Citizen Rex!

This post pertains to the opening sequence of “Citizen Rex,” from page 8 to 9.  The reader is first introduced to the nameless metropolis, with its desolate and run down post industrial imagery. In the first panel on page 8, Bloggo is crawling out from under a pile of garbage. The imagery gives the reader that the city Bloggo is living in dystopia. The streets are empty (though it is 3 am), and the building seems lifeless. It’s as if Big Brother, a la “1984,” has imposed a curfew upon all humans forbidding them to walk the night.

In panel two, Bloggo’s face is revealed. His eyebrow is bleeding, his chin is scraped, and his face is smeared with dirt. The primitive nature of the way his face is drawn gives the character an air of universality, as cloud puts it. His face lacks in realistic details but is still very human. The third panel reveals that other people do indeed inhabit the nameless dystopia. Bloggo’s face is full of expression, as opposed to the other figures walking about. The others in the panel appear perfectly symmetrical – almost manufactured. The look of sadness and despair in his eyes is unquestionably human than the robot like beings in the background – almost more robotic than the actual robot in the next panel, whose disembodied head bears more expression than the twins or the goopy looking bloke atop the overpass. In panel five, Bloggo reveals that he is a member of the “filthy” bourgeois class. With his low social status and place in the counterculture as a blogger, he is an underdog, and the reader is forced to identify and sympathize with him immediately. 

What is the intent of portraying Bloggo’s “trashed” robot as being more human like than the strange figures in panel 3?

What is the effect of the setting? Does anyone else get a distinct “Blade Runner” vibe from these opening panels?