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Posted
  On 7/27/2023 at 11:58 PM, JB0 said:

That's supposed to be a -19? I'm squinting but I still don't see it.

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I did say it was a low rent knockoff... but yes.  It's more apparent in the Fighter mode, where it has the delta-esque profile with forward-swept winglets.

One of the reasons HG has avoided reprinting so many of its old Robotech comics is because of just how much copyright infringement was going on.  Their licensees "borrowed" from whatever the flavor of the month was.

Posted
  On 7/28/2023 at 2:49 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

I did say it was a low rent knockoff... but yes.  It's more apparent in the Fighter mode, where it has the delta-esque profile with forward-swept winglets.

One of the reasons HG has avoided reprinting so many of its old Robotech comics is because of just how much copyright infringement was going on.  Their licensees "borrowed" from whatever the flavor of the month was.

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And made up silly characters too. Like the carebears.

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 1:29 AM, Swann said:

And made up silly characters too. Like the carebears.

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If only...

But no, the Sentinels aliens were no licensee fever dream. They were created by Harmony Gold itself for the failed Robotech II: the Sentinels series and their representation in those terrible old comics, novels, etc. was based on unused animation model sheets, backstory, and other concept materials from the aborted TV series. HG even kept them around after the reboot. Revised designs for all six of the alien races show up in the Prelude comic HG used to set up the story for Shadow Chronicles, and one of the six are the villains for the aborted OVA series.

They weren't particularly original designs, for sure... off-brand wookies, coneheads, rock men, cat men, and sentient robots from an artificial planet. It's like they picked every cliche they could from contemporary pop culture and just hoped no one would notice. Of course, when your creative team has such bad taste that they name one of the major characters in honor of L Ron Hubbard, incompetence is probably about the best you can hope for.

Posted (edited)
  On 7/27/2023 at 10:30 AM, Swann said:

Who the hell drew this?

robojoke1.jpg

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Okay... time for an autopsy on this one:

1) The linework has no "flow" to it and is too uniform, making everything look flat.

2) The proportions on the "woman in red" are really off; her head is HUGE compared to Claudia's.

3) Did someone rip the front of the girl in red's blouse off or something?

4) Why do they have their arms behind their backs? It neutralizes any way to convey emotion with their hands/ arms and makes them look like they're having a staring contest.

5) Why is Roy sitting in the background? With the look on his face, he seems to have about as much interest in this confrontation as Rick does asking Lynn Kyle for his opinion on the military! Even if Roy were friends with the woman in red, he would not be sitting there passively; we would be trying to get between the two ladies or something and putting an end to this confrontation ( professional or personal).

On the background: is Roy perching by the edge of a cliff?

7) For that matter: who sits like that?! Roy's left ankle's gotta be killing him by now!

8 ) Speaking of death: would somebody get poor Roy a value meal or something? The poor guy look like he hasn't eaten since the SDF-1 took off!!!

9) Perspective: non-existent (unless either: A) Roy is 9 and a half feet tall, or B) Claudia and her nemesis here are 3 and 1/2 feet tall!) )

10) Colors: did someone spill their watercolor set?

 

 

Edited by pengbuzz
Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 9:20 AM, pengbuzz said:

Okay... time for an autopsy on this one:

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Kind of an autopsy on the company too... Academy Comics only held on to the Robotech license for about 2 years and folded shortly after Harmony Golden revoked it. Like most of Robotech's licensee pool, they were a real amateur hour outfit.

 

  On 7/29/2023 at 7:26 AM, glane21 said:

I wrote and Illustrated Robotech: Covert Ops and Robotech: Class Reunion so if you want to know what was going on around that time just ask.

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If you feel so inclined, go ahead and share your tale of disaster and woe.

IIRC, those two titles have a combined issue count of just three and were both canceled basically immediately.

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 7:26 AM, glane21 said:

I wrote and Illustrated Robotech: Covert Ops and Robotech: Class Reunion so if you want to know what was going on around that time just ask.

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I'd love to hear any stories you have to tell from that time, be they good, bad, or just plain interesting.

