuck that we’ve been living with for 40 years. IMO, it was a devastatingly bad show of creativity that such leaps and bounds had been taken with a character only to be, quite literally, erased from existence. I call bullsh*t, and if atomic robo is standing above all that nonsense with great writing, art, and most importantly, PRINCIPLES, i will gladly support it.

      Ah, sorry for the rant; I got a bit carried away…

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    • Anonymous

      It wasn’t until a few years ago I started reading comics, I think the first issue of a Western comic was the Infinity Gauntlet. Wonderful, wonderful story. And I was hooked. I ran about, buying up all the comics I could find, Transmetropolitan quickly becoming my favorite. Over time other things came up, and the feeling kind of faded. About last year, I picked up a “What If..?”, this one was “What If… the Impossible Man got the Infinity Gauntlet?”. My mind was blown. I was pumped. My friends and I used to have hour long talks about which Infinity gems we’d have and why. So I’m reading it, and my eager smile turns to a frown. The Impossible Man and Infinity Gauntlet, I thought, no way they can mess this up!” Wrong. The Impossible Man was in two scenes. The rest was the Silver Surfer crying about his planet being destroyed. What? Excuse me, Marvel, but what? Then I started noticing more of that in other series. And then in mangas and animes as well. And it occurred to me, comics suck!
      But still, though, there were those gems of wonder, like Watchmen, or Transmetropolitan. So, after a year or so of college-hopping, I finally settled on a major. Comics.
      And part of my biggest inspiration was this page right here. This here is proof, proof there are other people who want comics done right! I started reading Atomic Robo, and I realized, it’s possible to have a comic that’s got its proper share of ups and downs, but still keeps the atmosphere going. So, what I’m getting at here, is thank you, fellas, for doing what you love and inspiring me to do what I love too.
      My friend is starting a publishing company, and we’re going into comics together, fueled by the knowledge that there is, in fact, a community who feel comics need change, and not just on the readership side.
      You guys are my heroes.

    • http://profiles.google.com/jamesgfigueiredo James Figueiredo

      THANK YOU.
      THIS should be mandatory reading for every editor, writer and artist at he Big Two.

    • Sonofspam

      I love Atomic Robo that’s all

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