by Sara Varon, First Second
Robot Dreams appears at first to be an example of Kochalkaesque whimsy, but, fortunately, it also possesses a deep undercurrent of cynicism that saves it from being cloying. It’s the story of an anthropomorphic dog who builds a robot and then abandons him at the first opportunity. The robot dreams of his lost dog friend, the dog makes some desultory efforts to find his lost robot, drifting through a series of dissatisfying friendships on the way. Finally, each moves on and finds a new friend, and, in the final three pages, there is a splendid and excruciating moment of reconciliation.

It’s a simple story, told without words, and suitable for children. But I’m not sure if it can rightly be called a children’s book. The characters’ behavior is simply too callous, and the relationships in the book all read like veiled metaphors for romantic entanglements; considering that this is then the love story of a dog and a robot we’re probably lucky they remain metaphors, but it does make the book feel, finally, more mature than it appears on the surface.

In a silent comic the art’s main function is utilitarian, and it works well in that regard. The style is “cute” and “charming” without really being anything more, and perhaps the color palette is too muted for its own good. Really, Varon’s most “artistic” artistic choice is her excellent use of blank white pages with single panels as transition devices. But in general here the art serves the narrative, without calling attention to itself.

There are plenty of nice touches along the way, some of which play on the fact that the animals are not fully anthropomorphized: the birds migrate, the opossums eat insects, and when someone comes along to screw with the dog’s heart it is, of course, his old enemy the cat. There aren’t that many robot dreams here, despite the title, but two of them are the high points of the book, in terms of pathos: in one the robot fantasizes that things had gone differently, and he is still friends with the dog; in the other he imagines (incorrectly) that he is about to be rescued, and that everything is now going to be all right (it isn’t). This is Chris Ware territory, although it never reaches those depths of despair; perhaps a better analogy would be Charles Schulz. There’s not quite a happy ending, or even the hope of a happy ending, but the overall tone is one of forgiveness and acceptance. And who is cynical enough to begrudge a dog and a robot that?