Robotech Comics

[pengbuzz]

On 10/20/2023 at 8:10 PM, Swann said:

What the F is that? Was it written by Anne Rice?

Looks like Poison Ivy from DC Comics trying to get it on with a purple mummy....

[tekering]

3 hours ago, Big s said:

Even when the show was first airing a lot of the kids I knew compared it to a soap opera and didn’t like it.

Kids in my elementary school were only familiar with the franchise because of the Matchbox toy commercials. 🤕

Liking Robotech was never cool. 😒

[Swann]

And those action figures had twisted and unattractive sculpted heads. Korg looked somewhat excellent.

[F-ZeroOne]

My view of "Robotech" and its effect is a bit skewed by being on the opposite side of the Atlantic; "impact" is a comparative term, it clearly was never as big a franchise as something like "He-Man" or "Transformers". Here, more people probably remember "Ulysses 31" or even "Thunderbirds 2086" than "Robotech", if they weren't introduced to it through the RPGs/comics.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, F-ZeroOne said:

My view of "Robotech" and its effect is a bit skewed by being on the opposite side of the Atlantic; "impact" is a comparative term, it clearly was never as big a franchise as something like "He-Man" or "Transformers". Here, more people probably remember "Ulysses 31" or even "Thunderbirds 2086" than "Robotech", if they weren't introduced to it through the RPGs/comics.

I don’t know, I haven’t actually known a single person that remembers Ulysses 31. But Thunderbirds was a different story. Although most people knew as the weird puppet show.  I think having an odd style of tv show made it more memorable 

[Dynaman]

17 hours ago, jenius said:

Feels kind of hollow when a guy on an English language Macross site probably pressing 50 years old says Robotech didn't have much of an impact. 

You ask a couple average people on the streets of the US what Robotech is and you will almost certainly get a response of "what?".  Ask what Transformers is and you will almost certainly get a hate it or like it response.  Same for GI Joe or Scooby Doo (for my generation).  

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, jenius said:

Feels kind of hollow when a guy on an English language Macross site probably pressing 50 years old says Robotech didn't have much of an impact. 

Putting aside what feels like an ad hominem, Robotech's own history is the best argument that it had very little impact at all.

By ratings, the Robotech TV series was an unremarkable middle-of-the-pack performer in the middle of a glut of merchandise-driven cartoons.  Their competition is a who's who of the most memorable kid's shows of the mid-80's: Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Jem, Ghostbusters, G-Force, Johnny Quest, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and so on.  Its accompanying toy line from Matchbox was such an embarrassing failure that Matchbox abandoned the license after just two years.  Its animated feature film ended up pulled from the release schedule in its primary market and quietly abandoned.  Its attempt at an original TV series died in early production.  The first few attempts at home video were a mess, and by the time it landed at Macek's own Streamline Pictures in the 90's the very limited praise from the hobby press was mainly for including the non-Robotech versions of the three original shows. 

You have to be remembered to have an impact, and Robotech was only really remembered by its small fanbase and the even-more-niche-at-the-time anime hobbyist community, with the latter group having little nice to say about it.  Pop culture references to it are vanishingly rare across nearly forty years, its merchandise is nonexistent on store shelves, and three separate attempts at a revival have failed due to lack of interest: Robotech 3000, Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, and Robotech Academy.

Since this is a comics thread, consider that the actually-popular and impactful titles from the same period that landed comics were picked up by the major publishers like Marvel and DC.  Who picked up the Robotech license?  Only the struggling, small-time independent publishers who were looking for a licensed property with a built-in audience to boost their flagging circulation were interested in Robotech.  If Robotech were really so impactful, its first-ever comic book licensee at the apex of the show's popularity would not have been an indie publisher plagued by disputes over the ownership of its flagship original properties and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy due to mismanagement.  Nor would a second licensee have been an independent publisher so small it was consolidated out of existence along with half a dozen others by the same financial backer, nor a third and fourth so inept they would have their licenses revoked for incompetence.

 

 

This site's existence doesn't mean much in terms of Robotech's impact.  Sure, the oldest members here saw Robotech in '85 and that was their introduction to Macross... but you forget that there were plenty of other, later opportunities for people to be introduced to it as well like that Hong Kong dub of DYRL?, Macross II and Macross Plus in the early 90's, and the growth of the internet fansub community in the late 90's and early 2000s.  This site, or a site very much like it, would still exist without Robotech.  Most of us would be there.

Robotech's supposed influence is massively oversold by Harmony Gold for marketing reasons.  You garner a lot more interest in their position by saying your show was things like "genre-defining", "foundational", or "a breakthrough" than you do with a more honest appraisal like "commercially unsuccessful", "largely forgotten", and "often confused with a top brand of pool-cleaning apparatus, a Japanese brand of sex toy, and/or a derisive term for giant robot action movies".

