Robotech Comics

[Seto Kaiba]

19 minutes ago, jenius said:

Quantifiable? You're not doing that at all. In fact, you're going out of your way to avoid "Quantifiable" because it refutes what you say. How many countries did it have to air in to be "large"? How many markets did it have to penetrate? "I think not a lot of people like it today" is as close as you've come there... 

This is another version of the same fallacious argument you were making earlier about the number of comics...

The number of countries your show's in doesn't matter if nobody's watching.

Think of it this way, since this is a comics thread... if you're a publisher and you have orders for a total of 7,000 copies of the next issue of your comic, it doesn't matter of those orders are from one country or fifty because that doesn't change the total number of orders you received.  

This is why I'm looking at things like broadcast ratings/viewership shares and merchandise sales.  That's much more useful and reliable data than "It aired in X-many markets with a total reach of Y-many people", because there's no guarantee that any of those Y-many people in those X-many markets (never mind all of them) tuned in.

 

19 minutes ago, jenius said:

That's a very convenient thing to say since any cursory google search of Robotech will define it as a "Hit show from the 1980s that aired over most the world."

On a lark, I fact-checked this... and the only search result for "Robotech" that referred to the series as a "hit" was from the Robotech fandom wiki.

Not exactly an impartial source, y'know?

 

But yes, if you'd like I can share some articles about how network executives are struggling to come up with actual criteria to define "hit".  Back in the day, it meant that a series had a dominant ratings share either in a competitive time slot or on the network's total broadcast schedule... but that was not the case for Robotech.  

"Critically acclaimed" and "award winning" are two others that have lost all meaning due to Exact Words, which is why they and "hit" are favorites of marketing.  As long a you've got one critic willing to praise it, no matter how minor or unheard-of and even if they're on the studio's own payroll, it's still "critical acclaim".  Winning an award by default as the only entrant in a category is still an award won, which is why RTSC can advertise itself as "award winning".  As long as the statement is technically true or at least non-falsible, it's fair game for marketing.

 

19 minutes ago, jenius said:

That's helpful. Bizarrely, if I run a search on these things my numbers are very different. Maybe Seto draws the line for "large" at something that would have 15 million hits or more and I would say something that hasn't had a successful sequel since 1985 and still generates about 9 million hits was large and impactful (my Robotech search results in 14.5Million hits, Thundercats returns 20.5 million). There you have it, a quantifiable end to this debate and we can all choose where we fall. 

I would hesitate to use search engine result counts as more than general guidance.

It's easy to get sites that do not actually contain relevant content (e.g. random tags in comment fields) and multiple results for a single webpage that infliate numbers.

 

[jenius]

You don't need to keep arguing your opinion.... it was settled. 

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

That's helpful. Bizarrely, if I run a search on these things my numbers are very different. Maybe Seto draws the line for "large" at something that would have 15 million hits or more and I would say something that hasn't had a successful sequel since 1985 and still generates about 9 million hits was large and impactful (my Robotech search results in 14.5Million hits, Thundercats returns 20.5 million). There you have it, a quantifiable end to this debate and we can all choose where we fall. 

Google customizes your search.  I.e.: if you search for your name on the computer/device you regularly use, you're going to end up with more hits than if you do the exact same search on a computer/device that you never use.

Nevertheless, I think the point stands as it is something quantifiable, but the results should be treated more like a barometer rather than something concrete.

 

Maybe https://www.startpage.com/ or some other "Google without Google" search will give similar results for everyone?

 

Regarding the topic: Robotech comics were never big, when measured against Marvel and DC titles.  However, they were always offered (and never sold at discount) in my hometown.  I would put the numbers stocked at either the equivalent or somewhat less than what Dark Horse was releasing at the time (i.e. similar numbers to "Dark Horse Presents" but somewhat less than anything with "Aliens" in the title).*

Back issues were similarly priced at or near cover price (never less, and rarely, if ever, much more expensive).

