Sonny Liew, creator of Malinky Robot, has already landed a gig with the mainstream with his upcoming work on Vertigo's My Faith in Frankie. Malinky Robot is the project that got him noticed, however, not just by DC but by the Xeric Grant folks, who chose Malinky Robot as one of their grant winners. Their reasoning is easy to see: Malinky Robot is a mildly surreal tale of a young boy in an unspecified future, and it has the same sort of meandering but engaging style of Farel Dalrymple's Pop Gun War. While the story is intriguing, though, what really impresses about the oddly-named Malinky Robot is Liew's artwork, done in an oddly detailed yet unfinished sketchy style.
Malinky Robot is not what you really call a plot driven book. The story here revolves around a young boy and his friend catching a fish long thought extinct and then showing it off. Most of what makes the story is the atmosphere surrounding this tale, the open air fish market and the construction site and the planned blackouts that present a sort of dystopian future based on a poor working class socioeconomic level. Liew's story includes some interesting modern social commentary amidst its weirdly low-tech futuristic setting, as these two kids worry about their future and wonder if they can escape the obvious destiny of working at the construction site.
When folks talk about self-published comics, it's books like Malinky Robot that they're talking about. Everything about this book screams "independent vision" in the same way that independent films usually have the stamp of their creator upon them rather than a studio. The story is very, very loose and honestly, doesn't really go anywhere or make any very deep points. Instead, it's just sort of a brief glimpse of characters and the world that Liew has created. It's not going to appeal to everyone because of this sort of wandering, story light quality, but it will probably strike a chord with those who are looking for something different.
Where Malinky Robot really shines, though, is in the artwork. As with the story, the look here is very indicative of a small press project. Liew's artwork looks like it was done entirely in pencil, with some light lines and plenty of scratchy lines and outlines left without being erased, but it does not look sloppy. Instead, it looks very detailed, and has an unusual exaggerated style that is hard to describe or compare. If I had to make a comparison, I'd suggest a variety of names from Paul Pope to Dr. Seuss to Michel Gagne, and I still don't think that hits all the various impressions that Liew's artwork makes. It's gorgeous, and shows an incredibly mature development of skill and style. The art keeps demanding my attention, compelling me to flip back through again and again and take in Liew's composition, his characters and his strong attention to detail.
The book has a strange, almost deliberate mixture of high-tech and low-tech production values. The handwritten, seemingly pencilled letters and speech balloons are sometimes difficult to read, but they lend a certain amount of charm to the book that computer lettering probably wouldn't have. The rest of the production is top-notch, with a nicely designed cover (on cardstock no less) and nice, bright white paper that really brings out the detail in Liew's work. Because of its small press nature, a lot of folks might miss out on this charming little treasure, but that would be a mistake, as its definitely a compelling look at a burgeoning and unique talent.
