“These robots… they all meet in a bar, right?  But none of them have got any arms or mouths? So… what do they drink? How do they drink?” And so, episode 2.4.

Beta City? Hmm… where have I heard that name before?

As it’s early days in Solid’s run, I’m still figuring out and assembling the “rules” of how the series operates. In panel 4 of this week’s strip, I formalized the rule that “sometimes, if it feels right, just let the backgrounds get really weird without really explaining why.” I’m sure this one’s going stand me in good stead as the series progresses.

For anyone wondering if the title of chapter two is a reference to the series of the same name from the old UK Transformers weekly comic that I read as a kid: Yes.

And that brings us to the end of our first chapter or part or episode or whatever word makes sense for “first chunk of story.” Something I wanted to do with Solid Metal Override is have the freedom to tell sightly longer chunks of narrative, rather than being bound so tightly to single page-length episodes as I was with a lot of Ghosts. Tune in next week for the beginning of Chunk Two.

Well there you go – I’m sure Tachelock will be on his best behaviour for the rest of the series.

And with Mechra’s arrival, the gang is finally all here. I’m sure they’re all going to get along just swimmingly!

And the fourth member of our cast makes his appearance! One more to go – tune in next week to meet her!

So with our first “normal sized” episode you will have discovered that Solid Metal Override is composed around normal, print-comic dimensions (because… well, basically I just felt like working that way with this series). But if you prefer your webcomics to be a bit more screen-friendly in their layout then fear not! Because you can also read the series every week in an infinite canvas format over at Webtoon. See? Problem solved!

Welcome to the start of part one of E-merl’s brand new webcomic series! We’re kicking things off with a special double-length episode and then Solid Metal Override will be updating regularly every Tuesday. Want to hear a bit more about the origins of the new series? Then check out this handy news post all about it!