 

* The era I'm referring to is the early 90's (Eternity/Malibu Comics → Academy Comics).

Edited October 25, 2023 by sketchley

[Old_Nash_II]

Bad art Malibu

Spoiler

Harlock or Kodai?

[Seto Kaiba]

31 minutes ago, Old_Nash_II said:

Bad art Malibu

To be fair, that's not even that far off the pretty poor-quality animation reference for Sentinels...

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be fair, that's not even that far off the pretty poor-quality animation reference for Sentinels...

Yeah, I always wondered what was with Rick/ Hikaru's chin in the Robotech II comics; looks like he could have broken a door down with it!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah, I always wondered what was with Rick/ Hikaru's chin in the Robotech II comics; looks like he could have broken a door down with it!

Yeah, you can't blame that one (entirely) on Robotech's indie comic book licensees.

When Robotech II: the Sentinels was in development, it wasn't possible to use the original Haruhiko Mikimoto designs from Macross due to copyright and the project's budget from Harmony Gold and its partner Matchbox wouldn't stretch far enough for the studio to hire outside designers.  The task of coming up with new, non-infringing character and mecha designs for Robotech II: the Sentinels was handed off to Tatsunoko's internal design team at Studio Ammonite.  You may remember them as the masterminds of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross.  Presumably because Robotech was an "American series for Americans", many of the male characters picked up the stereotypical square jaw and a more angular face in general.

The indie publishers who acquired the comic book license used the designs Ammonite produced for the cancelled series, so Rick's lantern jaw made its way into the comics and became much more associated with the comics because the comics lasted exponentially longer.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, you can't blame that one (entirely) on Robotech's indie comic book licensees.

When Robotech II: the Sentinels was in development, it wasn't possible to use the original Haruhiko Mikimoto designs from Macross due to copyright and the project's budget from Harmony Gold and its partner Matchbox wouldn't stretch far enough for the studio to hire outside designers.  The task of coming up with new, non-infringing character and mecha designs for Robotech II: the Sentinels was handed off to Tatsunoko's internal design team at Studio Ammonite.  You may remember them as the masterminds of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross.  Presumably because Robotech was an "American series for Americans", many of the male characters picked up the stereotypical square jaw and a more angular face in general.

The indie publishers who acquired the comic book license used the designs Ammonite produced for the cancelled series, so Rick's lantern jaw made its way into the comics and became much more associated with the comics because the comics lasted exponentially longer.

Got it; looked to me like they were using Breetai for ideas to do plastic surgery on the lead characters! O.o

[Swann]

On 10/23/2023 at 9:52 PM, renegadeleader1 said:

I'll be blunt here. Seto has a strong dislike of Harmony Gold, the Robotech brand, and anything connected to it, to the point he will go out of his way to denigrate it and downplay it's impact.

 

Wether he likes it or not, or is even willing or capable of admitting it Robotech back in the day was a modest hit, and still maintains a surprisingly large cult following to this day which is quite an accomplishment given it's syndicated nature, and is better than a lot of similar properties from the 80s and 90s.

 

Outside of the Hasbro and Mattel brands you don't really see the longevity or attempted revivals quite like what Robotech has had without there being some demand for it.

 Faketech isn't likely respected nor H.G.

[Swann]

Terrible comercial and terrible looking action figures.

 

[pengbuzz]

13 minutes ago, Swann said:

Terrible comercial and terrible looking action figures.

 

In their original state...they work out rather well with some refinement:

(Max and Millia are still in progress though, and Roy's expression kinda resembles Grumpy Cat!)

Although I had to make my own Breetai:

Edited November 7, 2023 by pengbuzz

[Swann]

54 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

In their original state...they work out rather well with some refinement:

(Max and Millia are still in progress though, and Roy's expression kinda resembles Grumpy Cat!)

Although I had to make my own Breetai:

They look good. I would add like puddy on the hair and make the hair longer. Try it.

