Walter The Wobot: The Frankenheim Monster, Part 1

NAME
Walter The Wobot: The Frankenheim Monster, Part 1

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 A.D. Prog 59

DATELINE
8 Apr 78

PAGE COUNT
1

REPRINTS
Judge Dredd Definitive Ed. Metal Fatigue, Judge Death Classic Judge Dredd, Judge Dredd Chronicles Book 1 and The Best Of 2000AD Monthly 49.

SYNOPSIS
Walter gets abducted by a bodysnatcher.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First

INFORMATION
Lunar City has a morgue.

The 3 Widdle Pigs is a children's book.

Robots are reputed to be unbeatable at chess.

WALTER THE WOBOT
He plays chess with Dredd and lets him win. He encounters Igor struggling with a heavy load outside the Lunar Morgue and helps him carry it. When it is revealed to be a corpse, Igor abducts Walter.

OTHER CHARACTERS
JUDGE DREDD
He plays chess with Walter and wins every time. Porridge is his favourite breakfast meal.

YGOR
He steals a body form the Lunar Morgue and kidnaps Walter when he attempts to help.

DEATHS
None.

BEST LINES
Dredd: "Checkmate. I win again, Walter. I thought robots were unbeatable at chess."

WORST LINES
Walter: "Weading you a bedtime stowy, Judge Dwedd!"
Dredd: "How kind. Now why don't you do something useful - like disappear."

CATCHPHRASES
Walter says bweakfast, bwighten, cwaft, cwipes, Dwedd, pawallel, powwidge, pwecision, pwoblem, stowy, thwee, twouble, weading and welease, but manages a Dredd along the way.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
This strip is set during Walter's time on Lunar 1 and so before the accompanying Judge Dredd: Return To Mega-City.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
Igor or Ygor is a traditional characterisation of a hunch-backed henchman to a villain. The image of this character comes from the combination of the hunchbacked lab assistant in Frankenstein (1931), a character called Fritz and a mad blacksmith with a twisted spine called Ygor from the sequels Son Of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942). The characterisation was parodied in Young Frankenstein (1974) with Marty Feldman's hunchbacked assistant who pronounced his name "Eye-gor".

MISTAKES
Widdle?

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
None.

CREDITS
Script: Joe Collins
Artist: Brian Bolland
Letters: Tony Jacob

REVIEW
Walter's adventures take an interesting twist here. Dredd is depicted in quite an enigmatic way and the panel of Walter shown from above is very nice indeed.

Next Prog: Sinister Surgeon