(And for the record, I've got a good while yet before I have to worry about 40... never mind 50. 😉)

Edited October 22, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(And for the record, I've got a good while yet before I have to worry about 40... never mind 50. 😉)

Lucky you... I turn 50 next year! O.o

(where did the time go?! )

Edited October 22, 2023 by pengbuzz

[Old_Nash_II]

Well, I discovered Robotech at the beginning of 1990, I don't remember the year exactly, but there was a magazine with different themes, and on one of the last pages there was a page with some photos and a text of maximum 10 lines. Soon after that, the anime premiered on open TV, in the afternoon, and continued for some time, until it was moved to morning shows on the Xuxa program. I remember it ran until the penultimate chapter of Masters, after which it left the grid and "disappeared" from the broadcaster.
Interestingly, on another channel, Macross was broadcast, almost at the same time, but renamed Galactic War.
The anime was never as successful (this feat was reserved for Knights of the Zodiac) here so that the toys could be released here through legal means (unlike countries like Argentina and Chile [if there are others, I don't remember now]) at most They released some episodes on VHS, in addition to the Macross feature, renamed The Final Battle.

The few who still remember him (like me) like him as much as Macross, and suffer from the presumptions of HG who insist on not developing the brand and remaining nostalgic.

In fact, I turned 45 that year. I hope I can achieve my life goal before I'm 50 (which would be an animation pilot aiming for a TV or streaming series)

[jenius]

It may have felt like an ad hominen, but it wasn't. Just a reflection on the fact that Robotech had a pretty large and clear impact on a lot of folks here. Had Robotech been the child of a company that wasn't just a cash-grab licensing outfit, it could have been much more impactful for sure. It's true, it wasn't as impactful as a great many things from the 80s. Saying "it wasn't impactful" though is setting a subjective, arbitrary bar that the words you are typing, in the location you are typing them on, undermines the argument. The sheer volume of trees wasted on garbage Robotech comics was impactful . As for impact, a lot of love for anime blossomed from the combine efforts of Robotech and many other 80s imports and helped foster that industry. You could never say Robotech is responsible for popularity of Japanese anime in the states, but it probably helped. So, Robotech compared to the Bible? Not impactful.  Robotech comics impact on the comic book industry? Not impactful. Robotech compared to Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors or DinoRiders? Hey, Robotech was a big part of the inspiration of ExoSquad and that cartoon rocked.

 

[JB0]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Ghostbusters

This one's funny to me, because I was just talking with someone about that show. And the trademark collision with the show you MEANT, creatively titled "The Real Ghostbusters"...  because Filmation beat the movie tie-in cartoon to the punch with an animated resurrection of a live-action TV show from the 70s titled simply Ghostbusters.

[pengbuzz]

19 hours ago, Swann said:

And those action figures had twisted and unattractive sculpted heads. Korg looked somewhat excellent.

Well, with a little work, they actually can become quite decent:

(Gloval was actually made from a GI Joe "Dress Blues Gung-Ho" figure; Lisa was heavily modded from the actual Lisa Hayes figure).

[F-ZeroOne]

On 10/22/2023 at 5:07 PM, Big s said:

I don’t know, I haven’t actually known a single person that remembers Ulysses 31. But Thunderbirds was a different story. Although most people knew as the weird puppet show.  I think having an odd style of tv show made it more memorable 

Er... oops. I was talking about a different "Thunderbirds", one made through the magic of international licencing deals that were only possible in the 80s and never, ever came back to haunt the people that signed them. 😉 (in Japan I believe this series was called "TechnoVoyager", and the happy coincidence that due to a language quirk the vehicles had "TB" on the side suggested an English-language title with some resonance... ).

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by F-ZeroOne

[F-ZeroOne]

Er... just regards Marvel or DC picking up the "Robotech" licence, didn't one of them actually release a "Robotech: Defenders" comic, from when Revell or someone was trying to market the model kits? Or am I getting mixed up with some other property? ("Mantech"?!).

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, jenius said:

Just a reflection on the fact that Robotech had a pretty large and clear impact on a lot of folks here.

Eh... that's several layers down in the "a tiny minority of" nesting doll.  Or, in more scientific terms, "the sample population in question is statistically insignificant".

The point being made, and the reason the Robotech comics are the way they are, is that Robotech came and went largely unnoticed and unremarked-upon.  It resonated with a small portion of its already small audience, but otherwise there was little to indicate it'd existed at all aside from merchandise returned unsold until it became a legal obstacle other better remembered properties like BattleTech, Transformers, and Macross.

 

12 hours ago, JB0 said:

This one's funny to me, because I was just talking with someone about that show. And the trademark collision with the show you MEANT, creatively titled "The Real Ghostbusters"...  because Filmation beat the movie tie-in cartoon to the punch with an animated resurrection of a live-action TV show from the 70s titled simply Ghostbusters.

