Happy New Year - Daily Robotech Blogging begins NOW!

Welcome, my brothers & sisters in ROBOTECH, to 2007 -- two years until the launch of the SDF-1 in the ol' ROBOTECH timeline and, with the release of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles on DVD in a month plus change, probably the most significant year for the franchise here in the real world in, well, forever, certainly since the collapse of the Sentinels project in 1986.

The thing that keeps nagging at me -- and I think I've mentioned this before, but bear with me -- is the fact that February 6, the release date of The Shadow Chronicles disc, is the release date for more than the usual number of animated action-adventure features -- both Hellboy: Sword of Storms (as seen on Cartoon Network a month or two ago) and Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo come out on DVD the same day. All three are going to be competing for endcap space the same week, and thanks to those franchise's live action feature film and hit Cartoon Network TV series, respectively, those discs have bigger name recognition among the general public. I would hope that Funimation would be working some major retail voodoo to put The Shadow Chronicles out there in a major way, with big displays and endcap space and the like ... except that on the same day, Funimation is putting out their first Dragon Ball Z remastered box set. Does that target a slightly different demographic? Ehh, maybe. Bear in mind, both ROBOTECH and Dragon Ball Z were on Cartoon Network's Toonami block in the late 1990's; there's certainly some crossover there. I mean, hell, I know that if Shadow Chronicles wasn't coming out that day, the Dragon Ball Z box would be at the top of my must-buy list ...

I just want the series to succeed and flourish so I can watch more ROBOTECH, read more ROBOTECH, and enjoy more ROBOTECH knickknacks and doodads, and if I'm not mistaken, first week sales are going to play a key role in determining the form and frequency of future ROBOTECH adventures. The unusual number of major animated action releases all on the same day just has me a wee bit worried about how those numbers are going to go, y'know?

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This morning I was thinking about what a big deal this year is going to be in the history of the ROBOTECH franchise, if all of those big plans bear fruit, and it got me thinking about where this franchise was ten and twenty years ago. Consider:

Ten years ago (1997), the Academy Comics era of ROBOTECH comics came to an end with their books dated December of '96, and the Antarctic Press era began ever-so-boastfully before the mediocre reality of Antarctic's output on the franchise slapped us all in the face with March 1997's Robotech #1. They would go on to grace us with seven more ROBOTECH comics before the year's end. I think that was pretty much it for the franchise that year -- do correct me if I'm wrong.

(Pointless trivia moment: There are two Robotech #0's and two Robotech #1's, but these four books are spread across three publishers. DC/WildStorm published both a Robotech #0 and #1, but Academy only released a #0 and Antarctic released only a #1.)

Twenty years ago (1987), all twelve of the original Jack McKinney ROBOTECH novels, adapting the TV series, were released over the course of the year, beginning in March. Meanwhile, Comico continued trucking along with their comic books adapting the TV series (they would finish the entire series off in early 1989), while Palladium Books released books 2-4 of their ROBOTECH Role Playing Game (the RDF Manual, the Zentraedi sourcebook, and the Southern Cross sourcebook). Palladium also released Robotech II: The Sentinels on VHS in '87, marking the first time the poor little hodge-podge film was commercially released. Yes, even with the Sentinels disaster right behind it, ROBOTECH was doing a not-half-bad job of surviving on the fumes of so much new print material -- which, come to think of it, is the way the franchise would go on surviving for the next ten years.

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For a look back at this past year (2006), Darkwater has his round-up here. I'm mentioned in it, so of course it's essential reading. ^_-