gilson's avigon

Avigon has to escape. A beautiful clockwork given sentience by her creator, Avigon has begun questioning who she is and whether she is human. Everything around her is mechanical; robots – clockworks – are designed to act as bodyguards, servants, mechanics, and there’s more than a few “pleasure” clockworks roaming the streets. Each day Avigon winds herself with a specially programmed key and each day she feels as if her soul is dying. There’s no challenge or future in being a clockwork. She realizes that there is only one thing she can do – run away. But can she hide in a surreal world of machines where she herself is one? Along her journey, Avigon falls in love, but she also learns that there is truth to her creator’s statement that a clockwork can never be human. Several years ago, Ché Gilson released a graphic novel called Avigon, which told the story of a robot girl who runs away from her master to the outside world and the painful lesson she learns there. In this updated version, Gilson and illustrator Jimmie Robinson give the background of Avigon and provide us with what happens when Avigon returns home. The duo work well together. Gilson’s style of writing may be minimalistic, but it is not bare of emotion. Robinson’s use of black and white and greyscale adds to the somber tone. The drawings are simple, yet dramatic, similar in style to Tim Burton.