Ah, I stand corrected... and probably should have remembered that myself given how huge Ghostbusters was when I was a kid (via Ghostbusters II and the cartoon in question).

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Well, with a little work, they actually can become quite decent:

When one is described as "heavily modified" and the other is a toy from a completely different toy line... I feel like "with a little work" is underselling it a bit.

... and if it's up to the consumer to actually bring the product's quality up to an acceptable level, well... 

 

Just now, F-ZeroOne said:

Er... just regards Marvel or DC picking up the "Robotech" licence, didn't one of them actually release a "Robotech: Defenders" comic, from when Revell or someone was trying to market the model kits? Or am I getting mixed up with some other property? ("Mantech"?!).

Well, yes... though Revell's "Robotech" is a completely different and almost entirely unrelated project from Harmony Gold's Robotech.

Revell's Robotech predates Harmony Gold's.  It was a name shared by two separate robot model kit lines - the Robotech Defenders and Robotech Changers - which were repackaged Japanese model kits from Dougram, Macross, and Orguss.  The Robotech Defenders limited comic from DC was an attempt to market the kits better by attaching a Transformers-esque storyline to them.   It didn't work out, and the premise was abandoned as Revell pivoted to partnering with Harmony Gold's nascent Macross dub to save its kit line.

The Robotech we know came after that and has no real relation to it save for the name appropriated from Revell's kit line.

[jenius]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... that's several layers down in the "a tiny minority of" nesting doll.  Or, in more scientific terms, "the sample population in question is statistically insignificant".

The point being made, and the reason the Robotech comics are the way they are, is that Robotech came and went largely unnoticed and unremarked-upon.  It resonated with a small portion of its already small audience, but otherwise there was little to indicate it'd existed at all aside from merchandise returned unsold until it became a legal obstacle other better remembered properties like BattleTech, Transformers, and Macross.

Doesn't the sheer volume of Robotech crap argue against your point though? Clearly there was a large audience hungry for more and getting nothing from HG so they hoped comics would scratch the itch... It didn't work out well. I don't know, maybe I'm just interpreting things differently. 

[shazam]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

Doesn't the sheer volume of Robotech crap argue against your point though? Clearly there was a large audience hungry for more and getting nothing from HG so they hoped comics would scratch the itch... It didn't work out well. I don't know, maybe I'm just interpreting things differently. 

What large audience?? It seems that people on this forum would buy a Robotech branded toy/figure as it represents their interest in Macross and other associated lines and not the other way around. I will tell you again that there is very little audience for the Robotech brand inside and outside this forum. Buying a product does not mean you are a fan. Just a consumer!

Edited October 23, 2023 by shazam

[jenius]

I was referring to when Robotech comics first started getting pumped out when a bunch of kids were around wondering why that show never got a second season.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

I was referring to when Robotech comics first started getting pumped out when a bunch of kids were around wondering why that show never got a second season.

I just always remembered those comics forever in the discount bins at the comic shops. I don’t think kids ever lined up for them. Comics with toy and cartoon tie ins rarely lasted with only a couple of brands that stuck around. I think GI Joe might be the only big title I can think of.

personally, I always thought at the time Robotech was first airing that each show was a different season. So I kinda thought at the time that it had three seasons. It felt longer than a lot of other shows I was into at the time like Dungeons and Dragons 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, jenius said:

Doesn't the sheer volume of Robotech crap argue against your point though? Clearly there was a large audience hungry for more and getting nothing from HG so they hoped comics would scratch the itch... It didn't work out well. I don't know, maybe I'm just interpreting things differently. 

Not really, no... but then, the term "large" is also rather subjective.

If there had been a large audience hungry for Robotech, well... its ratings would have been better than the middling-at-best numbers it got, its toy line would have sold better, and that first comic book license would have gone to a more upscale publisher able to do a far better job instead of struggling indie publisher Comico Comics because the projected return on investment would've been better.  This potentially could've saved Robotech II: the Sentinels from cancellation... leading to all kinds of other consequences.

It's not the "sheer volume" that's telling... it's that that sheer volume of Robotech material is crap.  Even when it was new, the Robotech license wasn't valuable enough to attract a major publisher.  That's why the license ended up in the hands of one troubled indie publisher after another.  Those indie publishers did cheaper, lower quality work because they were only expecting to sell a few thousand copies of any given book.  Multiple concurrent titles was a way to wring a few more bucks out of those few thousand customers who were already buying one book.  Every penny counts when your total circulation could fit into a high school football stadium, y'know? 

If Robotech had the kind of following that'd move 100,000+ copies a month like Superman or X-Men, the license would've been picked up by a competent publisher who could've done quality work.  Because it only had a following big enough to move maybe 7,500 copies in a really strong month it ended up in the hands of indie publishers Comico, Eternity, Academy, and Antarctic Press, who did kind of mediocre or rubbish work.

