Robot Dreams

Written and drawn by Sara Varon

A dog, who is lonely, makes a robot. For a while the pair of them are the best of friends, until, purely by accident, they're seperated. Over a twelve month span, the robot deals with depression and abandonment whilst the dog struggles to come to terms with how he's seperated from his friend and how he defines himself through his identity.

Stop and think about that for a second; A dog and a robot. Oh and did I mention there are no words?

Sara Varon's story is deceptively simple, deceptively gentle but this is, to my mind, graphic fiction at its absolute finest. Written and drawn after she put her dog to sleep, Varon uses the gentle, unforced (And by the way completely child friendly)narrative to deal with emotionally very complex issues and, in one glorious image, to communicate something which is both incredibly simple and incredibly difficult to come to terms with; eventually, you move on.

Even if you don't want to, because that's just how life works.  It's a profound and very powerful message that Varon communicates with incredible clarity and with no prose whatsoever.  Any way you look at it, that's a hell of an achievement.

It's very easy I suspect to read this review and write the book off as an earnest, in depth and colossally po faced examination of twentysomething angst but that couldn't be further than the truth. Varon's art is simple, honest and open and the emotions at the centre of the story never choke it or become forced. This is a lovely book, a virtuoso piece of storytelling and in the end, a deeply, deeply reassuring story. A treat visually and emotionally and one no comic fan should be without.