THIS ROBOTECH THING, the blog

In which Jonathan continues to clutter the internet with more Robotech crap. Header image from Robotech Genesis: The Legend of Zor #1. Artwork by John Waltrip.

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In which Captain JLS discusses the biggest Robotech-related news since the announcement of The Shadow Chronicles in the early 2000s — Harmony Gold & Big West have, hopefully once & for all, settled their differences and unreleased Macross material and merchandise, new & old, can reach these shores through official channels starting ... well, apparently about a month ago. Also featured: bits & bobs of Robotech & Robotech-adjacent merch ranging from the very recent all the way back to late last year.

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ComicBook.com revealed yesterday that Jason & John Waltrip (the twin artists who together drew the entirety of Robotech II: The Sentinels’s 75-issue run at Eternity & Academy Comics from 1988 to 1996, in addition to the six-issue Legend of Zor mini-series and a wide variety of Sentinels-adjacent one-shots) have done a new cover for Titan Comics’s upcoming Robotech comic book series launching in the spring of 2017. This follows a series of four other cover pieces by artists I’m less familiar with that were attached to an article at Comics Alliance published during San Diego Comic-Con this past July, which can be seen here.

Not a great composition, to be honest -- it looks like the result of an attempt to fit a certain number of Macross Colorforms into a comic book-sized-and-shaped space -- and it’s come to my attention that most of the elements are redressed bits of copied/traced Macross lineart. All the elements have been added to or otherwise altered to some degree (Minmei was in a completely different outfit in the original Macross model sheet, while Rick & Lisa are cribbed from head shots so what you can see of them from their necks down is mostly new art), and it’s not like this is the first time the Waltrips have ever used animation model sheets from the Japanese shows that comprise Robotech as slightly-too-literal reference (for instance, see Breetai on the cover of Sentinels Book IV #2 from January 1996; the Waltrips also tended to copy from model sheets when dealing with mecha that didn’t appear quite often enough to remember throughout the Sentinels run), but it still registers a sour note when I wish I could just be happy to see those familiar signatures gracing the cover of a Robotech comic for the first time in over two decades.

(That said, this is probably still the cover I’m going to request when the book is solicited in the spring, assuming this appears on issue #1.)

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Hey there, gang! 2016 is half over, and I thought it might well be time to check in with a State of the Robotech Universe -- at least from where I’m sitting down here in little ol’ Southeast Kansas. Above you’ll see five images that I think cover all the major points worth looking at.

You’ve surely heard by now that, as Tommy Yune & Bill Spangler both alluded to on the convention trail during Q1 & early Q2, a new comic publisher has picked up the Robotech comic book license. The unlikely new home of Robotech comics in the English speaking world is Titan Comics out of the UK. Titan’s been around for thirty-five years, but they’ve been in the periodical comics game for only two or three, having immediately seized the worldwide publishing rights for Doctor Who comic books after IDW’s license expired. In the past year they’ve been diversifying their licensed comics portfolio, picking up licenses to publish comics for NBC’s TV series The Blacklist, Showtime’s recently concluded TV series Penny Dreadful, video games like Assassin’s Creed and Dark Souls, and Dreamworks’s movie & TV franchise Penguins of Madagascar. They’re also the English language publisher of the manga based on the BBC TV series Sherlock. It’s been a while since Robotech has been snapped up by a company on the upward swing, and I’m curious to see what will come of this. No creative team or setting for Titan’s first Robotech series has been announced, but the first issue is pencilled in for Q1 2017. Further details may well start spilling out as early as this weekend, since Anime Expo starts today.

Likewise, you’re probably aware that Sony’s free streaming platform Crackle is now playing host to the entire Robotech television series plus The Shadow Chronicles. They only sent press releases about this to the four corners of the Earth, as well as used that overfamiliar promo piece of Rick in his Veritech as the icon for Crackle to entice folks to install the app on their PlayStations for a while. Of course, the version Crackle is showing is the 2004 Remastered edition. Mercifully, based on what I’ve seen, the ad breaks are at the proper midway act break and before the next episode previews, so they’re only as obtrusive as they would be if you were watching the show on TV in the 1980s or 1990s. (I hate it when streaming platforms start randomly throwing ad breaks in willy nilly.)

Ah, but what if you want to kick things a little more old school? Well, far less publicized is the fact that Amazon Prime streaming started offering up the original broadcast versions of the Robotech television series on June 13. No remastered footage, no modern sound effects -- the TV series as it aired in syndication in the 1980s and on cable in the 1990s. They’ve also got The Shadow Chronicles as well as of the 29th. The official Robotech twitter account is really pushing the Crackle thing but, as far as I’ve seen they’ve said nothing about the original version of the show on Amazon Prime. I expect that’s largely because Crackle is owned by the same folks who are allegedly giving us that Major Motion Picture that’s been in the works off an on for almost a decade now ...

