Rog-2000

Rog-2000 (pronounced "Rahj-two-thousand", and sometimes spelled "ROG 2000") is a fictional robot that was the first professional creation of comic book artist-writer John Byrne. Note: Though the character's chestplate reads "ROG 2000", the name is generally spelled the in upper- and lowercase with a hyphen at Byrne's website, Byrne Robotics, where Rog serves as a mascot.

Publication history

The character began life during Byrne's fan-artist days in the 1970s, as a spot illustration for Roger Stern and Bob Layton's fanzine "CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature)". Layton gave the character a name (riffing on the amount of "Rogers" who contributed to "CPL") and he and Stern began using him as a magazine mascot, with Byrne supplying additional art. A Rog-2000 story, "The Coming of the Gang", appeared in "CPL" #11 (1974), written by Stern with art by Byrne and Layton, and featuring caricatures of "the CPL gang," including Byrne and fellow "CPL" contributor Duffy Vohland.

On the strength of that fan piece, Charlton Comics writer Nicola Cuti contacted Byrne about drawing the character for professional comic books — making Rog-2000 perhaps the only fanzine mascot to make that jump. Written by Cuti, "Rog-2000" became one of several alternating backup features in the Charlton Comics superhero series "E-Man", starting with the eight-page "That Was No Lady" in issue #6 (Jan. 1975). This marked the color-comics debut of future industry star Byrne, who'd previously drawn a two-page story for Skywald Publications' black-and-white horror-comics magazine "Nightmare" #20 (Aug. 1974). The character also appeared in the small-press hobbyist magazine "The Comic Reader" #44 (Jan. 1975).

Three additional, seven-page "Rog-2000" stories — "Withering Heights", "The Wish", and "Rog. vs. The Sog", all by Cuti & Byrne — appeared in "E-Man" #7, 9-10 (March, July-Sept. 1975), respectively. All the Charlton stories were reprinted in Pacific Comics' "ROG 2000" #1 (June 1982).In a 2000 interview, Byrne recalled that:

Stern was reunited with Rog-2000 when Chartlon accepted two of his scripts for the feature, but the company then canceled "E-Man" the following workday.

Footnotes

References

* [http://www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/12stern.html "Comic Book Artist" #12 (March 2001): Roger Stern interview]
* [http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/r/rog2000.htm International Catalogue of Superheroes: Rog 2000]
* [http://alectronn.homestead.com/Eman.html Alec Tronn's E-Man fan page]
* [http://www.byrnerobotics.com Byrne Robotics]