[pengbuzz]

Just now, Swann said:

They look good. I would add like puddy on the hair and make the hair longer. Try it.

I already did so on several of them; any more and the hair will begin to fall off/ break.

(makes me wonder what hair gel/ spray they use in the animes! O.o )

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Swann said:

Terrible comercial and terrible looking action figures.

It was 1986, the manufacturing process wasn't as advanced as it is today.

It also wasn't exactly Matchbox's best effort.

 

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

In their original state...they work out rather well with some refinement:

Maybe so... but if it's down to the consumer to bring the product up to an acceptable level of quality post-purchase, something is badly wrong with the product.

[pengbuzz]

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It was 1986, the manufacturing process wasn't as advanced as it is today.

It also wasn't exactly Matchbox's best effort.

 

Maybe so... but if it's down to the consumer to bring the product up to an acceptable level of quality post-purchase, something is badly wrong with the product.

Very true; it does show that had some effort been put into it, they would have been at least acceptable. All I did on these was to slightly tweak certain things like figure height, detains and such. And that was with just a craft knife and some plastic welder.

[Swann]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I already did so on several of them; any more and the hair will begin to fall off/ break.

(makes me wonder what hair gel/ spray they use in the animes! O.o )

Fix Zor. Just fix him.

 

[Swann]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Very true; it does show that had some effort been put into it, they would have been at least acceptable. All I did on these was to slightly tweak certain things like figure height, detains and such. And that was with just a craft knife and some plastic welder.

Zor's hair. Korg is the only decent one.

[Swann]

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

In their original state...they work out rather well with some refinement:

(Max and Millia are still in progress though, and Roy's expression kinda resembles Grumpy Cat!)

Although I had to make my own Breetai:

Out of all the rest. Korg is the only decent one.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Very true; it does show that had some effort been put into it, they would have been at least acceptable. All I did on these was to slightly tweak certain things like figure height, detains and such. And that was with just a craft knife and some plastic welder.

They WERE acceptable. Their target market very much was not "adult collectibles" and "toon-accurate detailing". It was single-digit boys, and those figures were awesome. You could TAKE RICK HUNTER'S HELMET OFF(and wear away the paint).

[Seto Kaiba]

39 minutes ago, JB0 said:

They WERE acceptable. Their target market very much was not "adult collectibles" and "toon-accurate detailing". It was single-digit boys, and those figures were awesome. You could TAKE RICK HUNTER'S HELMET OFF(and wear away the paint).

How acceptable they were may deserve a bit of an asterisk given that a major contributing factor in the toy line's failure was that it was designed for the demographic that HG had aimed Robotech at... not the somewhat older one that actually watched it.

(At least, according to Harmony Gold's hindsight.)

Edited November 7, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

How acceptable they were may deserve a bit of an asterisk given that a major contributing factor in the toy line's failure was that it was designed for the demographic that HG had aimed Robotech at... not the somewhat older one that actually watched it.

(At least, according to Harmony Gold's hindsight.)

That's quite fair. It wasn't exactly lighting the schoolyard on fire wedged between Go-Bots, Transformers, and Voltron.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, JB0 said:

They WERE acceptable. Their target market very much was not "adult collectibles" and "toon-accurate detailing". It was single-digit boys, and those figures were awesome. You could TAKE RICK HUNTER'S HELMET OFF(and wear away the paint).

I loved the ones I had as a kid. They were the size of GI joes and had the same build to a fault. Basically anything that could go wrong with a GI Joe would go wrong with these. But they worked perfectly with them. I never could find the Macross pilots back then, but did get a couple of Mospeada figures. My favorite out of the line was the “Bioroid Terminator”. Still to this day I think that was a cool figure with a cool rifle. Not totally accurate to the show and not sure why he had such a goofy name.found this image of the guy. But that’s my favorite of the ones I owned. Very poseable and big beatle butt flap. Couldn’t sit in a vehicle though, but made for a darn cool foot soldier 

[pengbuzz]

9 hours ago, JB0 said:

They WERE acceptable. Their target market very much was not "adult collectibles" and "toon-accurate detailing". It was single-digit boys, and those figures were awesome.

