A's to Q's.

From Breetai's Missing Eye:

Just tonight I was wondering whatever happened to Sean Gibson, artist on Return to Macross, the good issues of Academy Blues, and the super-dimensional-fulous Boobytrap special. Letter pages from that era claim he was a Disney animator, but I've searched and found no such person. Closest is "Shawn Gibson"(sic), who did animation for Dreamworks and Fox Studio bombs like Anatasia and Titan AE. You expressed a liking of his work on your comics' site (I've been finally reading my collection of RT comics I've had backlogged since long before Shadow Chronicles was announced, can ya tell?), so I was wondering if you knew whatever happened to him. Why he never returned to comics, or Robotech even.

First, I think you're crossing together the names of Return to Macross and Academy Blues artist Sean Bishop and occasional Return to Macross and Academy Blues writer Robert W. Gibson.

Sean Bishop, as I understand it, has in fact spent the past decade in the animation field, and currently does work for Dreamworks Animation. If I'm not mistaken, he left Academy simply because all his time for comics work dried up. While he's expressed an interest in returning to the world of ROBOTECH in comics, the first time he did so on-line was during that dead period following Antarctic Press's loss of the license. Unfortunately, with the license currently residing at WildStorm/DC, I don't think he'd be a very good fit for the style and vision that they and Harmony Gold have for the ROBOTECH franchise in comics. Take that as you will.

Secondly, I've a friend (not Breetai's Good Eye) who claimed some of the footage on the Robotech II: The Sentinels VHS is different from what ended up on the Legacy set DVD. Like the timing or editing was changed between them (he'd thought it may've been alternate takes, but I told him, "Foolish mortal who lacks Art 3! No provision for retakes!"). Is he nuts or is this remotely right?

He's nuts -- or rather, just has a fuzzy memory. I've watched the original Streamline Pictures tape and the disc in the third Legacy Collection box. Both contain the same footage. You are correct, sir.

Third, what do you think the SDF-2 really looked like? Aside from invisible?

The general assumption I've seen over the years is that the SDF-2 in the context of ROBOTECH is identical to the SDF-1 save the addition of two Armor-class carriers for arms, along the lines of the docking maneuver that the SDF-1 attempted during "Space Fold" and failed to carry out due to the Zentraedi assault. This is the way the ship was depicted in the final issue of the Comico The Macross Saga adaptation, and is the way I usually imagine it.

And lastly, Return to Macross #29... I'm getting you started on it. What was worse, the backstory contradictions or the artwork?

The artwork, by far. Bill Spangler and messy continuity are old, good friends, and by that point in the long-running series I can forgive it; he probably didn't have a copy of "A Rainy Night" on hand to check his story against, or he figured that he'd twisted and turned so much that it didn't matter anymore. However, top views that wouldn't look out of place in a late 1980's Nintendo game and coffee being poured at a 45 degree angle are unforgivable even against such a backdrop. Also, everybody looked slightly chunky, with shoulders up to their ears. Nina Lang under Wes Abbott's ink pen was an extremely attractive woman. In RtM #29, though, homely and squat, with an eerie dead look in her eyes. Bad news, man. Bad news.

From Kev (not McKeever):

Going to the film fest in St.Louis for the Shadow Chronicles?

As you can hear for yourself in this week's RDF Underground podcast (see above), the answer to this question is an enthusiastic "YES!"

From Chryko:

Maybe I have questions. Is that true the movie will followed the same path that the novel "End of the circle”?

While it's true that there are a lot of surface similarities between the setup of The Shadow Chronicles and the opening of The End of the Circle (the presence of Vince & Jean Grant, Louie Nichols, Scott Bernard, and Ariel, for starters), I have it on good authority that the new animation is not going to be following the storyline of the last book of McKinney's ROBOTECH cycle. The two stories are functionally different; The End of the Circle sought to bring the ROBOTECH saga to a close, while The Shadow Chronicles exists to give the ROBOTECH saga a shot in the arm and start the stories rolling along anew. Obviously if you're trying to build the franchise up, you're not going to adapt a story that closes everything down, right?

Do you think that Tommy Yune team had already create a post Shadow Chronicle story line or they will wait for another decade to do it ?

You know, I keep asking people this, and the answer I keep getting is that it's too early to talk about it. My understanding of the situation is that there are definitely a number of story ideas currently on the table for the sequel, and whether or not it's another one-shot video or a TV series, it will be another animated production. However, I think it's safe to assume we won't see it until something like 2009 at the earliest, barring a rapid Sentinels-like production schedule.

Anything else?