RavenHawk

I haven't found any subtitled episode of Viper's Creed yet, so I've been just watching it in Japanese and trying to guess at what's going on. I really really WANT to like this anime, but it's just not drawing me in, from what I can see anyway, yet...

Read volume 1 of the manga. Just downloaded the subtitled version of episode 1, but haven't had a chance to watch it. Looks to be very true to the manga though.

I did include the Paladins from Blassreiter, but do you think Joseph's bike should be included too? I guess it should, considering some of the other stuff that I'm including.

You're talking about the three vehicles that form "Perceptor" from Armada.

Here's hoping for a Beagle Motoslave...

1998 NADESICO?

There's also the possibility, since they're partnered up with Toynami, at least on this particular project, that they may stretch out the MOSPEADA franchise by having, to use Robotech names (since that is what Toynami sells under) Scott, Rand, Lancer, Rook, Sue Graham, and then Shadow Chronicles variants, like Vince Grant (since Toynami is doing Shadow Chronicles Alphas), plus other variants I may not be thinking of right now. I'd love to see more variable bikes, like the Bubblegum Crisis Hurricanes and Typhoons... Megazone 23 Garland, Proto-Garland, Garland E=X, Harguns (I think I'm remembering that one right)... All to the same scale.

No kidding. When I first saw it written that it comes with two heads, I got hopeful that they meant the Toynami one also comes with the Beagle head... then I realized they meant the helmeted head.

Bittorrents

And more: - Robotech - Warriors: Have to say that I really enjoyed the artwork in this series. Had a very European feel to it, like the artists who used to work for 2000AD in England. Nice change of pace from a lot of the other Robotech material. Very nice layouts too. Ships designs are gorgeous as well. The story... well, it's interesting, and well written... but just wasn't really interesting to me, despite how much I like Breetai. The Voice in the Void backup story a little be like adding a touch of Lovecraft to the Zentraedi, though the artwork was surprisingly straightforward (I liked it a good bit, just don't think it fit the intended sense of doom of the story). This feels like the setup for something, which likely never came about. - Robotech - Metal Swarm: Art shows potential, but everything about this feels rushed. The story... frankly, is just silly scifi. Basic concept, and then not much execution. Seems like there was supposed to be a second issue, but I see no signs of it every coming out. -Robotech - Warriors - Terror Maker: Just a compilation of Warriors and the backup feature, not even separated into the two separate storylines, but grouped like the original. These are all really part of the Warriors stories, which just feel to me like 2 or 3 ideas which were dragged out over limited series, but really should've each been a one-shot at best, maybe a backup feature.

Latest reads: - Robotech - Mechangel: Pretty disappointing. I've enjoyed Spangler's work before, but it felt very fan-fic-ish here. The artwork, while not bad, wasn't good either. Felt rushed in the #0 issue, and then there was essentially NOTHING for background in the rest of the series. Of course, the fact that this story was apparently supposed to bridge Malcontents with Southern Cross did nothing for me, as Malcontents was MUCH better than this all around, and Southern Cross just does nothing for me. Overall, just felt like a fanboyish initial concept, though it did start heading into more interesting territory, but just didn't do anything for me. - Robotech - Vermillion: Not a fan of the art. It isn't bad, just not to my personal tastes. Plus, even in the first couple pages of issue one, the pilot goes back and forth, panel to panel, looking like Roy, then Rick, then Max. The lettering is very amateurish, which makes the whole thing look worse than it deserves. The writing seems decent, though I'm not sure what to make of it. Layouts are VERY manga-ish. Some sort of alternate reality type of story? The MOSPEADA Diary, on the other hand, is a very pleasant surprise. Had no idea that was in here. Yes, it's just a brief summary, but somehow it really captured the feel very nicely. Would've preferred a little more original art and fewer cells from the show, but that's ok. What was there worked nicely. The Robotech: Unsung Heroes backup is the serialized black & white version of the story I mentioned early from the Robotech Annual, about a group of freedom fighters concurrent with Scott Bernard's group. Again, I liked this story and artwork a lot, and would have loved to have seen a regular series like this, with various resistance groups.

Makes sense. Thanks again for the insight into what went on. What are you working on these days? Any Robotech or related stuff in the foreseeable future?

Greg, Ok, I just read it, and I have to say I actually really enjoyed it. I especially liked the new design for Aaron James' Cyclone. New, but similar enough to other ones to be a believable model. I think my only gripe, and this is a minor one, is that I tend to prefer to see more shading and line weight variety in the artwork. This looks like pencils and inks that were meant to be colored over afterwards, as opposed to your Malcontent Uprisings shading, which I preferred. Again, this is really minor, since I actually like your artwork better here than in Malcontents overall, and I liked it there a good bit. Little question: Why did one of the Shock Troopers say "Nick" on it? Too bad we never got to see the return of Aaron later on, with some nice Invid modifications. I like these sort of in between stories, like the one in the New Gen short story in the Antarctic Robotech Annual, as well as these sort of views into what other resistance fighters were doing, like in the Antarctic Robotech Megastorm graphic novel.

Haven't read any of these yet (I've been putting off Covert Ops just because I'm more of a MOSPEADA/New Gen fan than Macross, so I've been starting with New Gen related stuff, even though I'm sure I should be reading more chronologically). I did read Malcontent Uprisings and enjoyed it thoroughly. As I mentioned a few posts up, I liked that one, though parts of it felt rushed to me. I did like the new mecha in it a lot though. I'll try to track down Class Reunion and then post about it here shortly. Thanks for giving us some insight here.

