Another Adventure In Tradepaperbackery
Yes, it's more TPB covers for books we'll never see. Hey, I enjoy doing these, and really, as Darkwater's said time and time again, there is no news. Except that bit about Team HG at E3 last week ... hunting for developers for the Shadow Chronicles game perhaps, or just checkin' out all the shiny new toys on display? Who knows?
Oh, and there's some RT fans taking the Anime News Network poll a bit hard and boycotting ANN. Anyone who's read my non-ROBOTECH blog today will see I'm not one of them (for those two don't want to click, I refer to reading something on ANN twice). Evan and I were talking about this today and were jointly rolling our eyes at this ridiculousness. There's far more important issues in the world today than whether or not half a thousand ROBOTECH fans were shaved off an unscientific, privately-run fan poll that asked a totally innocuous question. To anyone still offended by this mess: go outside, take a deep breath, and find yourself a real cause to expend some energy on, okay?
And that's the last I'm saying about that.
Anyway ... one more thing before we move along into faux-TPB-land. If you have any questions for the Tommy Yune follow-up interview, SEND THEM NOW! I think I've gotten, like, two. Don't be shy -- fire 'em into my e-mail ASAP, because I'm thinking either this week or next I'll be hitting him up for it.
Okay, soooo ... yeah, um, Mordecai.
In the comments on Aftermath below, Ginrai made mention of Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons's three-issue run on that book that spun off into six issues of Clone (plus a 40 page special illustrated by John Scharmen) and a single issue of Mordecai. I always loved that run myself, largely for the gorgeous art and designs (I'll buy practically any Studio Tavicat book for Tavisha's art, it's always a treat), but also for a lot of the ideas that Rikki threw around the place -- Clone #2 made me smile the first time I read through it because of all the fascinating backstory Rikki unspooled, tying the new alien foes, the Monte Yarrow, to established ROBOTECH lore in a way reminiscent of the threads that run throughout the original TV series.
Bearing the cover of Aftermath #9, this would be an approximately 74-page slim little volume collecting the Aftermath run that introduced Dr. Gilles Vaudell, the Isle of the IHE, and the SDF-M through the point of view of Lancer, Sera, and Annie (she of the titular "threadbare heart"). It could easily be padded out with some of the "data book" material that appeared in the original Threadbare Heart trade paperback collection by Academy Comics and the Clone comic book series -- technical specifications, explanations of the insignias of the Immuno Heredity Enigma, character profiles, and other facets of Mordecai lore. Probably wouldn't make it much more than eighty pages of content, but still, anything to beef up the page count.
Oh, and as for why I'm calling it Mordecai on the cover ... I seem to recall that Rikki once said in an interview that he would have liked to have called the series that from the get-go, so there you go. Also, I credited him and Tavisha the way they're credited on the front of Shutterbox, not the way they're credited in the ROBOTECH books, since those are in print and the ROBOTECH work isn't right now -- less confusing that way, I think.
This has the cover of Clone #4, because it's spiffy looking and was a lot easier to crop than the group shot on Clone #0. With 97 story pages total, this would contain issues #0-4 of Clone, and would include the remainder of the "data book" pages from that run not used in the first volume. That may sound a little low, but a couple of these issues only had eighteen story pages, while issue #9 of Aftermath had, like, twenty-seven story pages.
That would leave only three uncollected Mordecai stories -- Rikki Simons & John Scharmen's 40-page special (only 23 story pages) "Youth Inertia," which is pretty good, and the two illustrated prose stories (the 24 page "Cradlesong" from Clone #5 and the fifteen pages of story from Mordecai #1), which would need some major spiffing up for collection. Heck, if we're operating in happy dream land, I'd go up to Rikki & Tavisha and ask them to redo those stories in sequential art format and keep Mordecai rolling. I have always been curious what was going to be in that delayed-then-cancelled Mordecai #2 ...
Oh, and there's some RT fans taking the Anime News Network poll a bit hard and boycotting ANN. Anyone who's read my non-ROBOTECH blog today will see I'm not one of them (for those two don't want to click, I refer to reading something on ANN twice). Evan and I were talking about this today and were jointly rolling our eyes at this ridiculousness. There's far more important issues in the world today than whether or not half a thousand ROBOTECH fans were shaved off an unscientific, privately-run fan poll that asked a totally innocuous question. To anyone still offended by this mess: go outside, take a deep breath, and find yourself a real cause to expend some energy on, okay?
And that's the last I'm saying about that.
Anyway ... one more thing before we move along into faux-TPB-land. If you have any questions for the Tommy Yune follow-up interview, SEND THEM NOW! I think I've gotten, like, two. Don't be shy -- fire 'em into my e-mail ASAP, because I'm thinking either this week or next I'll be hitting him up for it.
Okay, soooo ... yeah, um, Mordecai.
