ROBOTECH!

I've loved

ROBOTECH

for, like,

ever.

I first saw the series on TV when I was in high school

and through obsessive/compulsive research 

(the only way to research in the pre-internet age)

learned about it's true Japanese origin:

MACROSS.

Transforming fighter jets.

Alien mecha.

Soap opera love triangles.

What wasn't to love?

I was able to find VHS bootlegs of the series

along with the 1980 movie

MACROSS: LOVE DO YOU REMEMBER,

which totally changed my life.

Unfortunately, there were no dubs or subtitles.

I had to rely on fan mags like

ANIMAG

and 

PROTOCULTURE ADDICTS

for synopsis'.

(and finding them was no easy task)

I was also reading the comic adaptations 

by COMICO and when I found out their offices 

were in nearby Norristown, PA

I drove out and visited!

(YAY!  Free comics!)

Many years later when I lived in NYC,

I went to a small comic convention and found

this awesome art by Rich Rankin: 

I was psyched to get a page with both 

Khyron AND the SDF-1!

It's still hanging up in my studio today!

And here,

as an added bonus,

is the end battle from

MACROSS: LOVE, DO YOU REMEMBER.

And boy, is it DATED and clunky looking!

Blech!

But I still get chills at 5:45 when

the song ramps up and 

Hikaru guns his Veritech forward.

Oh, and I doubt you can see it in this low-res version, but one of the missiles that flies through screen  around 6:12 is a soda can. I was the nerd freeze-framing through my VHS  because I thought I saw something weird on my 2000th viewing.