 

The same is basically true for the RPG license.  Because interest in the brand was quite low, the license ended up in the hands of a small independent publisher with noticeably backwards business practices who did their best... but their best was still a pretty amateur-hour job.

Actually, having the license end up in the hands of a struggling indie company with financial problems and questionable management seems to be a franchise-wide theme with Robotech now that I think on it... 🤔

[jenius]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not really, no... but then, the term "large" is also rather subjective.

If there had been a large audience hungry for Robotech, well... its ratings would have been better than the middling-at-best numbers it got, its toy line would have sold better, and that first comic book license would have gone to a more upscale publisher able to do a far better job instead of struggling indie publisher Comico Comics because the projected return on investment would've been better.  This potentially could've saved Robotech II: the Sentinels from cancellation... leading to all kinds of other consequences.

It's not the "sheer volume" that's telling... it's that that sheer volume of Robotech material is crap.  Even when it was new, the Robotech license wasn't valuable enough to attract a major publisher.  That's why the license ended up in the hands of one troubled indie publisher after another.  Those indie publishers did cheaper, lower quality work because they were only expecting to sell a few thousand copies of any given book.  Multiple concurrent titles was a way to wring a few more bucks out of those few thousand customers who were already buying one book.  Every penny counts when your total circulation could fit into a high school football stadium, y'know? 

If Robotech had the kind of following that'd move 100,000+ copies a month like Superman or X-Men, the license would've been picked up by a competent publisher who could've done quality work.  Because it only had a following big enough to move maybe 7,500 copies in a really strong month it ended up in the hands of indie publishers Comico, Eternity, Academy, and Antarctic Press, who did kind of mediocre or rubbish work.

 

The same is basically true for the RPG license.  Because interest in the brand was quite low, the license ended up in the hands of a small independent publisher with noticeably backwards business practices who did their best... but their best was still a pretty amateur-hour job.

Actually, having the license end up in the hands of a struggling indie company with financial problems and questionable management seems to be a franchise-wide theme with Robotech now that I think on it... 🤔

Obviously, you're entitled to the opinion, but I feel like you ignore your own arguments to make your point. There was so much demand for ANYTHING Robotech that indie companies crapped out comics by the truckload to try to make a buck. The sheer volume absolutely is telling. I would argue that Robotech was a very brief hit that left a large mark on, compared to most drivel from the 80s, a lot of people. By no means the largest, but still, a not insignificant amount of people. It could have been much more impactful had it been created by a company that wasn't just looking to make a buck on other people's hard work, a company that had deeper connections, and if the license wasn't sponsored by a toy company that was out of its element. If HG had connections to the comic book industry like some of the major TV companies did, things might have been very different. Coming in 40 years later to a forum that still owes much of its existence to this show and saying "it's not impactful" just strikes me as willfully obtuse. I guess we all have different goal posts here for "large" and "impactful". Certainly nothing I've ever done has reached as broad an audience. 

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by jenius

[renegadeleader1]

33 minutes ago, jenius said:

Obviously, you're entitled to the opinion, but I feel like you ignore your own arguments to make your point. There was so much demand for ANYTHING Robotech that indie companies crapped out comics by the truckload to try to make a buck. The sheer volume absolutely is telling. I would argue that Robotech was a very brief hit that left a large mark on, compared to most drivel from the 80s, a lot of people. By no means the largest, but still, a not insignificant amount of people. It could have been much more impactful had it been created by a company that wasn't just looking to make a buck on other people's hard work, a company that had deeper connections, and if the license wasn't sponsored by a toy company that was out of its element. If HG had connections to the comic book industry like some of the major TV companies did, things might have been very different. Coming in 40 years later to a forum that still owes much of its existence to this show and saying "it's not impactful" just strikes me as willfully obtuse. I guess we all have different goal posts here for "large" and "impactful". Certainly nothing I've ever done has reached as broad an audience. 

 

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.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, jenius said:

Obviously, you're entitled to the opinion, but I feel like you ignore your own arguments to make your point. There was so much demand for ANYTHING Robotech that indie companies crapped out comics by the truckload to try to make a buck.

Hm... if that's how you feel, I'm probably not doing a fantastic job of explaining the connections in my thinking. 

The sales numbers don't bear out the idea that there was huge demand for Robotech.  They initially sold reasonably well for indie comics, but we're still talking a per-issue circulation in the thousands rather than the tens or hundreds of thousands.  This was not huge demand by any objective standard.  It was the biggest title that Comico, Eternity, and Academy's catalogs had, but that's an incredibly low bar to clear for such small independent publishers.  (Especially ones that were already shedding titles for various reasons.)

