RANDOM ROBOTECH CELS

Whilst digging through the massive snowdrift

of old papers, drawings, sketches and candy wrappers

scattered about the laboratory,

I came across two

Robotech cels.

This one of Roy Fokker:

And this of Misa Hayase:

I don't remember where I got these.

To be honest,

I don't even remember having them.

I'm pretty sure they're from

MACROSS: LOVE DO YOU REMEMBER

which I've already declared my 

unabashed love for over

HERE.

It's just cool to see some old cels

since they're a relic of the past.

Fun little fact:

A good deal of anime cels have the 

corresponding drawing 

STUCK

to the back of the cel

(like the Misa cel shown here)

The cels were usually stacked and stored with their drawings.

And after time/pressure/heat/humidity, etc 

they got all stickified.

And there's no easy way to unstickify them

without damaging the cel and/or drawing.

{sniff}

so sad

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.