あらすじ American readers will not recognize Robinson's name, but he can best be explained as the British version of American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, a specialist in visualizing absurdly complex combinations of low-tech devices arranged to perform simple tasks. This was also the specialty of cartoonist and illustrator Robinson, who was born a decade earlier, in 1872. It seems that in Britain a Heath Robertson contraption means the same thing that a Rube Goldberg machine does in the States. Oddly, editor Geoffrey Beare never mentions Goldberg in his introduction; perhaps Goldberg is as unknown in the U.K. as Robinson is here. Beare points to Robinson's skills as both artist and satirist. Robinson often depicts scenes from a low angle and gives them an epic scale, endowing his nonsensical machines with an ironic grandeur while mocking the indolence of the modern man, who would rather rely on gadgetry than perform a simple task himself. Through his cartoons Robinson conveys his own sheer joy in his amazing visual imagination. These cartoons are not laugh-out-loud funny, but are consistently inventive and amusing. The reader may find himself in the position of the black cat who turns up in numerous Robinson cartoons, quietly observing the follies of humanity, fascinated by them.
Contraptionsのレビュー
8点 そのばしのぎさん
インクレディブル・マシーンというゲームをご存知でしょうか。
もしくはＮＨＫのピタゴラスイッチという番組に出てくるピタゴラ装置。
映画「バック・トゥ・ザ・フューチャー」冒頭の目玉焼きを作る装置などなど。
これらは総じてアメリカの漫画家の名前を取ってルーブ・ゴールドバーグ・マシンというそうです。
このルーブ・ゴールドバーグに影響を与えたとされているのが、イギリスの挿絵作家ヒース・ロビンソンの漫画。
その漫画を集めた物がこのContraptionsです。
洋書でしか出版されていませんが、以前はこういった本を見つけるのも大変でしたが、今はAmazonなどで簡単に入手できるようになったので便利になった物です。
ナイスレビュー: 0 票
[投稿:2010-10-09 15:22:39] [修正:2010-10-09 15:22:39] [このレビューのURL]
