Category Archives: previews

Alex Sheikman’s first 4-issue Robotika miniseries was published in 2005. The first issue of his second 4-issue installment, Robotika: For A Few Rubles More, was released in 2008 before Archaia Studio Press’s restructuring led to the suspension of its publication schedule. Now Archaia is back on track, and is re-launching Robotika as two 64-page double-sized issues and a re-printing of the 128-page hardcover collection of the first mini-series.

HEAVY INK: So… Robotika. Tell us about it!

ALEX SHEIKMAN: I refer to Robotika as the first-ever Steampunk Sushi Western. It is a story about a quest: a quest for a lost invention, a warrior’s quest for a purpose and identity… ultimately it’s my take on the timeless story of a tragic hero’s journey.

The first Robotika series introduces all the major characters and opens a window into the world of Robotika. Niko is the djihit, a member of the elite bodyguard assigned to protect The Queen, and he is sent on a quest to recover something that has been stolen from the palace. Niko’s travels take him far and wide through the world of Robotika and the reader gets to see little bits of Niko’s reality and met some of Niko’s companions.

The second series, Robotika: For A Few Rubles More, picks up right after the first series. I tried to make it a good jumping-on point for folks who have not read the first series and wanted to see if they might like the book. I struggled a little over how much flashing back to the first series I should do, but ultimately couldn’t find places where it felt right, so I condensed the first story down to a one-page introduction for the inside front cover. David Moran scripted it, with just one word per panel, and it really turned out to be little illustrated haiku, which is just perfect for the book.

The second series, as you can tell from the title, is all Western (of course, with Russian gunslingers in it) and has the classic elements of the Small Town In Trouble, and the heroes becoming the unwilling participants in the drama. It does have a few different twists that I think folks will find interesting but it is all about revenge, love, and brutality that can be found on the frontier of civilization.

By the way, I want to point out something about the Sci-Fi aspect of Robotika: I consider the environment to be a character in its own right – it’s prominently featured for that reason. But I haven’t devoted much of the story to explaining it. When I was a kid, my family immigrated here from Russia. I had little knowledge of English and no understanding of American culture. I was just submerged into a new experience, and I decided to present Robotika like that. I don’t explain how the future works, I just draw it and I let the reader look through the panels and figure it out for themselves… like I did when I was a kid in San Francisco.

HEAVY INK: Tell us about your background and maybe some of your influences – not only artistic, but genre and literary?

ALEX SHEIKMAN: I’m self-taught as an artist. When I first started drawing, I just tried to copy the drawings that I saw in books and comic books. I learned some basics about composition and rendering that way. I’m always reading about art and the process of making art… and of course am always looking at art! After high school my scope was expanded beyond comics, when I discovered some of the Golden Age illustrators like JC Leyendecker, Dean Cormwell, Orson Lowell…the list goes on.

My “window into art” slowly grew, and these days I hunt second bookstores for all sorts of books about art. I feel that there are thousands of years of art created by people, and if I am serious about being an artist and trying to communicate through art, I need to get educated and be exposed to what others have experimented with. I feel that knowing what others have tried (what worked and didn’t work) allows me to “stand on shoulders of giants”. Some of it will resonate with me, and some of it won’t… the works that I can relate to I can learn from, and expand my ability to communicate with the readers.

As far as other influences… wow, where to start? Everything and anything I come into contact with influences me. Books, movies, anime, comics, music, conversations I have with friends… its all one big mess.

HEAVY INK: Can you talk a little about what your experiences in the business of comic publishing have been like? How does it work? What are the challenges in bringing such a singular vision to the marketplace?

ALEX SHEIKMAN: To be honest, my experiences are pretty limited. Apart from Robotika, I only had one other creator book published, Moonstruck, and only one issue of that came out before the publisher went out of business.

I always thought that I was going to slowly work up the steps to work at Marvel or DC. First do some black and white independent work, then do assistant work for someone, then get a shot at a short story, and after that I was going to be a professional artist. That was probably a good plan, but life kind of got in the way.

I did some black and white comics (“Moonstruck”, and a book called “Bloodlust” for Slave Labor). Learned some things, got some practice, met some people. Got offered some assistant work for Marvel, did that and after a while got a shot at penciling (and later inking a big part of) a short for Marvel Comics Presents. I thought I had made it… until I got to see it in print. It was horrible. Seeing it as printed material made me realize I didn’t know what I was doing. I got totally depressed, didn’t return any phone calls from any editors and just decided that I could not do comics anymore.