Opinions are going to vary, but I noticed as a kid that they didn't look all that much like their TV counterparts (the artist and modelbuilder in me admittedly) and wasn't too impressed. Took me nearly 40 years to develop the skills to finally do something about that when I repurchased the figures.

9 hours ago, JB0 said:

You could TAKE RICK HUNTER'S HELMET OFF(and wear away the paint).

On my revision, you still can (and it fits quite well):

  

When I first got him:

  (yeah, pretty sad. But workable)

Out of all of them, Misa required the most work:

Anyways, I'm not downing these figures; I actually like them but recognize they had their flaws and shortcomings. But just like any project: they have potential hidden in them.

6 hours ago, Big s said:

I loved the ones I had as a kid. They were the size of GI joes and had the same build to a fault. Basically anything that could go wrong with a GI Joe would go wrong with these. But they worked perfectly with them. I never could find the Macross pilots back then, but did get a couple of Mospeada figures. My favorite out of the line was the “Bioroid Terminator”. Still to this day I think that was a cool figure with a cool rifle. Not totally accurate to the show and not sure why he had such a goofy name.

found this image of the guy. But that’s my favorite of the ones I owned. Very poseable and big beatle butt flap. Couldn’t sit in a vehicle though, but made for a darn cool foot soldier 

I noticed that about the figures; they were GI Joe compatible. So much so that I used Marine Dress Blues Gung-Ho to make Captain Global (which they hadn't made back then):

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by pengbuzz

[Big s]

32 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I noticed that about the figures; they were GI Joe compatible. So much so that I used Marine Dress Blues Gung-Ho to make Captain Global (which they hadn't made back then):

Yeah, I remember when you put those pictures up a while back. I thought it was pretty great

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Yeah, I remember when you put those pictures up a while back. I thought it was pretty great

Strangely, I don't remember; I think I've come down with a bad case of CRS.

Edited November 7, 2023 by pengbuzz

[Swann]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:37 PM, Big s said:

I loved the ones I had as a kid. They were the size of GI joes and had the same build to a fault. Basically anything that could go wrong with a GI Joe would go wrong with these. But they worked perfectly with them. I never could find the Macross pilots back then, but did get a couple of Mospeada figures. My favorite out of the line was the “Bioroid Terminator”. Still to this day I think that was a cool figure with a cool rifle. Not totally accurate to the show and not sure why he had such a goofy name.found this image of the guy. But that’s my favorite of the ones I owned. Very poseable and big beatle butt flap. Couldn’t sit in a vehicle though, but made for a darn cool foot soldier 

My favorite is Korg (Battra)

[Swann]

Here is the only one I have. He is the most somewhat decent out of all of them. The rest have twisted and badly deformed sculpt faces.

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Swann said:

Here is the only one I have. He is the most somewhat decent out of all of them. The rest have twisted and badly deformed sculpt faces.

Whatever floats your boat man. I'm done.

[Old_Nash_II]

Robotech: Rick Hunter #2

And after a long long time, a review of #2 of this mini

Spoiler

And again we have a small summary of what happened in the Saga, and the important cast of the edition.
Edition begins with Rick's group already on MacWilson Island, assessing the damage caused by the riots.

(War, war never changes)

They are soon interrupted by a call from Leonard, saying that he regrets the loss of strength, and remembers what they went to do there, but that they are passing through New Guinea to resupply.
Rick then begins to ramble about how he met Gloval personally and what led up to the end of the war.

Elsewhere, at the Zentraedi base, we see Zeraal rambling about how fragile Earthlings are, leaving after learning of Rick's move to New Guinea.