As for merchandising, Toynami’s been awfully quiet since the repaint wave of the Toynami/Calibre blind box figures came out. On the other hand, Bandai in Japan have been busy putting out new original Super Dimension Fortress Macross mecha figures (in approx 1/100 scale) every other month or so. The latest release is the Glaug (a.k.a. the Officer’s Battlepod), and the coming months will see the massive Monster Destroid, the “cannon fodder” brown VF-1A Valkyrie and Hikaru Ichijyo’s red & white VF-1J (a.k.a. Rick Hunter’s Vermilion One) with TV-series-accurate puffy round hands and a matching pilot beneath the canopy. I’ve got the Glaug myself, but haven’t had a chance to crack it out of the box yet; I’ve got the VF-1A on preorder, but that wasn’t easy. It’s definitely worth noting that preorders for all of these figures on the big import sites (HobbyLink Japan, AmiAmi, Hobby Search) fill up within hours. It’s nice to see such demand for the mecha of the old ‘82 & ‘84 material, but at the same time, it kind of makes me wish Harmony Gold and Big West would kiss and make up so that Bandai’s U.S. distributor Bluefin could carry these things. (Speaking of toys, Harmony Gold and RTUCN have been making a big deal about KitzConcept in Hong Kong doing officially licensed transforming SD versions of Rick & Roy’s Veritechs but A) I’m not a big fan of that VF-1S head sculpt, and B) these are just officially sanctioned rereleases of unlicensed “third party” toys that have been available for about a year now.)

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that back in Japan we’re at the half-way point in the latest Macross sequel television series, Macross Delta. Thirteen episodes in and it’s everything I wanted from a new Macross series: a clever shuffling of archetypes (this time the lead character has no aircraft piloting aptitude and no dream he’s striving for at the outset -- now that’s something new for Macross!), a new twist on the “music as a weapon” concept that’s been threaded through most Macross stories, awesome dogfights with Valkyrie designs that, to me, are a return to form after the boxy, ugly VF-25, and only very occasional overt callbacks to earlier shows (though there’s an awful lot of Macross II and Macross 7 in this thing’s DNA; the former might be a coincidence, but I’m betting the latter is not so much). Alas, as with every Macross series since Macross Plus wrapped, Delta is trapped in Japan until, again, either Harmony Gold and Big West agree to shake hands, or until Harmony Gold loses the rights to Macross (March 2021 at the earliest, assuming they don’t reach a new agreement with Tatsunoko; their claim to the Macross trademark would then need to expire or be challenged in court). However, big spenders should note that apparently the Japanese blu ray discs for Macross Delta (compatible with U.S. players!) that start hitting stores this month will feature English subtitles.

With that all said, here’s looking forward to some actual news from AX and/or SDCC. I’m not going to set my hopes too high; really, I’d just like to know what’s happening with the new comic series. I’d also like someone to ask whatever happened to those new art books from Udon that were announced back in the summer of ‘14. I was looking forward to those ...

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Hi Captain JLS, Captain, the 30th aniversary has come and gone, but here is what we are left with: "The best is yet to come;" "Robotech is a franchise folks." Both comments uttered from VP of Marketing. Wow, fans are again further belittled -- like we did not know Robotech is a multifaceted' dynamic epic. With this kind of continuance, and no proper creative consultant, what is the likely hood of seeing any new Robotech at all? Thanks again for keeping the hope alive!

Consider it’s been nine years now since The Shadow Chronicles and almost two years since Harmony Gold tried to raise funds for Robotech Academy. Also, Sony keeps making noises like they might actually be interested in making this big hoopla live action movie, though not as interested as they are in making all sorts of other movies. And what, at least from the outside, seemed to be grinding the gears of new Robotech animation to a halt? The previous live action movie plans, back when the rights were at Warners. That said, when I fired up my PS4 and saw that Sony’s really pushing this whole Robotech on Crackle thing I did wonder if Sony might offer Harmony Gold a big sack of money to make more Robotech for the platform (shades of the new Voltron coming to Netflix next month) -- but, y’know, a request like that might come with strings, and we all know how allergic Harmony Gold is to money that comes with strings.

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What are some of your favorite Robotech/Macross cell phone charms?

The only one I’ve ever owned is the metal Southern Cross logo one that Great Eastern produced about ten years ago, which I still have dangling off of my old PSP game system. I know Japan still to this day puts out little cell phone charm figures (a quick glance at eBay turns up cell charms/straps for One Punch Man, so yeah, still a thing), but man, most modern cell phone devices don’t have the little loop to attach them. Otherwise hey, there’s certainly a non-zero chance I’d have like, I don’t know, a little Valkyrie hanging off of my phone, absolutely.