You don't need to run out a dozen separate titles if your main title is selling well.  That's something you do when you've reached saturation in your market and the book isn't bringing significant numbers of new readers in anymore and/or your existing titles aren't making ends meet.  If you need to boost sales and bringing in new readers isn't an option, you produce more titles under the same banner in order to get that limited customer pool buying multiple books.  None of these books were selling more than a few thousand copies, so even if readership was mutually exclusive demand wasn't substantial.  It's the same thinking behind the massive crossover events the superhero comics do so often.  If you can't bring in new readers, make the existing readers buy multiple books.

 

2 hours ago, jenius said:

Coming in 40 years later to a forum that still owes much of its existence to this show and saying "it's not impactful" just strikes me as willfully obtuse. I guess we all have different goal posts here for "large" and "impactful". Certainly nothing I've ever done has reached as broad an audience. 

I think what we're looking at here is fundamentally a difference in scale.  Robotech may have been very impactful on a personal level  for some members of the community here, but this is a small fan community and even here Robotech is a niche interest within our already niche interest in Macross.  This community would almost certainly still exist without it, esp. given that Macross made it to the west in other forms than Robotech in the 80's and 90's both legitimately and in bootleg form.

What I'm looking at, and what I feel most of the people here understood me to be talking about, is the bigger picture.  Robotech was quickly forgotten by general audiences outside of its small "cult" fandom, pop culture rarely acknowledges its existence, it didn't really make a lasting mark on the anime industry, and what little it has in name recognition stems mainly from the legal problems it caused over the years rather than any part of its story.

Acknowledging that Robotech has always been kind of an obscure, niche series is by no means a criticism of it... nor should it impinge upon your enjoyment of it.

[jenius]

17 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Hm... if that's how you feel, I'm probably not doing a fantastic job of explaining the connections in my thinking. 

The sales numbers don't bear out the idea that there was huge demand for Robotech.  They initially sold reasonably well for indie comics, but we're still talking a per-issue circulation in the thousands rather than the tens or hundreds of thousands.  This was not huge demand by any objective standard.  It was the biggest title that Comico, Eternity, and Academy's catalogs had, but that's an incredibly low bar to clear for such small independent publishers.  (Especially ones that were already shedding titles for various reasons.)

You don't need to run out a dozen separate titles if your main title is selling well.  That's something you do when you've reached saturation in your market and the book isn't bringing significant numbers of new readers in anymore and/or your existing titles aren't making ends meet.  If you need to boost sales and bringing in new readers isn't an option, you produce more titles under the same banner in order to get that limited customer pool buying multiple books.  None of these books were selling more than a few thousand copies, so even if readership was mutually exclusive demand wasn't substantial.  It's the same thinking behind the massive crossover events the superhero comics do so often.  If you can't bring in new readers, make the existing readers buy multiple books.

 

I think what we're looking at here is fundamentally a difference in scale.  Robotech may have been very impactful on a personal level  for some members of the community here, but this is a small fan community and even here Robotech is a niche interest within our already niche interest in Macross.  This community would almost certainly still exist without it, esp. given that Macross made it to the west in other forms than Robotech in the 80's and 90's both legitimately and in bootleg form.

What I'm looking at, and what I feel most of the people here understood me to be talking about, is the bigger picture.  Robotech was quickly forgotten by general audiences outside of its small "cult" fandom, pop culture rarely acknowledges its existence, it didn't really make a lasting mark on the anime industry, and what little it has in name recognition stems mainly from the legal problems it caused over the years rather than any part of its story.

Acknowledging that Robotech has always been kind of an obscure, niche series is by no means a criticism of it... nor should it impinge upon your enjoyment of it.

It's the last paragraph where you continue to be wrong. It was a modest hit, created plenty of fans who craved more, and comic book creators tried to cash in on that. Their failure to produce quality products, much like HG's sequel attempts and Matchbox's merchandise ushered what could have been something bigger into an early grave. Saying "yeah but today not many people care about it" doesn't mean it never did well. ALL of my friends owned at least one Robotech product, or Jetfire.

Your idea of "large" and "impactful" is not "bigger than average" and "generated a lot of merchandise, developed a robust fandom, and inspired a lot of kids and writers". You have some other definitions you're playing by but I disagree with them. 

[shazam]

9 hours ago, jenius said:

I was referring to when Robotech comics first started getting pumped out when a bunch of kids were around wondering why that show never got a second season.

I am not sure about being a success, but the Comico Robotech comics released every episode to coincide with the TV series as stated on the comic itself.

Harmony Golds Robotech II: The Sentinels had failed to launch as a TV series and only the comics from Academy/Eternity caried on until they were cancelled. There has never really been a successful Robotech comic for all the comics that have been in circulation. If success means that you can finish a series then Comico is that success.

I feel bad for collectors of comics that invest time and money into a brand only for it to be cancelled before finishing.
 