It looks like a fairly complete even mix of a Suzuki B-King and a Yamaha V-Max... Which is perfect for my tastes. I love it.

I haven't watched practically any Gundam at all, but in the anime that I have watched I think you get a fair amount of religious names or, MUCH more prevalent in the anime that I have watched, you get a lot of religious symbolism (most notably angels and demons) because I think that offers a very rich background from which to draw story and character ideas and motivations.

I was hoping for new mecha, not just new ships. The Haydonite designs really didn't do anything for me.

I plan on reading those. Glad to hear there's some potential there. I also just read an (I think Academy) Robotech annual, which had a short story in it about another group of freedome fighters, like Scott's, but who meet a rougher end... Real potential there. I also enjoyed the use of preproduction designs in Invasion, though it really drove home the fact that they did NO NEW DESIGNS for Shadow Chronicles at all, just other people's lesser known designs.

You're right, my mistake. Ok, Eternity was good... Academy started off good, then got weaker... And Antarctic was weird and VERY liberal with their interpretations...

Keep in mind, you have to PAY to ship it back to them, to then get your refund... (I'm probably just bitter because when I ordered my Beta I ordered the two Mars Base coffee mugs with it, and when one of them arrived broken, Robotech.com insisted I mail it back to them before they would send me a new one... UPS wanted $12 to ship back a $7.50 mug...)

Some of the ones I mentioned above were Antarctic. All of the stuff that Eternity was publishing, when the rights switched from Eternity to Antarctic, were continued by Antarctic, with the same creative teams too. From what I've read so far, the Antarctic stuff that was continuations of Eternity stuff is pretty decent. The stuff that was brand new, originating from Antarctic, was weird, really poorly written, and a mesh of all generations of characters, but with mecha, as mentioned above, taken pretty glaringly from the Macross sequels, but pretty poorly drawn. I'll continue commenting on each series as I read it, if people are interested.

My experience is a Shadow (Sue Graham) Alpha, and the Blue (Rand) Beta, and I can tell you there is a WORLD of difference between the two. I agree that QC can be a major issue, but I also think that engineering plays a part, as I feel that the Beta is designed so that there should be far fewer quality issues to begin with. It's a normal design thing, like I do at my job. Where I know that a product may be made by multiple manufacturers, or by a manufacturer which typically has certain QC issues, I plan my design so that it is harder to screw up manufacturing. Well, either way, we'll just have to wait and see how these turn out.

I disagree. The Toynami Beta is a more than decent product (and is supposedly based on Aoshima's engineering, but made by Toynami, while the Toynami Cyclone is supposed to be a reboxed Beagle with a new head, so not only is it engineered by Beagle, but actually made by them too, so it should have identical quality).

Has anyone received a shipping notification on their Toynami Cyclone? Now that the Beagle MOSPEADA is out and people have it in hand, I hoped that Toynami would be a matter of days later, but I haven't heard anything yet, and Robotech.com still just says "End of January."

Ok, I'm slowly working my way through the comics (with a decided predilection for New Gen). Here's what I've read so far, with some brief comments: - 1996 Calendar: Ok, this is useless pinup art, but what do you expect? - Crystal Dreams: Pretty much useless, but can't expect much from a free convention giveaway. It is interesting, seems like they were working in elements of one of the Macross movies, either Plus or II, I forget. - Invasion: Not much for story at all, decent art though. Interesting to see revision of Academy material here. - Invid War: Really good. Much better than I was expecting, both from an artistic and story point of view. - Invid War - Aftermath: Not to my taste, but still kind of interesting, though it all felt rushed. Definitely faultered at the end, and seemed to have been a non-Robotech story that the author(s) wanted to tell, and just set it in the Robotech world to be able to sell it. Still, not terrible, as long as you think of it as an Elseworlds type of thing. - Robotech The Movie: Pretty bad writing, though the art was ok. Interesting to see just how Carl Macek would have liked to have done the story, if the original animation had allowed for it. - Sourcebook: Not much needs to be said. - Star Runners: Carpenter's Journey: While it's a fun idea to see what went on with this trip, this is terribly written and feels rushed, while also being just a bit silly and cliched. This could have been a nice 4-issue mini. - Robotech Misfits: A very cliched cast here, trying to create a funny dirty dozen I guess, but I could see the concept being very entertaining and interesting in the right author's hands. - New Generation (Comico): Actually much better than I was expecting. Art goes from good to poor, depending on the issue, though the Dorman covers are gorgeous. Would've been amazing interiors. It was nice to see more details from MOSPEADA being in here than made it to the New Gen cartoon and, again, interesting to see some of Macek's ideas here that didn't fit in with the animation. - Robotech II The Sentinels: Cyberpirate: Just terrible. A waste of space, and fell oh so far short of what the author said he was hoping to do with this series. Very immature take on the concepts too. How is this the same author who wrote Invid War??? - Robotech II The Sentinels: Rubicon: The worst of the whole lot here. Artwork with no shading and that makes each character look indistinguishable from another. That, added to the artist doing completely new takes on each character's look keeps you from having any idea what is going on or to whom. The writing is terrible too. Real World type soap dialog, disjointed story... just terrible. - Robotech II The Sentinels: The Malcontent Uprisings: Seemed a bit rushed and to fall far short of its potential, but, despite those failings, and despite my minimal interest in the generations involved in this series, it was pretty good. Decently written, decent art work, pretty well thought out story (again, though a bit rushed), and some nice new mecha to boot.