Origin

Sarah Melpignano and Arthur Dekko often play together outside as kids, loving their rural lifestyle.

Sarah and Arthur both become artists and to art school with their friend, Zot's uncle Max. Sarah and Arthur are now romantic partners. Arthur sometimes uses Sarah as the muse or subject for his art, including a painting that Max keeps for many years. He also makes art about nature, which he also cares for deeply. The original telling of this story in the Sirius IV conspiracy arc makes it seem like Sarah, Arthur, and Max are all students together. However, the later black and white issues, for instance issue 17, explain that Max was Arthur and Sarah's teacher. This age difference makes Max's love for Sarah seem a little less healthy.

Arthur finds out he has cancer and has to replace parts of his body with cybernetics, starting with his hands. As he does, he becomes more emotionally remote and his art becomes more abstract and analytical. However, it also starts to sell for a lot of money.

Sarah breaks up with Arthur due to his emotional state. It is unclear what happens to her after that but seemingly she dies.

Creation

Dekko was created by Scott McCloud for the first color volume of Zot!, in issue 2.

McCloud says he was himself becoming more like Dekko until he met his eventual wife, Ivy. He says he also partly patterned Dekko on the real-life painter Louis Wain, whose work progressed from naturalistic paintings to abstract geometric paintings as he became afflicted by schizophrenia.

Major Story Arcs

The Sirius IV Conspiracy

Dekko, who is now a super-villain wants to steal the Golden Key, a sacred object from Sirius IV that can open the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe, from Vic Taylor.

Most people believe that when a chosen one opens the Doorway, using the Key, they will return and bring the people along on a Grand Mission.

Dekko, however, for reasons that are unclear, believes that if he opens the Doorway, all humanity will die and only robots like him will be left. He sees this as the apotheosis of his life as a robot.

There is also a conspiracy of leaders from Sirius who are also trying to steal the Key. They send their own robots around the universe, and even to other dimensions, to find it.

Zot, a hero from Dekko's universe, wants to stop these robots, who are causing destruction everywhere. In the process of defeating the robots, he meets Jenny in another dimension. She comes to Zot's dimension. Eventually Vic, who had originally stolen the Key from Sirius, gets it back.

Dekko hires 9-Jack-9 to follow Vic and Zot and find the Key. 9-Jack-9 is unable to get the Key from Vic, so Dekko and his own robots attack them at Max's house, where Max still has the painting of Sarah. Max is Zot's uncle, who is in turn Vic's friend.

They defeat most of his robots, but Dekko blasts Prince Drufus of Sirius, who is also there, and brings even more robots. He takes the Key.

While monologuing to the heroes, Dekko, who is not very mentally stable, starts hallucinating that the Sarah in the painting is talking to him. Ever his moral compass, she tells him to stop his violence. Dekko submits to "her" plea and leaves.

The heroes go to Dekko's base in Antarctica to get the Key back. They split into two groups. Dekko captures Max, Jenny, Butch, and some others. He again begins to hallucinate, this time thinking that Jenny is Sarah. Max has Jenny further this delusion by reminding Dekko of their love, and of his love for nature. These memories frustrate Dekko and eventually break his programming.

Vic finds them and turns Dekko off. He takes the Key and the others escape.

Heroes and Villains

Dekko is first committed for treatment at Wordsworth Memorial hospital. He intentionally acts like he has the kinds of psychosis that Dr. Herbert W. Glass treats at Windhaven, and is transferred there. Windhaven is a building he originally designed when he was human, under the pseudonym of Kurk Redheart.

At Windhaven, Dekko is still completely controlled by his fantasies of mechanical supremacy and sees the world through the lens of simplified geometry. He lies directly to Dr. Glass about how he is doing, saying he is healed and dreams of the pleasures of his old organic life as Arthur Dekker. Glass is completely fooled by Dekko and thinks he is a perfect patient who has been completely healed.

Glass presents Dekko to a group of colleagues as an example of the wonders of his therapy. Then he releases him on his own recognizance. Dekko does appreciate nature—he just sees it as geometric patterns. He still has an artistic soul. It is just one that wants to destroy organic life.

Dekko shows up at Max’s house during Zot’s birthday party. Max lets him in but is skeptical that he has actually been cured. Dekko gives Zot a box of Whitman’s chocolates and says he won’t annihilate the universe until they’ve all been eaten. During the party, people continually eat the chocolates as if it doesn’t matter.

Jenny explains Dekko’s history to Zot. Zot is surprised that Max told Jenny but not him. Jenny sympathizes with the fact that Dekko couldn’t consummate his love with Sarah once he was robotic.