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Hey there! Wondering what happened to your nice cel gallery over at rubberslug? Looks like it was deleted. Can you share why? Thanks. Always enjoyed looking at your artwork so it was sad to see it all go away. Hope work and life is treating you well.

I wound up taking it down because it was way out of date -- I’ve done a lot of buying and selling since the last time it was updated (the former might be obvious if you’ve seen some of the pieces I’ve posted here that never turned up there) -- and I got a little tired of telling people, “No, the Super Saiyan 4 Goku is not for sale,” over and over again -- because, hey, you post nice things on the internet and people just assume, “Everything’s got a price, right?” I might put something else like it up down the road, maybe a separate Tumblr blog, when life gets a bit more settled (and I have regular access to a scanner again).

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Considering the Robotech Twitter account keeps tweeting images from the Comico and Eternity comics, do you think the books were ever fully digitized and/or e-book versions of the comics are coming? Have e-book versions of the comics already come out? I searched around but didn't find any official ones.

Certainly none of the older comics material is available digitally in any legal fashion, and I sincerely doubt a project to make nice digital master copies of the old material in any official capacity has been undertaken. But bear in mind that right now we’re between comics licensees -- DC’s license ended, I think, at the start of the year, and Dynamite only ever had a sub-license from them. Tommy Yune & Co. have mentioned that there is a new comics licensee, and I figure they’ll announce who it is during one of the big summer conventions in the coming months. With a new licensee in place, it is possible that they might start mining the backlist. (If the new licensee is IDW -- which I sincerely doubt, but one can hope -- I’d turn that “it is possible” into “it is likely”; those guys happily reprint EVERYTHING in both print & digital when they acquire a license.)

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Tentatively Turning The Lights Back On.

Now that this first item of sad business has been attended to, I’m turning the ol’ mailbag over, dumping everything on the floor, cleaning up the old orange rinds and used gum that seems to have crept in there (ewwwww), figuring out what’s not too terribly time sensitive, and posting up those replies this afternoon. If you sent me something seven or eight months ago that you’re still wondering about right this very moment, today might be your lucky day!

And then, well, I doubt things will get TOO crazy, but I’ll see what Robotech-related delights I can dig up to keep this thing rolling for some time to come.

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A week ago yesterday, Bruce Lewis, creator and original writer/artist of Robotech: Invid War Aftermath (published by Eternity and later Academy Comics, 1993-1995), lost his battle with brain cancer and passed away. In memory of him, I posted my interview with Mr. Lewis from 2007 to the ol’ YouTube channel with a newly recorded intro and outro -- the latter featuring an email I received from him just a year ago.

The GoFundMe set up for his family during his fight with cancer is still accepting donations as of this writing and can be found here.

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マクロス HI-METAL R リガード スペシャルページ | 魂ウェブ

Coming in February: Bandai’s releasing what looks to be the best figural representation of the Zentradi Regult / Zentraedi Tactical Battlepod yet in their current Hi-Metal R toy line. 7 1/2 inches and scaled to do battle with this past month’s VF-1J Armored Valkyrie (and November’s VF-1S Strike Valkyrie), it’s also the first Regult I’ve seen with an opening hatch on the back and that looks as good standing in a stock model sheet line art pose as it does assuming some kind of crazy stance. Price will be 7,344 yen (about $61 as of this writing).

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Greg Sewart of the Player One Podcast and the Generation 16 video series (which chronicles the games of Sega’s Genesis/Mega Drive) plays through 2004′s Robotech Invasion for the Microsoft Xbox. Sewart was actually one of the developers of the game, so he’s able to provide insight into some of the game’s more curious design decisions and, most tantalizingly, point out sequences that were cut, including a bike race inspired by “Hard Times” and a battle in an Invid Genesis Pit. As of this writing I’ve watched a little more than an hour of it, and it’s definitely worth a look if you remember the game at all -- or if you remember the era when it was released.

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Hi Captain JLS, Captain, with Comico having to multitask between three Robotech comic series, any view point of which series may have suffered -- some say it was Southern Cross? Nevertheless, from my recollection, as a series ended, such as Southern Cross (did not collect), the other two remaining seemed to get better! Just curious! Again, thank you, hoping HG assimilates you as Creative Consultant, asap. P.S: just sharing, Comico's 1988 Rocketeer looks awesome (did collect)!

Let me put it this way: Masters was the series that Carl Macek never scripted an issue of and was the one that had its artist pulled away for a spell to draw the Genesis graphic novel. (And Neil Vokes did a tremendous job on that book, better than most of his work on Robotech Masters.) Vokes was quite a good artist, but I don’t think he ever really settled into Masters completely, and while his successor Harrison Fong was well suited to the weird dreamscape issues he’d done for Macross and New Gen (I seem to recall he did both “Phantasm” and “Sandstorms”) his etherial style did the final run of Masters no real favors. Writer Mike Baron -- writer of Badger, Nexus, and a whole lot of Marvel’s Punisher -- did nothing to really elevate the book beyond the level of “licensed comic based on a cartoon” the way that Macross & New Gen end-of-the-run writer Markalan Joplin did. (Joplin would eventually get his hands on Masters with the “Dana’s Story” one-shot, which incorporated scenes and entire passages from the novelization. It’s actually quite good and worth a look if you’re building a collection of Robotech comics; it’s basically one more book by the end-of-the-run New Gen creative team.)

