Monty and...E.B.?

Cafe Society
1

Talking about the strip. I haven’t followed it much until the past year or so, when I rejiggled my Chron queue and added it on a lark. The Wikipedia article implies that the syndicate forced the creator (Jim Meddick) to deep-six the Robotman character [2001] because they were apparently finding it hard to sell the strip to papers, or something. Fast forward to '09, and the strip now contains a mad scientist of sorts, and…his robot sidekick “E. B.”. Drawn differently than the original Robotman character, but pretty much the same character.

Did Meddick do this basically as a “f*** you” to the syndicate? Does the syndicate only care what the title of the strip is? Not sure what the initials stand for. If Biffy (old pal) or someone knows more, enlighten me please.

2

I wondered that too. Robotman/Monty has been my fave for lo these many years, and I remember being wicked confused when Robotman disappeared. And now he’s back. Whoa.

3

It’s been at least 7 years since Robotman was removed from the comic. I’s find it hard to believe that E. B. (Professor Xemit’s little assistant) was planned specifically as a replacement.

4

I really liked Robotman

when it became Monty, I became bored with it.

It’s gotten better over the past few years

5

So what does EB stand for in Robotman’s name?

6

Did a bit of the ol’ web searchin’, and couldn’t find a direct answer, but according to GoComics, EB is actually named EB3, so I’m betting it’s like R2-D2 (also sometimes shortened to R2).

SO my guess is “Random Robot Designation”, not an acronym.

7

When did this whole switchover start, btw? Were Chimpy, Mr Pi and those characters phased out or did they just get abducted like Robotman?

8

I believe that “E. B.” stands for Electronic Brain.

Chimpy, I think, was just phased out; I think Mr. Pi actually had a genuine departure story, but I don’t recall it at the moment.