Abe Sapien #15 LOST LIVES

[Ollie]

I didn't like this one. It didn't add anything to the current storyline and it just felt like an excuse to draw that competition winner into a story that had no effect on the real story. Abe just kept on repeating all the info we already know.

I don't remember Roger having that type of personality either, he seemed off. And what was that sun thing he kept playing with? It showed a close up of it at the end.

[middenway]

I didn't like this one. It didn't add anything to the current storyline and it just felt like an excuse to draw that competition winner into a story that had no effect on the real story. Abe just kept on repeating all the info we already know.

I don't remember Roger having that type of personality either, he seemed off. And what was that sun thing he kept playing with? It showed a close up of it at the end.

This was Roger in between War on Frogs #1 and The Black Flame #2. The point of it was that he wasn't behaving like himself. He had a much more forceful personality at this time.

The little trinket that Roger picked up (and no doubt added to his collection in his room) was worn by the woman on the first page, the woman that gets consumed by the tentacled monster thing.

[Ollie]

Ah, thanks Middenway, I didn't notice that it belonged to the woman. I thought it must've been something from an earlier series that I couldn't remember.

[Thomas UK]

Fantastic art this issue, fun little story but Roger's voice was all wrong for me. Even when he was trying out his 'Gung-Ho' persona I don't remember him ever seeming that socially aware, or confrontational, although Daimio certainly was the later and Roger was influenced by him at the time I suppose. Great Vaughn and Ash cameo's, even if they did feel a little shoe-horned in there!

[The Lobster]

I feel like Roger to a certain degree always sounded sort of like Data from Star Trek, like there's a noticeable degree of separation from how a normal person talks and how Roger talks, even when he was hanging around Daimio.

[middenway]

Fantastic art this issue, fun little story but Roger's voice was all wrong for me. Even when he was trying out his 'Gung-Ho' persona I don't remember him ever seeming that socially aware, or confrontational, although Daimio certainly was the later and Roger was influenced by him at the time I suppose. Great Vaughn and Ash cameo's, even if they did feel a little shoe-horned in there!

I feel like Roger to a certain degree always sounded sort of like Data from Star Trek, like there's a noticeable degree of separation from how a normal person talks and how Roger talks, even when he was hanging around Daimio.

That's a good point. Regardless of who he's mimicking, he's never been very socially aware of emotionally articulate. I feel like in a conversation he'd either miss the normal things everyone else is getting, or pick up on the one odd thing everyone else is missing.

[Kees_L]

I feel like Roger to a certain degree always sounded sort of like Data from Star Trek, like there's a noticeable degree of separation from how a normal person talks and how Roger talks, even when he was hanging around Daimio.

That's a good point. Regardless of who he's mimicking, he's never been very socially aware of emotionally articulate. I feel like in a conversation he'd either miss the normal things everyone else is getting, or pick up on the one odd thing everyone else is missing.

Well, I'd think Roger is a homunculus, an illicit concoction made for serving its master, which makes him radically different from any android circuited for mimicking humans such as Data. Since Roger's master is lost and replaced so to speak, he would be proving rather loyal and emotionally aware more rather than not.

I would think particularly Roger has been saying or noticing things very striking to such persons as Hellboy (in the books or titles as written by mr Mike Mignola), whereas Hellboy as a character would technically prove to be "a demon failing his own true cause" - at least towards his being a demon.

I think Roger excels at being socially aware, much more than any other homunculus or concocted zombie slave conceivable, but he would still be a homonculus, something existing, but not neededly as wanting only to exist as how humans would or might.

Like for humans or any family of species as fully prone to exist and live in groups as for interacting among their kind, it would be a handicap or a duty failed to not be capable of acting aptly aware both as articulate. But any demon or homunculus would be to have its own place amid such, for better or worse.

[Thomas UK]

That's a good point. Regardless of who he's mimicking, he's never been very socially aware of emotionally articulate. I feel like in a conversation he'd either miss the normal things everyone else is getting, or pick up on the one odd thing everyone else is missing.

Very astute way of putting it! I don't think he'd have been able to contextualise Abe's changing behaviour enough to want to pass judgement. Unless of course he had heard Damio or others say it and was partly parroting him?

[middenway]

Very astute way of putting it! I don't think he'd have been able to contextualise Abe's changing behaviour enough to want to pass judgement. Unless of course he had heard Damio or others say it and was partly parroting him?

That's a very interesting idea. I like this parroting idea. When I reread this one, I'll have that in mind.

[Thomas UK]

That's a very interesting idea. I like this parroting idea. When I reread this one, I'll have that in mind.

Only way it made sense in my mind, but think I'm making excuses, not sure if would have been what Allie intended! No personal slight on his usually solid writing though. I think Mignola and Arcudi have struggled to find Roger's voice in the past.

[Kees_L]

Only way it made sense in my mind, but think I'm making excuses, not sure if would have been what Allie intended! No personal slight on his usually solid writing though. I think Mignola and Arcudi have struggled to find Roger's voice in the past.

I politely disagree, because I think the point is that any Homonculus such as Roger would be to struggle at finding its voice, because ordinarily homunculi are concocted by shady evildoers under pretty much hostile if not tyrannical conditions, for becoming totally dominated pawns or serfs with hardly more personality than to be to fulfill their master's bidding?
As touched upon in the story "Hellboy: Almost Colossus" as with featuring a sibling or relation to Roger quite poignantly?

Also the non-Hellverse Mignola story about "Hankl and Manx" (from the Amazing Screw-On Head AOS) seems to play with such themes as how even the Devil would or could be seeming more polite than any Mannikin's Momma.

And of course would Hellboy as being a demon appear quite his own guy, moreso than most any other such demons or summoned up entities as such?

I'd say Hellboy found his own voice allright, a testtube experiment such as Abe kind of has, Johann has, Panya has, and Roger has also seemed pretty unhindred at finding his own way, at least for a homunculus?
So I would believe that anything seeming or sounding particular for a reader, would be put there deliberately and purposeful most likely?

[middenway]

Only way it made sense in my mind, but think I'm making excuses, not sure if would have been what Allie intended! No personal slight on his usually solid writing though. I think Mignola and Arcudi have struggled to find Roger's voice in the past.

That's true. I'll have to dig it up (I would have found it in a second if we still had the old forum), but there's a podcast out there where John Arcudi talked about the difficulty they had finding Roger's voice. It's fascinating, because the conversation is really character driven. He laments that he only really got a handle on his voice in The Black Flame.

[Thomas UK]

That's true. I'll have to dig it up (I would have found it in a second if we still had the old forum), but there's a podcast out there where John Arcudi talked about the difficulty they had finding Roger's voice. It's fascinating, because the conversation is really character driven. He laments that he only really got a handle on his voice in The Black Flame.

Yeah that's the interview I had in the back of my mind! Makes me wonder how his character would have evolved further if he was still in the cast...