(And yes, The Rocketeer was great. Comico published some really great stuff back in the day.)

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Hi Captain jlS, Captain, thank for your nostalgic run of Comico's Macross -- OUTSTANDING. In sharing, with Eternity's Robotech out & about since late '88, I was not too sad to see Macross completed. Nevertheless, continuing in fun & spirit, what was the price of the last episode: $1.75 or $2.00 ? And could you reminisce & confirm what was the earliest price for a Comico Robotech comic, believing it was $1.50? Thank you, Happy 4rth!

Comico’s Macross #1 was, indeed, a buck fifty. Issue #36 was $1.95. Bear in mind, Comico’s books were on nicer, whiter, heavier paper and had higher quality color than Marvel & DC’s output at the time. Of course, Sentinels would remain at the same price point despite the lack of color and lower quality paper stock due to the fact that Malibu was a newer, smaller operation with lower print runs and nowhere near the market presence Comico had in the mid-to-late 1980s.

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Hi! Will you be posting any new videos? Would love to also hear you speak about the new Robotech movie. Thank you!

Oh, believe me, I’ve been thinking about recording a thing about Sony being the new rights-holder for a Robotech live action motion picture for some time now. It’s all just a matter of making the time to do it and having the energy to do it -- and while the former isn’t that hard, it’s the latter that’s been the trick lately. (Unemployment left me with all kinds of time, but no energy; the new job has left me with less time, and what little energy I have frittered away by anxiety.)

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Forgot to task, have you ever been to MacrossWorld Con? Wondering if you ever plan on attending and sharing your thoughts. Thank you.

Probably not. Conventions aren’t that fun for me, and I stopped thinking of myself as a Macross fan at the exact point when Alto’s Messiah Valkyrie “homaged” Hikaru’s VF-1D Gerwalk in the final moment of the preview version of Macross Frontier’s first episode back in December of ‘07. The fact that the show was rather well received by the fandom and gave the franchise a major boost told me all I needed to know about the differences between myself and the fandom at large. Why would I want to spend any extended period of time with those people?

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How do you feel about Harmony Gold squatting on Macross copyright and not blocking the way for actual Macross stuff to be released officially in the West all because of their failed Robotech project?

First of all, what Harmony Gold is sitting on is the Macross trademark, not the copyright. It’s the trademark that keeps Macross material bottled up in Japan -- because with that trademark in hand, if someone in the States wants to market anything with Macross in the name in the States, Harmony Gold can turn around and sue them. It’s very much the same deal that keeps DC Comics marketing the old Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel character (the dude in the red suit who appears in a bolt of lightning when Billy Batson says “SHAZAM!”) under the name “Shazam” -- because Marvel Comics has owned the trademark on the name Captain Marvel since the late 1960s.

Second, in at least one rumored case and a few known cases, companies in the States have worked with companies in Japan to try and release Macross product in the West, have licensed the Macross name from Harmony Gold, and then for whatever reason the product never materialized. Given that some of these products were publicized on Harmony Gold’s own Robotech.com website (most notably Tokyopop’s intended release of Macross 7 Trash & the Toynami release of the original Takatoku/Bandai 1/55 Valkyrie mold), somehow I don’t think Harmony Gold was the party keeping these particular products out of Westerners’ hands.

See, the impression I’ve long gotten is that while Harmony Gold might be part of the problem when it comes to getting Macross material released in the States and in other territories beyond Japan, they’re not the whole problem. Big West has their own role in this logjam as well. And I’m still reasonably sure that this can be traced back to the time when Big West was going after that trademark, around the time Toycom was looking to market their YF-19 toy in the States, and Harmony Gold applied for it shortly after. Harmony Gold won the trademark, and I’m thinking also won Big West’s eternal hatred.

And yet, if only these two parties could get along, they could both right now be making a lot of money. It’s like a much smaller version of the whole Marvel Vs. Fox re: the X-Men & Fantastic Four brouhaha; just because one party might make some money off of this thing the other party owns, the other party has decided to forego making a giant pile of money of their own. It’s just stupid. At least Harmony Gold’s side of the whole deal makes some business sense: they may not be exploiting what they own the rights to to the fullest extent that they could, but Robotech still makes them money. Why would you give that up just to satisfy a market that A) hates you, and B) winds up importing everything anyway?