In New Guinea, Rick receives a transmission from Lisa, and has another flashback session, remembering his last conversation with Gloval in a bar (even remembering his wife).

After that, there was disagreement in the cafeteria about the inclusion of the Zentraedi who agreed to live with humans. Rick receives information about where Zeraal's base would be, and leaves with his squad to intercept it.

(every great story begin with a bar fight)

Along the way, they come across Zeraal and his forces and a fight ensues, leading to a conversation between Rick and Zeraal, resulting in the possible death of Grant.
and continues next time.

(Vince:- FOOOX..., Ops, I mean, RIIIIICKK!!!!!!!!

Personal Opinion

Well, the edition took a while to come out on the "digital news stand" where I read it, it came out in November last year, but I heard it took a while to come out on digital, I don't know if that's true, since I don't buy digital comics.

Anyway: the story takes a bit of a break from "no time, man", with more space in the background and less focus on the characters. The post-Space War I environment, which is still characterized by extreme prejudice against the Zentraedi, on the part of the human population, is clear in the figure of Leonard, founder of the Army of the Southern Cross.
Something I rarely see on the TV series.

Regarding the characters, it is even curious that the author took certain liberties and references in relation to both the original work and the HG version.

(Dum Dum Dugan on duty)

(And with that, we find out why DYRL won't go to D+...)

The art is still very good, I even got used to the combat scenes which, despite being short, are better focused (you'll see why it was a dogfight between Rick and Zeraal).

In fact, as for the antagonist, it took me a while to remember him from the game Battlecry, as the story takes place after him. In other words, how he is alive will be explained later.

(Alas, poor Yorick...)

(New Armor, New Paint style! NEW TOYS!!!)

Rating 8/10 

 

Edited March 23 by Old_Nash_II
double page

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Old_Nash_II said:

And after a long long time, a review of #2 of this mini

... oh it's "number two" all right, in a sense other than the strictly numerical. 🤣

In a way, it's kind of impressive what an equalizer the Robotech license manages to be.  It doesn't matter if the writer is a slumming industry professional or a rank amateur who'd got the license because literally nobody else wanted it... it somehow drags them all down to the same level.

 

1 hour ago, Old_Nash_II said:

The post-Space War I environment, which is still characterized by extreme prejudice against the Zentraedi, on the part of the human population, is clear in the figure of Leonard, founder of the Army of the Southern Cross.
Something I rarely see on the TV series.

Truly, this is the duality of Robotech's licensed works...

Robotech desperately wants to be seen as "American Macross", but outside of the daring-but-doomed piss-take that was Robotech Remix the franchise can't conceive of a happy future at all, never mind one where Humanity voluntarily coexists with aliens the way it does in Macross.

It goes back at least as far as the New Generation, where Scott implies the Zentradi were driven to extinction and wishes the same on the Invid.  Subsequent works just made it worse with each iteration.  Robotech II: the Sentinels had Humanity effectively expel the remaining Zentradi from the planet by drafting them into the Expeditionary Forces so the Robotech Masters could finish the job, which one of their own rogue officers ended up doing instead post-reboot in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles.  Scott's very specific trauma WRT the Invid was distorted by licensee writers until it became an article of faith that Humanity in general was openly, unapologetically, and militantly xenophobic outside of a few painfully naive people in senior positions.  It hit its apex in Prelude and the accompanying Shadow Chronicles "movie" with the story depicting the few pro-coexistence top brass as almost suicidally stupid and the bigoted villain being objectively correct that aliens couldn't be trusted as the Haydonites backstab everyone in turn.

[shazam]

4 hours ago, Old_Nash_II said:

Robotech: Rick Hunter #2

And after a long long time, a review of #2 of this mini

  Reveal hidden contents

And again we have a small summary of what happened in the Saga, and the important cast of the edition.
Edition begins with Rick's group already on MacWilson Island, assessing the damage caused by the riots.

