Coin Operated Boy

I have to admit that this review is a bit complicated for me. I want to, as I always try to do, review Coin Operated Boy on its own merits, free from prejudice of the creators. But, as I'll explain shortly, I'm finding that somewhat difficult due to what strikes me as a questionable origin.

The comic is by Steve Prouse, Rob Grabe, Mia Paluzzi, and Matt Razzano and published by Arcana. The storyline is fairly straightforward: Genesis, a young woman fed up with dating, creates a clockwork man who loves her unconditionally. The story tells of some of the pitfalls of such an approach, and ends up with the automaton's head knocked off and a flesh and blood man showing his true love to the woman.

Aside from the conceit that Genesis creates the mechanical man in her apartment on a whim over the course of a week, the story flows reasonably well and makes sense. The storytelling is serviceable, but the changing art styles was a little disruptive. It tells it's story in 32 pages, and there's nothing else to follow up on. No mega crossovers, no epilogues, no next issue. It's a fairly quick read, and a free one if you download it from Wowio so I can't complain about that.

But here's why I have trouble recommending it: the story is a unacknowledged rip-off of the song "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls from a few years earlier. Now, if it were just the title, I might chalk that up to coincidence, but there were a few lines of dialogue that tell me otherwise.

In the comic, we find: "I just want love without complications." In the song, we have the line: "Love without complications galore." Both the song and the comic make direct references to ensuring the clockwork boy is waterproof: "I can even take him in the bath" versus "I can take him in the bath." The song refers to the creation as "my new boy anvil" whereas the comic uses "my boy anvil!" And, while not quite so direct a reference, I couldn't help but think of the song's line "his pretty coin operated voice" when I read the comic's line "I'm glad I put that voice box in you."

Now, the comic, to be fair, ends the story differently with the destruction of the creature after Genesis realizes the error of her thinking. There's a very clear and direct moral to this story. In the Dresden Dolls' song, however, the protagonist is only hinted at just coming to that realization -- the video for the song ends with the coin operated boy cuddling the seemingly disinterested singer Amanda Palmer in bed. The song's moral, if it could be deciphered to have one, is decidedly more ambiguous and leaves judgment up to the audience. And it's primarily because of that why I think the song is ultimately more critically successful.

There's just enough differences to show that the comic is not simply an adaptation of the song, but I found the story impossible to read without referring back to the song repeatedly. And while I certainly don't have a problem with using others' creations to inspire one's own work, that such a direct reference goes uncredited seems to me very disingenuous at best. If you're going to shell out a few bucks for a story about a coin operated boy, I think you'd be better served going over to iTunes.

Related Items review