In the comments on Aftermath below, Ginrai made mention of Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons's three-issue run on that book that spun off into six issues of Clone (plus a 40 page special illustrated by John Scharmen) and a single issue of Mordecai. I always loved that run myself, largely for the gorgeous art and designs (I'll buy practically any Studio Tavicat book for Tavisha's art, it's always a treat), but also for a lot of the ideas that Rikki threw around the place -- Clone #2 made me smile the first time I read through it because of all the fascinating backstory Rikki unspooled, tying the new alien foes, the Monte Yarrow, to established ROBOTECH lore in a way reminiscent of the threads that run throughout the original TV series.
Bearing the cover of Aftermath #9, this would be an approximately 74-page slim little volume collecting the Aftermath run that introduced Dr. Gilles Vaudell, the Isle of the IHE, and the SDF-M through the point of view of Lancer, Sera, and Annie (she of the titular "threadbare heart"). It could easily be padded out with some of the "data book" material that appeared in the original Threadbare Heart trade paperback collection by Academy Comics and the Clone comic book series -- technical specifications, explanations of the insignias of the Immuno Heredity Enigma, character profiles, and other facets of Mordecai lore. Probably wouldn't make it much more than eighty pages of content, but still, anything to beef up the page count.
Oh, and as for why I'm calling it Mordecai on the cover ... I seem to recall that Rikki once said in an interview that he would have liked to have called the series that from the get-go, so there you go. Also, I credited him and Tavisha the way they're credited on the front of Shutterbox, not the way they're credited in the ROBOTECH books, since those are in print and the ROBOTECH work isn't right now -- less confusing that way, I think.
This has the cover of Clone #4, because it's spiffy looking and was a lot easier to crop than the group shot on Clone #0. With 97 story pages total, this would contain issues #0-4 of Clone, and would include the remainder of the "data book" pages from that run not used in the first volume. That may sound a little low, but a couple of these issues only had eighteen story pages, while issue #9 of Aftermath had, like, twenty-seven story pages.
That would leave only three uncollected Mordecai stories -- Rikki Simons & John Scharmen's 40-page special (only 23 story pages) "Youth Inertia," which is pretty good, and the two illustrated prose stories (the 24 page "Cradlesong" from Clone #5 and the fifteen pages of story from Mordecai #1), which would need some major spiffing up for collection. Heck, if we're operating in happy dream land, I'd go up to Rikki & Tavisha and ask them to redo those stories in sequential art format and keep Mordecai rolling. I have always been curious what was going to be in that delayed-then-cancelled Mordecai #2 ...
posted by Captain JLS at
00:57
4 Comments:
Wow.I have no idea what you are talking about. I never knew there was a Clone comic book series.
By
kevbayer, at 16 May, 2006 08:28
I'm always still amused by the fact in Clone #0 where they comment on Macross 7 about how they feel it alters and changes things and goes in an alternate direction as a negative...
Glass houses :)
By
Anonymous, at 16 May, 2006 17:40
Cyc: Totally with you there, though I seem to recall that the disparaging Macross 7 remarks were in the interview in the Clone Special, wheras the comment in #0 was without any qualitative comment -- just the fact that, "Hey, there's different Macross timelines now."
Kev: Well, not only does this comic book series exist, but here's a Japanese fansite where you can read a couple of issues. Enjoy!
http://www.geocities.jp/yui1110a/index.html
By
Captain JLS, at 16 May, 2006 18:01
While I haven't read through Clone in a few months, my distinct impression was that the Rikki was really interested in the idea of parallel universes and exploring that idea in Macross/Robotech stories. It's interesting that the Pakalla thing is kind of like the Super Dimension where the Protodeviln "demon" thingies came from in Macross 7.
Clone/Mordecai is a lot like a really different take on the same idea as Macross 7. They both feature a new "Macross" going out into the galaxy, getting away from earth, and having new adventures, with a cast of characters whose numbers have been bolstered by cloning. And they fight weird monsters.
Thanks a lot for doing this, JLS, I really like Clone/Mordecai a lot. From what I understand, Mordecai #2 was actually completed, so as long as we're in imaginary happyland, I'd want that in the TPB too.
And for what it's worth I do have the Threadbare Heart TPB and it is good.
I've no doubt the art is a lot of why I like the series, but it's not -soley- the art. I really like that it breaks away from mediocre representations of existing characters (unless you count Annie and Lancer being badly shoehorned into Threadbare Heart since uh, Academy required it) and goes off on its own with a new cast and new bad guys. That's the right approach, IMO, not the crap that Lewis and company did in (the rest of) Aftermath.
I also think the mecha designs are fabulous. Probably the only original Robotech comic mecha designs I feel are entirely worthwhile.
Thanks again for making this!
By
Ginrai, at 17 May, 2006 20:20
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