(War, war never changes)

They are soon interrupted by a call from Leonard, saying that he regrets the loss of strength, and remembers what they went to do there, but that they are passing through New Guinea to resupply.
Rick then begins to ramble about how he met Gloval personally and what led up to the end of the war.

Elsewhere, at the Zentraedi base, we see Zeraal rambling about how fragile Earthlings are, leaving after learning of Rick's move to New Guinea.

In New Guinea, Rick receives a transmission from Lisa, and has another flashback session, remembering his last conversation with Gloval in a bar (even remembering his wife).

After that, there was disagreement in the cafeteria about the inclusion of the Zentraedi who agreed to live with humans. Rick receives information about where Zeraal's base would be, and leaves with his squad to intercept it.

(every great story begin with a bar fight)

Along the way, they come across Zeraal and his forces and a fight ensues, leading to a conversation between Rick and Zeraal, resulting in the possible death of Grant.
and continues next time.

(Vince:- FOOOX..., Ops, I mean, RIIIIICKK!!!!!!!!

Personal Opinion

Well, the edition took a while to come out on the "digital news stand" where I read it, it came out in November last year, but I heard it took a while to come out on digital, I don't know if that's true, since I don't buy digital comics.

Anyway: the story takes a bit of a break from "no time, man", with more space in the background and less focus on the characters. The post-Space War I environment, which is still characterized by extreme prejudice against the Zentraedi, on the part of the human population, is clear in the figure of Leonard, founder of the Army of the Southern Cross.
Something I rarely see on the TV series.

Regarding the characters, it is even curious that the author took certain liberties and references in relation to both the original work and the HG version.

(Dum Dum Dugan on duty)

(And with that, we find out why DYRL won't go to D+...)

The art is still very good, I even got used to the combat scenes which, despite being short, are better focused (you'll see why it was a dogfight between Rick and Zeraal).

In fact, as for the antagonist, it took me a while to remember him from the game Battlecry, as the story takes place after him. In other words, how he is alive will be explained later.

(Alas, poor Yorick...)

(New Armor, New Paint style! NEW TOYS!!!)

Rating 8/10 

 

There is a disconnect of style choices between the cover artwork to the actual artwork inside the comic. I apologize up front for not reading into the comic. It's not my thing. 

Recognizable Rick Hunter on the cover art.

Yikes guy? 😐

 

 

 

 

 

recognizable

 

 

 

[twich]

The mecha, which is the main draw for me for looking at this thread, it would be interesting to see Toynami or Kitzconcepts take on the YF-4, or what ever it is called in the comics.

Twich

[Seto Kaiba]

51 minutes ago, twich said:

The mecha, which is the main draw for me for looking at this thread, it would be interesting to see Toynami or Kitzconcepts take on the YF-4, or what ever it is called in the comics.

That's probably not going to happen... mainly because nobody involved has any idea how this thing is supposed to transform.

Kawamori's VF-X-4 design from Super Dimension Fortress Macross didn't come with a transformation already figured out, and nobody working on the Robotech license over the years has had the design chops to come up with one.  The reason they've only started using it recently is that they didn't have alt-modes for it at all until Ninja Division designed them for it while working on that failed Robotech tabletop game ten years ago.  Even then, Ninja Division never figured out how to get from Point F to Point G to Point B.  They just came up with something that looked about right for the modes themselves... and subsequent commercialization ground to a halt when the game's publisher overestimated demand and spent the remaining development budget on retail stock, the Robotech Academy Kickstarter bombed, and they more or less sold control of the franchise to Sony Funimation.

[Big s]

On 3/23/2024 at 2:24 PM, shazam said:

Yikes guy? 😐

Yeah, there’s a battle in the background and they’re giving bedroom eyes after only a couple drinks. 

[shazam]

38 minutes ago, Big s said:

Yeah, there’s a battle in the background and they’re giving bedroom eyes after only a couple drinks. 

Purely suggestive of course.