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 3:12 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Kind of an autopsy on the company too... Academy Comics only held on to the Robotech license for about 2 years and folded shortly after Harmony Golden revoked it. Like most of Robotech's licensee pool, they were a real amateur hour outfit.

 

If you feel so inclined, go ahead and share your tale of disaster and woe.

IIRC, those two titles have a combined issue count of just three and were both canceled basically immediately.

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Covert Ops is a complete story in Two issues by design.  Class Reunion was supposed to be 2 regular sized issues but they learned of the license loss during production and I had to release it as a 48 page single issue instead.  So neither were cancelled and in fact were among the best print runs they had among their various Robotech books.  

Post some interior pics from Covert Ops and I think the artwork holds up.  The original art pages sell for big money, wish I’d kept some.
 

On Class Reunion, the shortened production time led to them hiring out various inkers to do pages here and there and most destroyed my pencils.  It was pretty infuriating.  Like the first 5 pages are good because the inker was competent and  then 4 pages  of trashed art and so on.

As I recall there was a main Robotech title that was Ben Dun’s baby and various limited series like mine to cash flow the license.  There was zero coordination among us , that’s on their editorial staff.  I had no idea that Wings of Gebraltar series existed for example.

But that was fine.  I was getting a good rate to draw Macross.  They had already used a DYRL flight suit on the cover of a main title  issue.  So to me that meant I could too.  I ran the first pages by the editor  and no one objected.

Anyway, that’s some history. Feel free to ask specifics. I also did issues 9-12 of Eternity Comics Robotech II: Malcontent Uprisings before the Antarctic stuff.

 

 

 

 

Posted (edited)
  On 7/29/2023 at 3:44 PM, glane21 said:

Covert Ops is a complete story in Two issues by design.  Class Reunion was supposed to be 2 regular sized issues but they learned of the license loss during production and I had to release it as a 48 page single issue instead.  So neither were cancelled and in fact were among the best print runs they had among their various Robotech books.  

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I stand corrected on the topic of cancellation for Covert Ops, at least.

That said, knowing what we know about the duration of the Antarctic Press license and Harmony Gold's reasons for revoking it, being among the best print runs that the most hated publisher with the shortest-ever tenure as a licensee had for that license feels like it was probably a low bar to clear.

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  On 7/29/2023 at 3:44 PM, glane21 said:

As I recall there was a main Robotech title that was Ben Dun’s baby and various limited series like mine to cash flow the license.  There was zero coordination among us , that’s on their editorial staff.  I had no idea that Wings of Gebraltar series existed for example.

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It sounds like you dodged a bullet, then. Especially given how the fans had the torches and pitchforks out for Rubicon.

Was there any kind of oversight going on regarding the usage of copyrighted material? I know the '90s were a lot less lawsuit happy on that front, but some of the titles that were published under Academy Comics and Antarctic Press feel like the artists were actively trying to get sued for copyright infringement. So much so that, these days, the new comic licensee handling reprints won't touch those titles.  (And yes, it absolutely objectively was copyright infringement... HG didn't have any rights to DYRL? until 2001, years after these comics were published, so 100% of the use of DYRL material was unauthorized.)

Come to that, was there any guidance being given on character and story arc development at all? I know the Robotech fans were really up in arms about Antarctic Press's comics because of how out of character everyone was all the time. Was this operation just a free-for-all?

Edited by Seto Kaiba
Posted

Hah, I remember "The Cyberpirates" (don't judge, at the time my part of the UK was an anime desert and you grasped at anything that looked remotely "Akira" like it was a drop of water on Arrakis... ). If you think the cover is bad, you should see what it looked like on the inside...

Posted (edited)
  On 7/29/2023 at 4:47 PM, Old_Nash_II said:

So... "paying well that's bad"? or did you draw and write for free?

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They paid well for an  independent publisher of that era.  Probably better than some current ones do and it would actually make it to print.  
 

When I was working on Class Reunion and news came that the license was being lost and production timelines were impacted, they let me switch to the 1 shot 48 page format to save the title.  I appreciated that.   Even though I got the bad inkers in the mix.  It was the last Robotech comic out the door for them.

Edited by glane21
Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 4:48 PM, Seto Kaiba said:
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It sounds like you dodged a bullet, then. Especially given how the fans had the torches and pitchforks out for Rubicon.

