Writer: Rob Williams / Penciller, Colour Artist, Letterer, Graphic Designer: Pye Parr / Collects: Petrol Head #1-#5 / TP / Image Comics
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Review by Paul Dunne
13th June 2024 (Released: 5th June 2024)
The Pitch: In a climate crisis-ravaged future metropolis, an old, grumpy, obsolete, smoke-belching, cigar-chomping, hotrod-racing robot is one 12-year-old girl's only hope. Together, can they outrace the chasing Robo-Cops with an invention that might just save humanity?
“Oi! Oi! Satnav Sid ‘ere! Just popped over to your gaff to to ‘ave a chin-wag about Petrol Head! It’s set in the future, where the ‘ole planet is caught in a roit pea-souper and no mistake. But strike a light! There’s hope on the horizon! I’ll let me ol’ mucker, Comic Crush Paul have a natter wiv’ ya about it! Take it away, Chief!”
It used to be that no one knew what the future would hold. Increasingly, as we rush headlong into ecological, choking mass destruction, I feel that the future is becoming pretty god-damn knowable. We know the planet is going to choke us, or more accurately, that we’re going to choke it and as a by-product, ourselves. So in one respect, the future is certain. The end is on its way! Oh brother, what are we going to do? Better lean on the old standby of fiction. And what better way to see the future than through Rob Williams and Pye Parr? After all, having been graduates and now visiting professors of the 2000 AD school of just how screwed we are, there’s probably no better creative pair to take you into the end. But wait! What if… what if these two were actually just fooling you the whole time? What if they think there’s a future after all? What if… they’re OPTIMISTS?!
So yeah, Petrol Head isn’t just a doom and gloom piece about humanity versus robots. There’s the notion that when faced with a slow death, we just create bread and circuses to distract ourselves like the Romans did. Here, gladiatorial combat has been replaced by racing, with Human drivers replaced by sophisticated, sentient robots all of whom are not blessed with humility or indeed, humanity. But as time marched on, they became obsolete, and their cars and races were outlawed. We can never forget the way that humanity treats things it no longer has use for, even if that thing has a life of its own. It’s in this backstory and these metal characters that we most feel the traces of The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic (which Rob and Pye both still create for). You can’t look at the robots and not think of the ABC Warriors, or futurist cities and not think of Mega City One. When the smogzone makes it’s appearance, one is reminded that there’s a cursed earth out there beyond the walls of Joe Dredd’s jurisdiction.
But for me, that’s where the similarities end. Because you see, I’ll always think of 2000 AD in black and white. That’s how I first experienced it, how it stuck in my brain. But Parr and Williams bring us a blazing future of burning colour, where although the outlook may be initially bleak, the veneer is strictly nineties sheen. Christ, it’s beautiful. I honestly don’t feel you’ll find a better-looking comic this year. We get the Robots, straight out of Star Wars or Gareth Edwards’ recent The Creator, vehicles right out of Mad Max and a story that feels inspired by E.T., only it’s the humans that need to get home. Or to be more exact, to find a way to rebuild their home so that it actually becomes liveable for humanity.
Williams and Parr centre on the robots, which is an interesting take. In their future, the humans are an annoyance, a cross to bear, or the mechanism by which the oppression is doled out. It’s a great way of focusing the story and challenging the reader to address the more troubling aspects of their moral matrix when it comes to the machines we can’t live without. The Robots have morals. They have dreams. They have heart. Williams and Parr are asking you to have the same. One could look at the racing robots as an old fiction that’s been left behind. And like all things we obsess over, it must be rebooted. But is it, in fact, us that needs the reboot? It’s notable that racing seems to end when it starts to give people hope – and the humans allow it. There’s no recourse, no protest, no fan letters decrying the sport’s demise. Is this the way you want to approach the end of all things, the book seems to ask? With a whimper, not a bang?
And yet, from the Petrol Head’s move to help the humans, right up to the creation of a tiny robotic bird and Parr’s stunning colour scheme, the book resounds with hope. This future’s bright, it says. Better put on your shades. The Petrol Heads are obsolete, sure, but they fight for their lives and then Lupa’s, Petrol Head’s human charge. The pivotal moment comes early in the book when Petrol Head speaks up against oppression for people he professes to hate. Ultimately the story is one of learning to forgive and not make the assumption that ‘They’ - whoever the ‘They’ is in your life - are all the same.
Like all great science fiction, the book has its own lexicon and language, as well as hijacking dying forms of communication like cockney, which here is bastardised by the holographic Satnav Sid. Sid is an example of what Williams does really well in his writing, creating memorable minor characters who can buffer the conflicts of the book’s stars. His world is expansive, even as society and the means by which it continues to exist contract. There’s a beautiful fusion of Pixar and Mad Max, with the violence against human bodies remade as violence against steel and the huge personalities of the robots. Williams creates a wonderful issue-by-issue flow to the story, whilst never losing sight of the big picture. Parr reveals himself to be one of the best artists working right now.
The graphic design that was his career (and still is) is there, but to this, he’s added an expressive sense of large-scale motion and small-scale emotion, zeroed down to the character’s faces. Every panel is full of detail, but not overload. The action is clear, exciting, uncluttered. And his colours are among the most stunning I’ve ever seen in a comic. He could have gone for en-vogue muted panels, but instead, we get an explosion of pop. Not since Dave Stewart mastered his craft have we seen a colourist shine in this way. Petrol Head has recently been optioned for development as a film. I hope that whoever makes it gets even half of the vibrancy, energy and heart that’s in the book. In the meantime, get in the car, switch on Satnav Sid, fire up the engine and put your seatbelt on, kid. It’s going to be a wild ride!
Petrol Head Vol. 1 TP is available at Gosh! Comics now. Buy Image Comics here.