Dekko looks at a collection of abstract nature photos that Max took. They look very similar to how Dekko sees the world. Dekko tells Max that Max also gets obsessed, just like him. Dekko says that everything starts as a perfect idea, but is marred through its incarnation in reality. This compromise is unacceptable, just as compromise is unacceptable in art. Max agrees with this.

Dr. Glass shows up at the party. He now realizes Dekko was not cured: he burned Windhaven to the ground with incendiary bombs that also left his initials burning in the grass. However, no one died.

They call the authorities but it takes a while for them to come. In the meantime, Zot plays ping pong with Dekko. Dekko wins.

Jenny tries to talk Dekko out of it. She thinks he doesn’t really plan to destroy the universe, because he can’t. Instead he will just kill himself. Dekko is aware enough to understand that he had previously confused Jenny with his old love, Sarah, but denies plans for suicide.

Max ties to convince Dekko of the worth of life by playing Bach. Dekko is still unconvinced. Jenny tries to get Max to do more to persuade him but Max is out of ideas. The police arrive.

Butch eats the last of the chocolates, so Dekko is now free to complete his plans. Everyone tells him to calm down. We see the rest of this scene through his eyes, with the visuals becoming increasingly abstract and geometric. He chokes Dr. Glass to death and blasts Zot, destroying him. He gestures, and everyone around him explodes. He turns the world into a white space. He starts to recreate the universe as abstract designs but Sarah shows up. She describes his abilities as powers that she gave him, but says he’s not using them perfectly enough. He once again erases everything and she says that’s better. However, she says that the two of them are the only imperfections left and disappears. He is horrified, because she is his only intended audience. However, he accepts her judgement and erases himself, leaving nothing.

Back in reality, everyone is still alive, standing around looking at Dekko, whose body is frozen in place. He had fallen to his knees after Zot grabbed him to stop him from hurting Glass. The police take him into custody.

Some time later, Dekko has returned to consciousness. He is again committed to a mental hospital. However, he has started a relationship with 9-Jack-9 and Zybox, two other technology-themed villains of Zot’s. In addition to hiring Jack to find the Key, he may have met Jack earlier in Jack’s civilian guise as Sir John Sheers, who played in the band at Zot’s birthday party. Jack is also an aesthete and appreciates Dekko’s art. Zybox believes in the value of the soul and has empathy for the fact that Dekko and Jack both lost theirs.

Jack and Dekko manipulate the hospital records so that Dekko is released into Max’s custody. Dekko paints a portrait of Jack in his standard abstract style. Jack warns Dekko about Zybox, who he says is very powerful.

Dekko once again shows up at one of Max’s parties to the concern of the party-goers. This time it is a New Year’s party. This time Max is expecting him and seems to accept the idea that he is under his care. Other villains also show up, including Jack, the Devoes, the Blotch, and Bellows, but none cause lasting concern. Max shows Dekko to his room and he is not seen again. It is not clear whether his mental health is improved or what his plans are. He still sees things geometrically but he may or may not have a desire to “perfect” reality; he may have accepted that he can work out his ideas through his “creative ferment,” which he and Jack agree is best resolved at Max’s.

Hearts and Minds

Sometime later, Dekko ended up back in a mental health facility and once again escapes.

Dekko creates a fortress off the coast of Cape Cod. He kidnaps 12 people and threatens to kill them. The local police call in Zot.

Zot and the police break in but Dekko captures Zot with a swarm of robot bugs. He also gets Jenny.

When Zot wakes up, Dekko is monologuing about the portraits he painted of each of the hostages. They sit in a circular room. Zot hangs upside-down by one wall. Jenny is free.

Dekko explains that some cannons will shoot each of the hostages. However, Jenny sees that Zot’s gun is on the ground. She grabs it and threatens Dekko. Dekko points out that Zot shot all 10 of his shots, so the gun is empty. He demonstrates by pointing it at his head and pulling the trigger, which blows his head off.

When they go to Ice Cream Apocalypse afterwards to celebrate, Zot can’t figure out why there was still a shot left in the gun. He thinks Dekko may still be alive.

After fighting a group of Devoes, Zot is injured and finds out that his arm is robotic.

They go to Max’s house and do some scans and discover that Zot’s entire body is robotic. Max theorizes that Zot’s brain and body are elsewhere and are remote-controlling the robot body. They also guess that the dead Dekko wasn’t the real one. The hospital reports that the hostages are all remote-controlled robots too.

