Help me find this sad Chris Ware comic about a hugging robot

Cafe Society
1

I doubt it’s online—at least I have been unable to find it—so I’m primarily looking for which of his books it’s in. But he has a lot of books, many of them quite dense, and it’s not like there’s indexes or anything.

It is in black and white, in a fairly realistic style, though somewhat stylized. It’s I think 12 frames, more or less, arranged on a single page (portrait orientation, not landscape).

The action per frame is probably a little jumbled in my memory, but I remember it much like this:

  1. A retro ’50s style rocketship touches down on a planet full of lush alien undergrowth.

  2. Men disembark from the ship, exploring and taking samples. We see one man in particular in the foreground.

  3. Suddenly, everyone is alarmed; there is danger!

  4. The men scramble back into the ship, but our man in the foreground doesn’t make it back in time.

  5. He watches in disbelief as the ship takes off without him.

  6. He goes about setting himself up to survive as best he can, Robinson Crusoe style.

  7. Time passes.

  8. He makes a robot for companionship, whose sole purpose seems to be just to hug him.

  9. Time passes.

  10. Then one day, the rocketship returns to rescue him! Overjoyed, he runs to the rocket, leaving all his castaway stuff behind, including the robot.

  11. The robot watches in disbelief as the ship takes off without him.

  12. In the end, we see the robot forlornly hugging a tree.

Like I said, it’s a sad strip.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who might have a lead, and if anyone out there is reading this out of curiosity without knowing Ware’s work, I encourage you to check him out. He’s pretty great!

2

This isn’t exactly like your description, but might be close enough for a vague memory.

3

Also in the same spirit.

4

Thanks for the responses! Darren_Garrison’s example is close, but not the one I’m thinking of–mine is starker, with less grey washes and definitely no cursive text.

5

I’m such a sap…that one gets me right in the feels!

6

Did that to me, also.

7

I’ll try to flip through his stuff tonight to see if I can track it down, I own many of his books; although I slowed down after Building Stories.

Edit: Might it have also been a Tom Gauld comic? I have a lot of his stuff too, I will investigate.

8

But Spirit is home.

9

It may not be available, but it is an episode of “Rocket Sam” And yes, it was from Chris Ware.

The link is not working now, but enter:

Chris Ware Rocket Sam The Bristol Board

In google images and you can see it more clearly by pressing the google thumb that points at Tumblr, it should be the first item in the search or the second one.

10

This worked for me: The Bristol Board: Chris Ware

11

Well, that certainly must be it! I evidently misremembered many things about it, and was completely wrong about the cursive text. Stupid memory!

Thanks GIGObuster, Lavender_Pebble and everyone who took the time to respond!

12

This was a nice excuse to look through my old Acme Novelty Library books. I had put the giant ones away and it’s so much nicer to read his work big instead of in the squished up compilations. I also didn’t realize how much of those early comics made it into things like Rusty Brown.