Byte-Sized #4

Byte-Sized #4

AWA Upshot Studios 2020

Written by Cullen Bunn

Illustrated by Nelson Blake II

Coloured by Snakebite Cortez

Lettered by Sal Cipriano

When two young siblings excitedly unwrap their final Christmas presents, they discover toy robots unlike anything they have ever seen. And with good reason. What the kids and their parents don't know is that their quaint suburban home just became the beachhead for these self-aware 'bots that have begun to explore the outside world. And when one of the 'bots breaks bad, it's going to take a Christmas miracle to stop him. In this concluding issue, the bots face off with the living room as their battleground.

I do love me some Cullen Bunn but lets face it he isn’t exactly known for all-ages storytelling so it’s absolutely wonderful to see how well he can write regardless of the audience. This is just another reason to love him all the more. This is one of the cutest books I’ve read in quite some time and it really does epitomise what an all-ages book should be, something the entire family can enjoy and talk about over a device free meal. While this would lend itself to be a great horror story along the lines of Puppet Master instead it really reminds me of some older films like Explorers which of course is another great example of all-ages friendly storytelling.

I really like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. I mean when the kids came running in and startling the parents who didn’t have to process just react is precisely the kind of reaction that I would expect them to have! The character development that we see is amazing as there’s nothing like a crisis to show a persons true colours and the fact that none of them went rogue or got angry or even gave in to the agents says a lot about this family. The pacing is great and as it takes us through this final issue and ties all the loose ends up you are sad to see it end.

The way that this is structured so that the layers within the story all become nicely tied up and how we see the book end so that it could possibly lead to another adventures is beautifully done. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as it moves the story ever forward is great.

The interiors here are cute. I will say there are way too many blank background spaces in this book. This is a house and it would be nice if it felt lived in and full of furniture and such instead of just this nothingness but the characters themselves. This is my opinion but it really would enhance the story to utilise more backgrounds. The linework is strong and clean so that the detail in the bots is fantastic. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is really rather nicely rendered. I like how the colours are utilised and when we see the various hues and tones within the colours utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work.

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I could see this be one of those cartoon films that channels I grew up with like Nickelodeon would pull off incredibly well. I wouldn’t mind seeing it on Netflix to be honest because the premise, the characters both bot and human, or dog, are endearing. I love being reminded that comics are an all-ages medium where at different ages you’ll notice different things within the story itself.