Was there any kind of oversight going on regarding the usage of copyrighted material? I know the '90s were a lot less lawsuit happy on that front, but some of the titles that were published under Academy Comics and Antarctic Press feel like the artists were actively trying to get sued for copyright infringement. So much so that, these days, the new comic licensee handling reprints won't touch those titles.  (And yes, it absolutely objectively was copyright infringement... HG didn't have any rights to DYRL? until 2001, years after these comics were published, so 100% of the use of DYRL material was unauthorized.)

Come to that, was there any guidance being given on character and story arc development at all? I know the Robotech fans were really up in arms about Antarctic Press's comics because of how out of character everyone was all the time. Was this operation just a free-for-all?

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Leaned more towards free for all I suppose.  Like I said, I had no idea Rubicon, Gibraltar, etc  were in production at the same time.  
 

I had actually pitched a Mars Base Squadron book but they wanted to use the popular characters to monetize the license (understandable), so I reworked it accordingly.  I believe in the main title Ben had introduced a new Zentran baddie and their battles with him caused the voyage home delay that Covert Ops is to resolve.  I’ve always liked DYRL designs over the tv versions.  I saw they had let a DYRL flight suit appear on a cover already so I just went with it and no one complained.

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 7:04 PM, glane21 said:

Leaned more towards free for all I suppose.  Like I said, I had no idea Rubicon, Gibraltar, etc  were in production at the same time.  

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Ah, OK... so pretty much the same as it was at Academy Comics and Eternity/Malibu Comics then.

That lack of coordination and editorial oversight at the publisher level and at HG's level was a big part of why HG ultimately decided to condemn all of the pre-2001 licensee-made material as a part of their reboot and relaunch of the brand.  It's one of the very few topics where HG openly admits that Robotech failed because they screwed up, rather than just blaming the licensee/studio/economy/alignment of the planets.

It really never fails to shock me a little just how cavalier the attitude of Robotech's licensees was when it came to copyrighted material.  I know these were smaller publishers, but it's amazing how nobody ever seems to have stopped to ask "Can we legally use that?".  If this hadn't been made in the 90's and most of the publishers hadn't collapsed on their own, they would've been run out of business by the court-ordered compensatory damages.

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 3:12 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Kind of an autopsy on the company too... Academy Comics only held on to the Robotech license for about 2 years and folded shortly after Harmony Golden revoked it. Like most of Robotech's licensee pool, they were a real amateur hour outfit.

 

If you feel so inclined, go ahead and share your tale of disaster and woe.

IIRC, those two titles have a combined issue count of just three and were both canceled basically immediately.

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Like the Matchbox figures 

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 8:21 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Ah, OK... so pretty much the same as it was at Academy Comics and Eternity/Malibu Comics then.

That lack of coordination and editorial oversight at the publisher level and at HG's level was a big part of why HG ultimately decided to condemn all of the pre-2001 licensee-made material as a part of their reboot and relaunch of the brand.  It's one of the very few topics where HG openly admits that Robotech failed because they screwed up, rather than just blaming the licensee/studio/economy/alignment of the planets.

It really never fails to shock me a little just how cavalier the attitude of Robotech's licensees was when it came to copyrighted material.  I know these were smaller publishers, but it's amazing how nobody ever seems to have stopped to ask "Can we legally use that?".  If this hadn't been made in the 90's and most of the publishers hadn't collapsed on their own, they would've been run out of business by the court-ordered compensatory damages.

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Probably not enough cash flow to make it worth the law fees.  
 

I was in a meeting with Jim Lee in his Wildstorm LaJolla Studios just before I did RoboDojo for them.   One of his guys came in with that day’s haul of merchandise that was ripping off his various copyrighted material.  Toys and kid sandals and such .   He laughed at the odd usage of most of it and gave me some dinosaur head puppets to take back to my nephew who loved Jurassic Park.  Point being that there was only so much they could pursue.

Posted
  On 7/30/2023 at 12:37 AM, glane21 said:

Probably not enough cash flow to make it worth the law fees.  