Edited October 24, 2023 by shazam

[DewPoint]

So I don't really know who got to see Robotech where and when.  In my area I believe it was airing pretty much as soon as it was available.  It had at least 3 reruns.  Although I don't remember it it first aired weekdays afternoon or Saturday mornings.  We had a several Japanese retailers here and we had access to both imported Japanese toys, Robotech branded toys, as well as KO toys.  The Jack Mckinney books and Palladium RPG was readily available at local RPG/Miniature gaming stores.  That being said, I don't know anyone here that ever purchased the comics nor have I seen them locally ever (that or I totally blacked it out of my memory).

This could just be a case of how available was it in your area.  We had a local station that aired Japanese shows.  We grew up with Kamen Rider, Kikida, Godzilla, Ultraman, ETC. 

[Seto Kaiba]

6 minutes ago, jenius said:

It's the last paragraph where you continue to be wrong. It was a modest hit, created plenty of fans who craved more, and comic book creators tried to cash in on that.

That's your opinion, but the objective benchmarks paint a somewhat more modest tale of a niche series that acquired a small but fiercely loyal following while otherwise kind of flying under the radar.

 

6 minutes ago, jenius said:

Saying "yeah but today not many people care about it" doesn't mean it never did well. ALL of my friends owned at least one Robotech product, or Jetfire.

I'm saying that back then not many people cared about it, and that that number is smaller now. That much is clearly indicated by the sales numbers for merchandise like the comics.

What you doing here is generalizing from your own experience, without considering if the experience you had was atypical.

 

6 minutes ago, jenius said:

Your idea of "large" and "impactful" is not "bigger than average" and "generated a lot of merchandise, developed a robust fandom, and inspired a lot of kids and writers". You have some other definitions you're playing by but I disagree with them. 

Generating a lot of merchandise doesn't mean anything if the merchandise only reaches a very small and isolated audience or doesn't sell at all.

I feel like that's a key stumbling block in our discussion here. Those small independent publishers working on the Robotech license turned out a large number of titles, but the majority of them seldom lasted more than a few issues and the circulation of even the best selling of them was never more than a few thousand copies. They did well by the relatively low standards of the small independent publishers, but not in absolute terms.

Your criteria here are vague, nebulous, or just downright impossible to define. Bigger than average just begs the question of what you're using to determine average and how, the idea of a robust fandom is somewhat counterindicated by the steady decline of the Robotech fandom during the period when the comics were the dominant form of the series as measurable via the decline in sales, and this bit about inspiration is entirely subjective.

[JB0]

3 hours ago, jenius said:

ALL of my friends owned at least one Robotech product, or Jetfire.

I, on the other hand, was the only kid I knew with any connection to Robotech. I knew a person or two with Jetfire, but they had it as a Transformer, not a Robotech proxy.

[Big s]

18 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I, on the other hand, was the only kid I knew with any connection to Robotech. I knew a person or two with Jetfire, but they had it as a Transformer, not a Robotech proxy.

That’s how it was for me as a kid. I had a very small group of friends that knew about it, but no one else either heard of it or they didn’t like the show. We had quite a few comic shops and those comics were instantly in the bargain bin getting discounted more and more as the years went by. We also had a few gaming shops and Robotech had very few players compared to D and D Or Battletech and many of those players thought the mecha were fast originals and everything else came after.

I do wish Robotech had been more popular, but it really wasn’t. I think Harmony Gold clinging to the brand with such a tight grip hurt them overall. If they had struck better deals early on they could’ve marketed themselves as a company that was able to bring the rest of the Macross franchise overseas, but they have become a mostly forgotten relic.

When the 90’s anime popularity hit they were behind the times to bring thing’s forward. They did a couple runs of Robotech on tv, but the new generation of anime fans weren’t as happy with stories being changed from the original and they would seek out the original versions of DBZ, Sailor Moon and Macross as best they could. If harmony gold did things right they could have been in better shape. Now they just have increasingly worse comics and have to rely on toys that most people are buying because they can’t get the Japanese versions as easily 

[jenius]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Your criteria here are vague, nebulous, or just downright impossible to define. Bigger than average just begs the question of what you're using to determine average and how, the idea of a robust fandom is somewhat counterindicated by the steady decline of the Robotech fandom during the period when the comics were the dominant form of the series as measurable via the decline in sales, and this bit about inspiration is entirely subjective.

Have you offered definitions of "large" and "Impactful"? The sense is that your idea of "large" is like "top 10 of the decade" and "impactful" is specific to today rather than in its era. You speak of the 'declining fandom of Robotech', a show that was on almost 40 years ago and has had a continued (though declining) fandom since then as proof it didn't have an impact... but it is the opposite. The fact there was such a large fandom from 40 years ago that it is measurable by any means today shows it had impact. The fact there are volumes of merchandise, failed attempts at sequels by a company that had a history of only being motivated by quick cash grabs, proves there was a "large" audience there. This is just haters trying to hate. 

