Cry Voltage

Cry Voltage, 2007, originally serialized in Pipe Down Zine
by Jason Margos

Cry Voltage is an ironically tiny book about a rather large robot and its human companion, its discontent creator. On the run, “Volt” and “Watts” (Watts is the guy, though their names seem effectively interchangeable) hide in a forest, where they discover a peculiar trail of cubes that leads them to an expanse of pyramids, which basically attacks them. Watts wakes up and finds his faithful robotic apprentice Cooper, and together they look for Volt among the seemingly ancient structures. When they find Volt, he kicks Cooper into the atmosphere and towers over his creator, somehow dangerously changed. Then . . .

. . . to be continued.

By its own admission, Cry Voltage is “drawn in a stream of consciousness style without a plot or script,” so creator Jason Margos may not even know what happens next. Either way, this story is so well illustrated, it deserves a much larger format. (The image above is a two page spread!) Margos' script may be loose, but his brush stroke reveals a confidence and expresses a tone that truly capture the imagination. Cry Voltage isn't The Iron Giant or even Miller's Big Guy and Rusty, but a true tension is brewing beneath the surface of this tale, a potentially tumultous epic about the trials of friendship. Indeed, this minicomic cries voltage in more ways than one -- it's electric. Check it out at Pipe Down Zine's website (which isn't a bad read, either) to see the pages in color.