Weekends are good for lots of things like sleeping in, eating brunch and seeing daylight. Weekend toy drops, however, can be a double-edged sword. For instance, witness this beautiful hand-cast, hand-painted resin robot, Runcible Edition A by UK artist Cris Rose. The edition of 5 sold out in 3 minutes on Sunday. That’s like Huck Gee numbers!
Runcible is a gentle, nature-loving robot, who has found himself in a world without humans or robots. Nature has reclaimed the planet, so he tends the plants and animals while trying to find out what happened to the family he was part of…Each Edition has something different cast into the clear head, the visual representation of what Runcible is thinking of as he has no voice. Edition A has a leaf, the most basic element of plant life.
Cris had 5 slots for Edition A plus a special “Grandfather” one off custom available for preorder on Sunday 28.08.09 @ 18:00 GMT via his website. RRP is £39.99/$74 for the regular release, and £120 for the “Grandfather” version.
If you missed out, and if you’re not one of 6 people, you did, there’s good news: Runcible Edition B will be available in the next few months as a Run of 10 that will be available exclusively from They Walk Among Us in Richmond, London. Around the same time, the second figure, the 3.5″ Rotund robot, will have his first Edition. Rotund is a little robot, another creation of Runcible’s creator, designed specifically for children. He is discovered by Runcible one day, and after several months of searching for parts, repairs and reactivates him! The cost will be at least half that of Runcible, and the runs will be higher. There will also be a third figure, larger than Runcible, called Reaper… Cris wrote to me that he believes robots will happen at some point in this lifetime, and wanted to portray them as having some consideration for the world. However, “Reaper is evil though. But then you can’t have a hero, without a villain.”
Cris sent in this Backstory for Runcible (who might find an ally in Pixar’s Wall-E), and everyone knows how much I love a robot with a story:
Runcible was created in London, 2108 - the life’s work of one man. He had long realised that the reason why people rejected the idea of intelligent, humanoid, robot companions, was because their cold and emotionless forms always seemed to be hiding something sinister. They couldn’t be trusted.
This, combined with the unrealistic energy demands of such complex creations, had stunted robotics for a century and kept the whole of society from moving forward…
His technological solution was brilliant, his social solution simple. Runcible was the first to be powered by a self-repairing Nanomagnetic core, drawing the power he required directly from the earth’s magnetic field. No fuel, no pollution, no maintenance required. He was made without a voice or face - instead he was given a giant clear head into which all his thoughts and feelings were clearly projected, meaning that he could never conceal his true thoughts.
The acceptance was instantaneous, and the social effect overwhelming. People no longer feared him as he wasn’t an attempt to imitate and replace them.
With unlimited financial backing given to his creator, Runcible would soon be made rendered obsolete. However his creator was very fond of him, and quickly ensured that he would made a permanent member of his family by exercising his newfound power and wealth and having him declared equal to humans in every way. There was still fear though, so a provision was made stipulating that no robot would ever be created equal to man again. Law was passed.
Soon the robots outnumbered humans as Mankind reached a new golden era. With robots taking over basic tasks mankind was free to dedicate himself to higher concerns.
One afternoon, April 2318, Runcible was wandering the family estate deep in the English countryside, tending to the grounds and collecting wood from the forest he himself had planted 200 years previously. He’d been happy to spend his time helping raise subsequent generations of his family, and helping them continue his creator’s work. Runcible found himself at the very centre of the forest, where a tree bigger than any other stood. This was the single Oak his creator had planted as a small child, and where he now lay buried inside it’s hollow.
It was then that the mistake happened. The blast knocked him to the floor, deactivated. Runcible lay next to his creator in that hollow for 140 years as nature reclaimed the planet.
Runcible was reactivated by a young Deer that nudged his foliage covered body, and he found that mankind was no more. Nothing man-mad had survived intact, except for him, protected by the forest and the mightiest oak. After some basic repairs to his corroded body, he wandered the country looking for a reason why this had happened, but found nothing. So he returned to the Forest and decided that as no humans remained, and it was nature that had saved him, that he should continue to tend to the grounds as he always had and become friends with the animals that inhabited it.
Edition A finds Runcible at this point, 350 years old, decayed and coming to terms with his new existence.
Edition A “Grandfather”
My late Grandfather was the inspiration for Runcible, having worked all his life as a radio repairman. Runcible too is a gentle repairman of limitless ability, so it seems fitting that i should recognise the inspiration that lead to his genesis with a custom to accompany every run.
Edition A “Grandfather” contains an original 1940/50s radio part of my Grandfather’s - unique and beautiful in it’s own way. I have a limited number of these parts that i’m willing to part with as part of this project, some pristine, some decalyed, but 1 will be incorportated each time an Edition is released.
As you can imagine, the uniqueness and sentimental value of this piece is high.
Thanks to Cris for imparting some beauty and a tale into an otherwise Mondayish Monday morning, and please keep us in the loop!
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