Rog-2000
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rog-2000 (pronounced "Rahj-two-thousand", and sometimes spelled "ROG 2000") is a fictional robot that was the first professional creation of comic book artist-writer John Byrne.
The character began life during Byrne's fan-artist days in the 1970s, as a spot illustration for Roger Stern and Bob Layton's fanzine CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature). Layton gave the character a name (riffing on the amount of "Rogers" who contributed to CPL) and he and Stern began using him as a magazine mascot, with Byrne supplying additional art. A Rog-2000 story, "The Coming of the Gang", appeared in CPL #11 (1974), written by Stern with art by Byrne and Layton, and featuring caricatures of "the CPL gang," including Byrne and fellow CPL contributor Duffy Vohland.
On the strength of that fan piece, Charlton Comics writer Nicola Cuti contacted Byrne about drawing the character for professional comic books — making Rog-2000 perhaps the only fanzine mascot to make that jump. Written by Cuti, "Rog-2000" became one of several alternating backup feautres in the Charlton Comics superhero series E-Man, starting with the eight-page "That Was No Lady" in issue #6 (Jan. 1975). This marked the color-comics debut of future industry star Byrne, who'd previously drawn a two-page story for Skywald Publications' black-and-white horror-comics magazine Nightmare #20 (Aug. 1974).
Three additional, seven-page "Rog-2000" stories — "Withering Heights", "The Wish", and "Rog. vs. The Sog", all by Cuti & Byrne — appeared in E-Man #7, 9-10 (March, July-Sept. 1975), respectively. All the Charlton stories were reprinted in Pacific Comics' ROG 2000 #1 (June 1982).
In a 2000 interview, Byrne recalled that:
"We talked about a Rog book, and I even came up with a full-length story idea, a sequel to the sewer-monster story that was, if memory serves, the last published Rog story at Charlton. I think I even laid out a cover. But Charlton was not interested, and Marvel was beckoning rather relentlessly at that point. I'm not sure anymore who owns Rog. I had a handshake from [Charlton managing editor] George Wildman to the effect that Rog would always be mine, but we all know what Samuel Goldwyn said about verbal agreements! In any case, it has been so long since I did anything with Rog, I would not be at all surprised if the copyright has lapsed". [1]
Stern was reunited with Rog-2000 when Chartlon accepted two of his scripts for the feature, but the company then canceled E-Man the following workday.
Note: Though the character's chestplate reads "ROG 2000", Byrne generally spells the character's name in upper- and lowercase with a hyphen at the Byrne Robotics website [2], where Rog serves as a mascot.
