By David Robertson

‘Berserkotron’ is a 2 part comic about Bert and Ronnie, two teenaged friends who, at the end of childhood, hatch one last childish scheme together. Their plan is to enter their homemade eponymous robot in the local ‘Robot Wars’ competition. The boyish excitement of building a supposedly indestructible robot complete with with a ‘magic’ paint finish- soon gives way to the more pressing ambition of merely smashing Henry Moser’s rival machine to smithereens. It’s a rather simple story to cover two issues but that isn’t a problem here as Robertson has endowed the tale with plenty of human interest. For instance, there’s Bert’s relationship with his mother - her prods at him to grow up and his resistance to maturity. There’s also the quite funny and realistic depiction of the chaos of the last few weeks of high school- and the crushing aimlessness at what to do next (apart from building robots). It all make for an entertaining story.
The artwork in ‘Berserkotron’ at first glance, wouldn’t normally hook me in. Despite good layouts and clarity of storytelling, when it comes to the art, the characters are overly cartoonish and not always attractively so. The main character and his mother look a little too clownish, an admitted turn-off for me as a reader. I have no problem with simple, cartoony drawing style per se, but here the characters do look under-developed. That said, there is an embryo of a distinct style forming in both these comics though (a style that’s more fully realised with the inclusion of the cool-looking strip ‘Literature Moon’ in Issue #1) and in some panels of the main comic, the rather cube-ish figures and backgrounds are very well rendered, whilst in others, they seemed rushed and careless.
It’s inconsistent, yet very readable nonetheless. I like David Robertson’s natural, unlaboured approach to telling his stories and there’s a sense of fullness to his characters that’s really exciting to find in a debut comic. With work and patience I think we might expect great things – a small press cartoonist to watch!

Colour Cover, B+W interior, A5 booklets.
Issue#1 - 32 pages, Issue#2 - 36 pages.

Issues #1, #2, both 99p Sterling or $2 USD

Contact d1robertson@hotmail.com