[F-ZeroOne]

21 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

Well, yes... though Revell's "Robotech" is a completely different and almost entirely unrelated project from Harmony Gold's Robotech.

Revell's Robotech predates Harmony Gold's.  It was a name shared by two separate robot model kit lines - the Robotech Defenders and Robotech Changers - which were repackaged Japanese model kits from Dougram, Macross, and Orguss.  The Robotech Defenders limited comic from DC was an attempt to market the kits better by attaching a Transformers-esque storyline to them.   It didn't work out, and the premise was abandoned as Revell pivoted to partnering with Harmony Gold's nascent Macross dub to save its kit line.

The Robotech we know came after that and has no real relation to it save for the name appropriated from Revell's kit line.

Okay, I knew a bit of the story but not the full thing. I do realise, of course, that Revells "Robotech" really only shares a name and some of the mecha designs (which clearly is because they're from the same source material) with the "Robotech" that came later. Though I do wonder if there was perhaps a little bit more potential for one of the "big" publishers as "Shogun Warriors" was supposedly pretty popular for Marvel a bit earlier on.

[tekering]

Cultural impact is impossible to analyze objectively, of course, but the Internet can provide some useful statistics; Google search results, for example.

• A search for "Robotech" results in about 8.8 million hits, roughly half of the number of results for "Macross."
• A search for "ThunderCats" results in about 15.3 million hits, slightly less than for "Macross."
• A search for "Ulysses 31" results in about 16.8 million hits, slightly more than for "Macross." 
• A search for "Exosquad" results in about 416,000 hits.
• A search for "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors" results in less than 120,000 hits (but still more than "Thunderbirds 2086"). ☺️

These are all "statistically insignificant," of course, next to something like Ghostbusters (74 million hits), TMNT (107 million hits), or Transformers (a whopping 700 million hits)!

It is, as Seto says, a fundamental difference in scale.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, jenius said:

Have you offered definitions of "large" and "Impactful"? The sense is that your idea of "large" is like "top 10 of the decade" and "impactful" is specific to today rather than in its era.

OK, that's a fair point.  I had thought it was relatively self-evident given that I'm looking at quantifiable benchmarks of performance.

Marketing has all but completely devalued the term "hit", but what I'm looking at in terms of Robotech's performance relative to its facing competition... that is to say, relative to the other merchandise-driven animated kid's shows that were active at approximately the same time as Robotech in the mid-1980s.  The likes of GI Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Challenge of the Go-Bots, Transformers, Voltron, M.A.S.K., Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, ThunderCats, Jem, The Real Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and so on.  Robotech isn't at the absolute bottom of that pile, but it's pretty close.

As I mentioned previously, it really is just awful luck that Robotech was running opposite basically every memorable kid's show of the mid-80's.  That is Nightmare difficulty for an attempt to launch a series.

In terms of impact, I'm looking at both short and long term.  Did it create trends?  Did it spawn copycats?  Did other existing titles pivot to copy it?  DId it spawn spinoffs, sequels, and/or movies?  Was it referenced by other works at the time?  Is it a household name?  What companies picked up licenses?  How established are the licensees and what is the total customer base they have?  Has it had (successful) revivials?  Is it still being referenced now?  The answer to most of these questions for Robotech are unflattering to say the least.

 

5 hours ago, jenius said:

You speak of the 'declining fandom of Robotech', a show that was on almost 40 years ago and has had a continued (though declining) fandom since then as proof it didn't have an impact... but it is the opposite. The fact there was such a large fandom from 40 years ago that it is measurable by any means today shows it had impact. The fact there are volumes of merchandise, failed attempts at sequels by a company that had a history of only being motivated by quick cash grabs, proves there was a "large" audience there. This is just haters trying to hate. 

Again, your conclusion here really doesn't stand up to scrutiny and isn't supported by the evidence.

You're presuming that because there is still a fandom now, that the fandom must have been MUCH larger in the past.  What you're not account for is that Robotech's following was always a "cult" one.  A small number of very devoted fans who were supporting the franchise even when what it was putting out was, to use your own word for it, crap.  If you look to things like sales figures for things like comics, you see that Robotech had a small but devoted following that gradually shrank over time.  At its peak, orders for the best-selling comics Robotech had were less than half what was being placed for its competitors.  Still very respectable numbers by indie standards, but small enough to easily be considered "niche".  Those orders got smaller and smaller as time went on and the license changed hands.

Folks who were there for the Usenet days and the like attest to the same... that Robotech had a small but fanatical fanbase that gradually drifted away as discontent grew over a variety of issues like the declining quality of the comics, the difficulties reconciling licensee-created material with the TV series, Robotech 3000, and so on.  

