Thinking about this page from Urasawa's Pluto where he managed to do a heartbreaking bit of emotionality from a robot physically incapable of emoting all entirely through panel composition and framing.
One of the all-time greats of comics.
It's doubly incredible to see because Urasawa is maybe the best living comics artist when it comes to actual human expression and nuance and so he easily could have made her have a more human-esque face and instead chose the unfeeling, unreacting one she has SPECIFICALLY to do this sort of thing.
If you want to learn more about comics composition and storytelling, specifically how emotion and action can be conveyed through so many means other than just "show the thing" and how page composition is so incredibly potent as a storytelling tool
You should go read some Urasawa
If I have to hear American media folks say "but, if we don't give the robot lips, how will we know what they're feeling?". Kids raised on tokusatsu understand body language and how it can tell more emotion than just an expression.
Man… this hits particularly hard since my co-writer and I have been exploring a scene where a murder victim got to come back as a mannequin, and see her brother for the first time in years.
It’s incredible what details you notice about grief when the typical ones aren’t available.
Pluto is a masterpiece both in print and on television. I just love how what you might call the 'best of humanity' is represented by some of it's most advanced robots.
I was talking to a friend about Pluto and started saying “you know the scene…” and before I got any further she knew I was referring to this one. Eye opening moment in my comics education.
