The Gigantic Robot

The Gigantic Robot is a 32-page board book written and illustrated by Tom Gauld, and published by Buenaventura Press. Each two-page spread has a single sentence on the left, and a hauntingly stark drawing on the right.

Gauld describes the book as a "wry fable concerning the production of an impressive secret weapon whose promise goes unfulfilled." I don't want to give away any more so I'll leave it at that.

The extremely short story takes place over an extremely long time period, and even though it took 60 seconds for me to read it, I went back and studied the powerful illustrations for a long time.

The Gigantic Robot

• [jasonrobot]

  Simple yet so beautiful. Though, I wonder how long until these 16pictures and 16sentences are optioned for a feature film ala ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ and ‘Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs’..?

• [Mick_23]

  ALSO SIMPLE AND STRONG ILLUSTRATIONS.
  TELLING A STORY IN ONE DAILY IMAGE.

  http://micks15minutes.blogspot.com

• [jaytkay]

  This brings to mind a painting I can’t Google.

  A Miro, maybe? Arp? The title is “Colossus of ” something I can’t remember. Cebu? Ceylon?

  • [mikesorgatz]

    don’t know if this is what you’re thinking of but it reminds me of The Elephant Celebes by Max Ernst
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Celebes

• [DeadWriter]

  Is is a good book to give to a child as a gift?

  It looks different and a lot more fun than many of the other sentence books out there.

  • [Mark Frauenfelder]

    My six-year-old liked it, my 12-year-old liked it a lot more.

• [Anonymous]

  More inspiration via Ed Valigursky?
  http://preview.tinyurl.com/yajfeg9

• [RedMonkey]

  This robot bears a striking resemblance to fruit fucker prime.

  http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/4/2/

  Also the original fruit fucker 2000:

  http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/2/11/

• [flipcloud]

  Definitely a Gorey influence here.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  Yes, I saw Gorey, too. Nicely inspired!

• [Anonymous]

  I clicked through to Amazon to buy this and lo and behold, in the “customers who bought this also bought” there was:
  “You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!” by Fletcher Hanks from july 2009, http://www.amazon.com/You-Shall-Your-Evil-Creation/dp/1606991604/ref=pd_sim_b_6/189-9563395-9794135

  Great news! Now I know what to give at least 3 people for christmas. It is a companion volume to “I shall destroy all the civilized planets!” BB’ed previously here http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/26/i_shall_destroy_all_.html

  Thank you Amazon customers and recommendation software devs!

• [maxoid]

  also resembles Chris Ware’s oft-appearing, early-”Acme Novelty” robot, as well as the numerous models Rocket Sam built as companions in more recent issues.

  and in a way, reminds me of home

• [arkizzle / Moderator]

  Lovely! I bought Gauld’s Three Very Small Comics pt2 for my girlfriend. It’s beautifully illustrated, he does great work.

• [Gloria]

  I saw Gorey too! I didn’t see the Fruit Fucker right away, but I also saw shades of the Iron Giant. Good mix.