We've already touched on why the volumes of merchandise don't mean anything and why the profusion of comics doesn't mean the audience was large, so I see not reason to go revisiting those points.  When it comes to development by Harmony Gold, well... you also have to account for the fact that Robotech is basically a company hobby not a primary revenue stream.  Harmony Gold is a rental property management firm that dabbles in television production on the side.  If Robotech had been owned by a toy company the way many of its competitors were, it would have met its end in 1987 when the toy line was determined to be beyond saving.  Mattel's Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was in a similar position, with the underperformance of the toy line causing plans for a new season of the series and a movie to be scrapped.  Robotech's saving grace was Harmony Gold's not being dependent on it for operating revenue, so they let it limp along when anyone else would've pulled the plug in order to make those quick grabs for some extra cash from a variety of tiny indie licensees.  That's how we got the comics, the novels, the RPG, and so on.  Those WERE cash grabs, and the license revocations came because they weren't producing said cash as declining quality dragged sales down with it.  That's part of why, when Harmony Gold publicly disowned them in the early 2000s, they freely admitted that nobody was overseeing this licensing.  Robotech 3000 was a cash grab attempt to jump on the 2000s reboot bandwagon, and that cash grab actually killed some of their other licenses (like making acquiring the Robotech 3000 rights a condition of renewing the RPG license).

Where it gets really painfully ironic is the 2000s reboot of Robotech that threw out the old comics, novels, etc. and gave us the actually-not-bad DC/Wildstorm comics and later the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles "movie" was done on the understanding that Robotech was a niche series with a very small following that needed to rethink its setting and story and business practices to become mainstream and garner a large following.  Because they took it seriously and tried to do a professional job, it actually worked for a time.  Funding for Shadow Chronicles was explicitly contingent upon it bringing in a large following that would draw sponsors to fund subsequent installments.  If they'd funded it well they probably could've succeeded too... but they tried to do it on a hair shirt budget to maximize profits (AKA a "cash grab") and the consequences that had for the project were disastrous.  With no money to hire a writer, the script was a mess and the subject of infighting among the creative team.  With only minimal market research, the effort to make their new OVA appeal to mainstream anime fans amounted to little more than a cynical attempt to appeal through fanservice.  The animation budget was pathetically small so quality suffered, esp. after spending big on hiring supporting voice actors with Star Trek and Star Wars credits (Mark Hamill and DS9's Chase Masterson) to their names to hopefully raise the film's profile.  The end result was received incredibly poorly, and the backlash against criticism of it from Harmony Gold directly led to many remaining fans leaving the franchise for greener pastures.

Robotech Academy was another cash grab... a Kickstarter cash grab inspired a failure to understand pledge metrics from Palladium's RPG Tactics game.  They saw the fans cough up $1.4 million and failed to notice that was from less than 5,500 people worldwide.  They (like Palladium) thought they'd found a foolproof way to print money, and it blew up in their faces almost immediately with less than 2,300 people worldwide being willing to sink even a dollar into the prospect of a new Robotech series.

That's what landed us back where we are now with Robotech, with the pool of licensees reduced to outfits that are small and questionable even by indie standards (with one earning an unprecedented double cease and desist) and a comic licensee so disinterested in Robotech that they devoted an entire 24 issue series to taking the piss out of it.

[Spark-O-Matic]

I ran across about a dozen or more private issue or college made robotech comic's on Ebay in the last year or so. they all seemed very low population and were none cannon mostly. they were professionally done and would be hard to tell they were not done by a big licensee name. not sure if they were worth much but rare indeed to see in the wild.

[jenius]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I had thought it was relatively self-evident given that I'm looking at quantifiable benchmarks of performance.

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... 

Quote

Marketing has all but completely devalued the term "hit", but what I'm looking at in terms of Robotech's performance relative to its facing competition... that is to say, relative to the other merchandise-driven animated kid's shows that were active at approximately the same time as Robotech in the mid-1980s.

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."

3 hours ago, tekering said:

Cultural impact is impossible to analyze objectively, of course, but the Internet can provide some useful statistics; Google search results, for example.

• A search for "Robotech" results in about 8.8 million hits, roughly half of the number of results for "Macross."
• A search for "ThunderCats" results in about 15.3 million hits, slightly less than for "Macross."
• A search for "Ulysses 31" results in about 16.8 million hits, slightly more than for "Macross." 
• A search for "Exosquad" results in about 416,000 hits.
• A search for "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors" results in less than 120,000 hits (but still more than "Thunderbirds 2086"). ☺️

These are all "statistically insignificant," of course, next to something like Ghostbusters (74 million hits), TMNT (107 million hits), or Transformers (a whopping 700 million hits)!

It is, as Seto says, a fundamental difference in scale.

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.