RavenHawk

Yes, it is because it has a Cyclone. Plus, if you hadn't seen the disappointing amateur mess that was Shadow Chronicles, and just saw the mug, you'd probably like it... the mug, that is.

Now that I have my unbroken set of MOSPEADA/Mars Base mugs, I was looking on Robotech.com and saw the Shadow Chronicles mug. Now, I was EXTREMELY disappointed by Shadow Chronicles, but this mug looks pretty cool (more based on my love of MOSPEADA than anything else). The pics on the site aren't very clear though. Does anyone have any clearer or bigger pics? Especially of the back of the mug, with a new Cyclone on it? Thanks.

I agree. Almost too bad that he's moved on from Harmony Gold.

That's too bad. I wonder why that was the case? I can't imagine that there were too many company secrets in there, or anything that was likely to be reused by Harmony Gold at a later date. Well, maybe when the NDA expires, the owner will be nice enough to post it somewhere.

I find it funny that so many people say such bad things about Macek, but a lot of the stuff that they complain about wasn't even done the way he wanted it done. Then again, you have people complaining about the novels and how the original cartoon stuff is true to Robotech, because that's how Macek wanted it, without realizing that most of those changes were put in by the "McKinney" authors based on what Macek had originally wanted in Robotech, but the animation wouldn't allow for it.

That's funny, you replied to my post in the thread on Robotech.com too.

Gotcha. I get it now. Do you know if there's a synopsis out there or anything going over what he originally intended? I seem to remember so of this being covered in Robotech: Art 3, but I think it was mostly relating to what made the final cut of the movie.

Really? I didn't know that. I thought it was supposed to be Rick's cousin, and it was supposed to take place between the Macross Saga and the Robotech Masters part.

I've seen that, and I've seen a few places which refer to her as Houquet et Rose ("Houquet" and red). Still curious about the origin, since I'm under the impression that most of these things from MOSPEADA had some sort of origins or were an homage to something or other.

Darn... here I thought I had discovered something on my own that maybe other people hadn't realized yet... lol I did know about Fuke being Houquet, but had forgotten. Thanks for the reminded. Do you know the origin of that word?

Robotech II: The Sentinels Book 2 (Issues #01-21, though my #2 is missing the second half of the issue): Continuing to be a very solid story. We now follow our characters as they join the Sentinels on their campaigns. Everything progresses very nicely, primarily focused on the Sentinels, though we do see some of what is going on with the Regiss and the Regent, and some significant goings-on with Edwards (and Minmei, sadly... sorry, never enjoyed her character, and don't like her here either, though it is very true to her character from before and is a believable version of her a few years down the line). The art continues to be very good and very consistent. You can definitely tell when one Waltrip does the art versus the other, but it all flows nicely from issue to issue. For some inexplicable reason, starting with this book, and continuing on afterwards, Jack Baker goes from being drawn like a young adult, to have the face of a little kid. I really don't understand why, as Karen continues looking the same as always. If anything, he should be slowly looking older and older (though his personality is maturing nicely). The writing is great, adding details to the novels nicely, and I can't say enough about the pacing. Too many other Robotech books have gone far too slowly, focusing on melodrama, or too quickly, focusing on pure action. I think this one gets the pace just right, and is really developing the slowly at the speed which it deserves. The book ends with a very significant, disastrous event. It happens a little too quickly for my taste, but that may be part of the point, and necessary to have the time for the other characters' reactions at the end, which are handled very very well. Looking forward to Book 3. Again, this series continues to be highly recommended.

I get what you're saying. I suspect that we'll see a Ray that is essentially a Stig come out, but that the changes people are asking for may come to play with the Fuke and Blowsperior. On a different note, I've always thought that the "Blowsperior" name was a Japanese-Engrish-ization of Brough Superior. Anybody have any opinions on this?

Isn't that all most Rand/Ray figures are, anyway?

I did end up ordering from them. 2 Garlands, proto and factory color. Both arrived reasonably quickly, well packaged, and at a good price. I'm very happy with the transaction.

Same here. Still no word on that shipping out ("End of January"), and the Robotech site went down today.

I haven't gotten that far yet. The only differences worth any real note that I've come across so far are the creation of super-sized monsters from the Regiss' pits, which I don't recall being the case in the novels. In the comics, well, it just seems plain silly. That one element really isn't for me. Everything else is great though. I wonder if the divergences take place just due to normal comic book conventions of storytelling, or start when the Waltrips take over writing duties?

You've clearly had much more experience with these products than I have, and some very bad experiences at that. My limited experience with Yamato has led to them replacing my issues promptly and free of charge, including no shipping costs, as I am in the USA. My limited experience with Toynami has consisted of poor designs which were NEVER remedied, nor even ackowledged as genuine issues, with the expectation of me paying pretty ridiculous shipping costs. I am EXTREMELY please with my (limited) dealings with Yamato, but understand why you're not.

I don't understand what you mean. Yamato made the regular Garland. Fans complained about problems with it. They then offered free replacement parts that fixed a number of the problems that fans complained about, and by the time they did the Proto-Garland, they had incorporated those fixes and made additional improvements. New colors which essentially were the same design as the original Garland also incorporated the fixes (unlike Toynami who kept using the same molds for each new color Alpha, despite fan complaints). I would hope that Beagle DOES follow the Yamato approach.

Haven't watched it yet, but I will.

Which is sort of the same thing I was expecting before I started reading them, so I know what you mean. To be honest, I haven't read the novels in quite a few years, though I really loved them at the time, so I don't know whether the "books" of the comic correspond to the event in each book of the novels, or whether it's a more arbitrary decision in the comics, saying something like "first particular part of the story ends here, so this book will end here too." Either way, I'm really enjoying them and highly recommend them.

I'm halfway through book 2 at the moment, but it seems that it's all one long story, as opposed to separate books being separate stories. Book 1 is the part of the story leading to taking Tirol, book 2 so far is the beginning of the Sentinels campaigns, and so on. As such, your question is a little like having a 4 chapter book, where the fourth chapter is incomplete, and wondering if you should just read chapters 1-3, but skip 4 entirely. I think you should read as much of the sotry as you can, and enjoy the ride.

Talking about the collected editions of the Jack McKinney novels.

I own and have watched all part of Megazone 23 a number of times, and actually would be really curious to see how the Macek take on it would have been in a... purer, let's say, form. It's especially interesting that they commissioned a new ending there, which had nothing to do with the original. I would love to see this re-released (though I have no delusions that it would happen), with the new ending, but removal of the Southern Cross footage. Like said before, it is rather jarring, with the movie quality frames vs. the tv episode frames.

If you want the issues hardcopy, then eBay is definitely the way to go, and you can get them pretty cheap. Alternatively, you can download them. I just finished downloading the torrent with every single Robotech comic, from DC Robotech Defenders, though Comico, Malibu, Eternity, Academy, DC/Wildstorm... it's all there.

The collected editions didn't finish collecting the whole series. They stopped pretty early too. As for any extras in them, they didn't really. What they did have was a revised timeline, to match Harmony Gold's new version of it, and some of the early material was touched up a bit to match Sentinels better, since when they were originally being written, Sentinels wasn't planned yet. I read the Sentinels books first and like them best of all, but I think they're all pretty solid. The later books were more philosophical, and less just basing things on episodes.