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It's not always about the money...  some license agreements - like Harmony Gold's - impose an obligation on the licensee to defend (in court if necessary) the integrity of the IP being used under license.  It's a big part of why HG has a reputation for being so litigious.  They had a legal obligation to do so even if it meant doing so at a loss.

 

  On 7/30/2023 at 12:37 AM, glane21 said:

I was in a meeting with Jim Lee in his Wildstorm LaJolla Studios just before I did RoboDojo for them.   One of his guys came in with that day’s haul of merchandise that was ripping off his various copyrighted material.  Toys and kid sandals and such .   He laughed at the odd usage of most of it and gave me some dinosaur head puppets to take back to my nephew who loved Jurassic Park.  Point being that there was only so much they could pursue.

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There's Chinese bootleg everything out there... but it's a lot easier to prosecute when it's a company in the west doing it, and China is making a concerted effort to clean up their own image on that front as well.  There's a certain amount that's allowable as homage, but it's a safe bet that if Robotech hadn't been so obsecure Eternity/Malibu, Academy, and Antarctic would probably have been having several uncomfortable conversations with lawyers representing companies like Big West/Studio Nue, Bandai, Sunrise, 20th Century Fox, etc.

(Harmony Gold knows that only too well, having spent twenty solid years looking over their shoulders for fear of Big West, Studio Nue, Tatsunoko, etc.)

Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 3:44 PM, glane21 said:

I also did issues 9-12 of Eternity Comics Robotech II: Malcontent Uprisings before the Antarctic stuff.

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I remember those...

91ASJbuTYHL.jpg

As starved as we were for new content, most of the Eternity stuff was a disappointment -- not as eye-searing as Comico, but poorly-illustrated nonetheless.  Malcontent Uprisings were the only Robotech comics I actually enjoyed reading.  :good:

 

Posted
  On 7/30/2023 at 9:44 AM, tekering said:

I remember those...

91ASJbuTYHL.jpg

As starved as we were for new content, most of the Eternity stuff was a disappointment -- not as eye-searing as Comico, but poorly-illustrated nonetheless.  Malcontent Uprisings were the only Robotech comics I actually enjoyed reading.  :good:

 

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Thank you , I do appreciate it!

Posted
  On 7/30/2023 at 1:19 AM, glane21 said:

I don’t disagree, I just wasn’t privy to stuff at that  level.  

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Received and understood.  On one level, I understand that it's just how those fly-by-night operations were back in the day.  On another, as someone who routinely has to work with the protected IP of other companies, that they didn't give you that information or may not have even had it themselves is like a shocking level of administrative negligence.

Posted
  On 7/30/2023 at 5:34 PM, F-ZeroOne said:

glane21, for what its worth, although I didn't get to read the whole series I also enjoyed the issues of "The Malcontent Uprisings" I was able to get.

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Hey that’s really great to hear, thanks so much!!  As a teen at the time I was so excited to get to draw valks and our beloved characters, even though it had to be as robotech.

Posted (edited)

You're welcome, regardless of what I know now about the whole thing it was always a treat to find "Robotech" comics in my nearest comic book sto... shop. 🙂

Edited by F-ZeroOne
  • 1 month later...
Posted
  On 7/29/2023 at 7:26 AM, glane21 said:

I wrote and Illustrated Robotech: Covert Ops and Robotech: Class Reunion so if you want to know what was going on around that time just ask.

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I read CO yesteday and was cool. Much DYRL outfit and try a decent plot (Much more than most material that exists in comics, because that Mordecai... OH frag WTF was that thing?)

Posted

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1

Well, I finally got a copy of Robotech: Rick Hunter, and now I can write this minireview.

Robotech%2B-%2BRick%2BHunter%2B%25282023%2529%2B%2528digital-SD%2529%2B%2528Dakota%2BScanning%2529-000.jpg

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Posted
  On 9/18/2023 at 8:27 PM, Old_Nash_II said:

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1

Well, I finally got a copy of Robotech: Rick Hunter, and now I can write this minireview.

Robotech%2B-%2BRick%2BHunter%2B%25282023%2529%2B%2528digital-SD%2529%2B%2528Dakota%2BScanning%2529-000.jpg

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My eyes rain! 🥲😂🤣

 

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