On the eBay ...

1. Good gravy, it's our old friend the Matchbox SDF-1 Playset. One of my absolute favorite pieces of homegrown ROBOTECH merchandise, to be honest -- a good-sized monument to big dumb kiddie fun with the iconography of the ROBOTECH universe. Looks to be in rather good shape and seems to have all the parts, from what photos are available, but if I were bidding on it I'd ask for a few more pictures. You can never be too careful when going after a rare piece like this, after all, especially one that's both so big and filled with so many doodads and knick-knacks.


2. For those of you who are, like myself, interested in the original animation art of ROBOTECH and Macross, there's a pretty slick cel from Macross: Do You Remember Love of Hikaru's VF-1A diving after Minmei. As the seller points out, good Macross mecha cels are pretty rare and hard to find, and this is a pretty good and exciting specimen. Not too shabby.


3. You know, none of you probably have the proper game system to play this, but this is another one of my old favorites -- the Macross 2036 video game for the PC Engine console. The PC Engine (known in the U.S. as the Turbo Grafx-16) game system was the big rival of the Sega Genesis back in the day, and this game was at one time slated to be released in the U.S., or so the video game magazines told me, under the title "Robotech 2036." A fine, fun horizontal shooter with lots of between-stage rudimentary animated sequences complete with Japanese voice acting, taking place between Do You Remember Love and Macross II. Features Max & Miria's daughter Maria as the main playable character, with Breetai as her commander, and Kamujin returning from the dead to have his revenge. I tell you, when I got to that part of the game, I flipped, especially when I considered what the poor U.S. staff would have had to do to localize the game ... I would have loved to see that.


4. Now this is something you don't see every day -- original art from DC's Robotech Defenders comic book mini-series, based on the 1984 Revell kit line rather than the 1985 animated series. And not only do you get thirty-eight pages of the book, but you also get the first issue cover, a pin-up page, three alternate penciled cover pieces, and a pile of model sheets, character designs, scripts, notes, layouts ... there's a reason why the main image for the auction is a big pile of paperwork, it's because the seller is parting with a big pile of paperwork that went into a version of ROBOTECH that was developed and cut short when Harmony Gold and Revell went in together to give us the show we know and love today. The lot looks fascinating, the kind of fascinating that would usually tempt me except that I've got the trip coming up.


5. Oh, and I'm selling a few things on eBay, too. Nothing ROBOTECH-related, but y'know, I am in this whole begging for money phase, so I thought I'd throw that out there.