THE ROBOT BUILDERS

The Robot Builders was a strip in Tiger & Hurricane comic. It started in issue dated 9^th April 1966 and continued until 7^th October 1967.

The story premise might sound a little familiar.

The Arrow brothers, Damon and David, along with their father, Andrew are all scientists known collectively as The Robot Builders, who have created a number of fantastic machines capable of carrying out rescues in any part of the world. They operate from a secret underwater base which emerges from the ocean whenever one of the Arrow craft are launched. This is eventually drawn as an island base. They even have a catch phrase - R.F.G. - Ready for Go!

Two regular robot characters are introduced adding a slight comedic touch to the stories. Eggy and Steve are the R2D2 and C3PO of the strip.

While the initial stories deal with rescues, soon the Arrow family are dealing with super crooks and extra terrestrial invaders.

The original artist on the strip was Carlos Cruz who drew it for the first year, however, for me the strip was really brought to life by Ron Turner who drew it from March 1967. The stories were about fantastic machines and Ron was the man to draw them.

The final story illustrated by Cruz was about a mystic from south east Asia called Sang Yu who could conjure up dragons and control the weather. The final panels of the strip reveal the power behind Sang Yu as the evil Doctor Dome.

Dome would return in the next story, now drawn by Ron Turner when the Arrow family would face the doctor and his army of robot Mummoids!

Although the strip quite obviously drew it’s inspiration from Thunderbirds I like to think it did develop a little from it’s original premise with the introduction of the robot characters, dropping the rescue idea and replacing it with fantastic alien invaders and super criminals. But of course it’s Ron Turner’s art that gave it the edge for me.

 

More Turner comic art in the pipeline, folks