So I decided I would do some illustration instead and I got involved with Role-Playing Games working for White Wolf, illustrating their books. I did that for almost 10 years – and it was awesome. I learned about drawing, about keeping deadlines, about the printing process and how it can be used. It was just a wonderful experience and it really made me grow up a bit.

Around 2005 I was attending a weekly art group and I met Ryan Sook there. He was just starting to work on Arkham Asylum back then and he showed me some of his pages… they just hit me like a brick. The rendering, the storytelling… it all made me remember why I loved comics and why I wanted to draw comics and tell stories in the first place.

At that point I decided to try comics one more time. Of course by this time the marketplace was totally different – I didn’t even know where to begin. So I decided I was just going to sit down and do my story and try to get someone interested in it… if not, I was going to self-publish. A funny piece of trivia here: Ryan was originally going to write a short story for me, but plans changed and I took over the writing, but some of Ryan’s original ideas found their way into the finished story.

When I was about 20-30 pages into the story I sent out packages to a couple of places and Archaia showed some interest. I have always been a fan of Mark Smylie’s “Artesia”, so it was great to get an e-mail from him and eventually have my work accepted under the Archaia banner. Archaia printed the first series and I wanted to do a sequel, but just as I got into the swing of things, Archaia went into re-structuring. So here we are now. Archaia is publishing again, and Robotika is back.

HEAVY INK: So, having spent all that time in another industry – do you still follow comics and comic art?

ALEX SHEIKMAN: Definitely. I am at a comic shop or buying comics online every week. There is so much good work out right now… I just can’t afford to buy it all.

I just recently “discovered” the work of Frazer Irving and I am blown away by it. I also make it a point to pick up anything by JH Williams III, Ryan Sook, Kevin Nowlan, Jose Garcia_Lopez, Michael Golden, Richard Corben (amazing artist!), Guy Davis, Timothy Green II, Tony Salmons… there are too many to list. There is also a whole group of younger artists whose work I am starting to follow like Jason Copland, Brian Churilla, Leif Jones, Joe Suitor, David Petersen, Jeremy Bastian… all of them, like me, just recently started out, so there is not a whole a lot of their stories published yet, but I find their work very inspirational.

I have been looking at British comics recently, too. I’m just amazed by the work of Frank Bellamy and by the collections of 2000AD and Judge Dread magazines. I also try to keep up with anything new printed in France by Sergio Toppi and Claire Wendlin… and countless other masters.

HEAVY INK: The second series, Robotika: For A Few Rubles More, gives credit to David Moran as a co-plotter and scripter. What made you bring in someone else to help?

ALEX SHEIKMAN: Simple – I wanted Robotika to be the best series it can be. Doing the first series I learned a lot and one thing became clear. I am a much better artist than I am a writer. I see the world in pictures, not in words.

Comics have a rich tradition of collaborative efforts. In collaboration, everyone is contributing his or her strengths to tell the best story in the most exciting way. So, putting ego aside, I realized that Robotika would benefit from something like that.

I was very lucky to find David Moran and to be able to convince him to work with me. David is an awesome writer. He took my outlines for individual issues and fleshed them out into full scripts, adding characters and adding beats to the story. His involvement made the story much stronger. In fact, when the first issue of “For A Few Rubles More” came out back in 2008, every review was favorable… even those from folks who did not like the original series. We got a lot of “most improved series” and “now the story is on par with the art”-type of comments. So I am really excited to see how the whole series will be received!

HEAVY INK: What can you tell us about the re-launch for the series?

ALEX SHEIKMAN: All of the titles that were caught in mid-stride by Archaia’s restructuring in 2008 are being relaunched. It’s been something like a year and a half since the first issue of Robotika: For A Few Rubles More saw print, so we decided to release the originally-planned four 32 page issues as two 64-page issues (That actually works out to be a pretty good deal at $5 a book!). The first 64-page issue will be out in June, and in August the second 64 page issue will finish the series. It will include some great pin-ups by Guy Davis, David Petersen, and Sandy Plunkett.