While Max fixes Zot’s arm, Zot has a dream about Dekko. Dekko explains that he has given the gift of eternal life to Zot and the hostages. Now that they’re robots, they’ll never die, just like Dekko.

Dekko explains that he now understands that he can’t destroy reality. But he can create order. He sees humanity as the best chance to help bring order to the universe. But to do so, they need to be improved—by, for instance, having eternal robotic life.

Zot points out that they may not all want this gift, but Dekko is sure they will come to like it.

Zot wakes up. He, Jenny, Butch, Max, and Peabody fly to find Dekko.

They find him and Zot demands to have his body back. They show Dekko a video call where the hostages all want their bodies too. Dekko is shocked that they are turning down his gift.

Dekko blasts them, then runs off. He stuns Zot’s robot body. In return, Peabody blasts Dekko’s hand and remote. He sends more giant robots after Zot. Meanwhile, a horde of Devoes invades the beach. The robots and Devoes fight.

Zot tracks the hostages on infrared. When they arrive, Dekko flips a switch and says death is all that’s left. Zot assumes that means he did something to kill them, but in reality Dekko just let them go without his robotic gift of life.

The Devoes break into the room and one throws a grenade right at Dekko. The ceiling falls on him.

Later, Dekko crawls out of the sea, damaged but alive. He cries to the emptiness about how he’ll have his revenge by not dying.

Alternate Versions

Within the world of "Dimension 10 1/2," the stick-figure alternate universe created by Matt Feazell and running in the back of the black-and-white issues of Zot!, Dekko breaks into Max’s house to steal his growth and shrink potions. He is working with Dr. Pweent, who says he is sane. Peabody blasts at them but Pweent hits Peabody with a rust gun. The heroes defeat Pweent but they don’t show what happens to Dekko.

When Antisocialman attacks Max’s house, many other villains join in, including Dekko. Two members of Cynicalman’s fan club, Spud ’n’ Ernie, blind him with spray paint.

Zot and Jenny try to use Max’s portal to go to her universe but accidentally end up in Dekko’s blank universe instead. They don’t realize where they are and draw a lot of scenery all over. Dekko appears and starts vandalizing and then erasing their work. He chases them and they portal back to Jenny’s universe and board up the door.

Zot and Max visit Dekko. Max says Dekko is one of the greatest artists alive. When a penguin arrives to tell Dekko that he owes a million dollars of rent on his Antarctic base, Dekko complains that he doesn’t understand financial matters well, he just cares about art. Zot and Max decide to help. They persuade him to apply for a commercial art job but Dekko flops the interview; his ideas are too conceptual. They get him a job at a newspaper but he erases all the news and gets fired. Then he gets a data entry job but he erases the entire system. He also fails as a movie projectionist because he thinks a blank screen is a better artistic statement, and fails as a fast food worker because he thinks an empty box is better. Back at his house, Max and Zot find out that Dekko has an art dealer who has been selling his paintings for millions of dollars. They get the stack of checks he has been hoarding and pay off his bills, allowing him to focus on his art.

At a movie about Zot, there is a lot of chaos. They discover that Zy Dekko, Art Dekko’s brother, is behind it. He was once “Hollywood’s brightest star” but is now behind Zot and other stars. He uses a raygun to alter their personalities. Some of the people at the show stop him. Max explains that Zy was in his band (like 9-Jack-9). He was as good at music as Art was with visual art. He had to replace his body parts just like Art. He could no longer play in their band, but his mechanical music worked well for him to become a pop star. He eventually lost his fame. But now, a movie producer hears his story and wants him to be in the sequel to the Zot movie they’re watching. Zy agrees, and also introduces more of the family: their uncle Mark Dekko, a gambling card counter; Paul E. Hedron and Duo Dekko-Hedron, their in-laws; their brother, Op Dekko, an eye doctor; their cousin, High-Tekko Dekko, a computer programmer; and High-Tekko Dekko’s dog, Gus Dekko. One more relative, Ba Dekko, is not there. The movie producer is very excited and thinks he can market them all very successfully.

Appearance

Dekko's head looks like the top of the Chrysler Building, a famous example of Art Deco architecture. Art Deco could be interpreted as a fairly decorative, stylized, or rational form of art, divorced from emotive content.

Powers and Abilities

Dekko is one of the most respected artists in the world, selling over a billion dollars of paintings.

Dekko is a technological genius and oversees a robot army and a technologically-oriented base full of advanced weaponry in Antarctica.

He can shoot energy beams out of his head.