- There's only one rule in space...
Leschek's Flight ("Lescheks Flug" in the original German) is an indie comic book by Sebastian Stamm, one of the co-founders of the Black Pants Game Studio.
The story is that of a robot fellow by the name of Leschek, who spends his days working a dead end job at a toy factory and dreaming about the wonders of life beyond his home on Neulins, an industrial asteroid. When one of Leschek's coworkers, Fattko, kicks the bucket, the inheritance he leaves gives Leschek a chance to make his cosmic dreams come true— but it's going to take the assistance of a human pilot, an unusually capable action figure, and an obscene amount of cubes to set himself free.
The book was originally released in German as a hardcover in 2013 by indie comic publisher Rotopolpress, and got a digital English translation two years later. You can check it out here.
This comic provides examples of:
- Bad Boss: Leschek's supervisor at the toy factory is a large-headed piece of work indeed. She demotes him to the factory's sewage department after he's late for work, and makes it clear later that she did so with the intent to kill him.
- Body Horror: After Faarman takes the ship manual pill, he falls into a semi-conscious state and his entire body momentarily turns into an amorphous orange blob with dozens of little faces. He's mostly back to normal soon afterward, but he's left with a number of strange technological markings all over him, and when he actually starts the ship up the ship's crew of similar looking beings grows out of him. Leschek is very much unsettled by this.
- Cool Starship: The ship Fattko leaves for Leschek, a Rhumpler and Fonck 709 freighter, is one of these: angular, powerful (if a bit aged from non-use), and really, really big.
- Farm Boy: Faarman is one. The book opens with him arriving on Neulins from his rural home.
- Fictional Currency: Cubes, which in addition to acting as cash are also used directly as fuel for starships and the creation of items.
- Hyperspeed Escape: How our heroes make their escape from Neulins.
- Industrial Ghetto: Neulins is effectively one of these, but in space.
- Inside Job: To get enough cubes to get his spaceship off of the ground, Leschek decides to stage a heist against the toy factory. The plan goes south pretty quickly, but with the help of his Bafoonious figure and Faarman, he pulls it off.
- Living Toy: Leschek's Captain Bafoonious action figure, who convinces him to steal from his job and assists him on his quest.
- Passed-Over Inheritance: Leschek is quite understandably floored when Fattko, one of his coworkers, leaves him a fancy spaceship in his last will and testament.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: To keep the robot toy factory workers from recognizing Faarman (a human), Leschek gives his pilot a robot-like helmet... and nothing else.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Most mechanical residents of Neulins have this sort of thing going on in terms of personality, though the degree to which they appear human varies. Leschek in particular defies the whole idea of sticking to an assigned job, as the whole narrative is brought about by his frustration with his dead-end gig as a toy assembler.
- Sequel Hook: By the end of the book, Leschek and Faarman have made it to space, and are both fugitives on Neulins after stealing thousands of cubes from the toy factory vault.
- Tin-Can Robot: For lack of a better category, Leschek looks like one of these, though his mannerisms and motivations are certainly more in line with those of a human being.
- You Are Number 6: Leschek's boss almost exclusively refers to him as "Worker 4812."
- ...the journey has to continue.
