DAY FORTY-THREE: Reflections, Part 4

The one part of my personal ROBOTECH journey I failed to mention thus far -- besides this blog itself, and its byproducts like my YouTube channel -- is EMISSARIES, the fanzine I inherited from my dear pal and ex-roommate Evan. I contributed histories of the ROBOTECH comics and ROBOTECH THE MOVIE (riddled with inaccuracies I'd picked up over the years from forum discussions and on-line articles), an ongoing column discussing the state of the franchise at various points, and ultimately when I was given run of the 'zine itself, I tried to offer a broad view of the franchise, keeping tabs on what creators who were associated with ROBOTECH were doing, talking up stuff going on with MACROSS and MOSPEADA in Japan, and the like. I promised subscribers four issues but only got three out the door, which in my mind remains a blight on my record. The problem is, as I'm sure you guys can tell, I'm a perfectionist, and getting the 'zine put together was a terribly intense effort on my part. On top of that, I know Evan always had trouble getting his subscriber base to offer their own material for it, but I didn't even have a wide base of friends to beg material out of. It always came down to the usual suspects, and their lives got increasingly busy as the months and years rolled on.

Indeed, if all goes according to plan, my life should be getting increasingly busy as the year rolls on, which is how I'm planning on segueing into how the blog's going to roll for the rest of the 365-day project ...

A piece of art I drew of Roy Fokker that appeared on the last page of my first issue of

EMISSARIES: A ROBOTECH FANZINE VOL. 2, signed by Dan Woren at the bar one

night during AnimeExpo 2006. Yes, I was having a drink with Roy Fokker. Don't ask me

how that happened, I'm still not sure.

Right now I still have to finish my write-up of "The Robotech Masters," the second episode of the reconstruction era of The Macross Saga. Once I get settled back into some sort of normalcy, probably around Wednesday, I'll be trying to crank out a couple of posts a day to play catch-up. In order to spread out the episodes to keep things sane, I'll be continuing to sprinkle in bits of artwork I've got around the apartment -- not like the signed stuff I've been posting these four days I've been out of town, but cool commissions and pieces of original artwork, animation cels, that sort of thing. The unique pieces from my collection, basically. There are only eighty-five episodes of ROBOTECH, and I've got 365 days to fill; even spreading out SENTINELS and SHADOW CHRONICLES to three days apiece, that's still only ninety-one. (I wish I still had copies of the terrible Matchbox figure set "Robotech Wars" episodes, those would be good for a laugh. I could summarize those without any commentary whatsoever, and they'd STILL be entertaining reads!) Naturally, then, you'll be seeing more comics, and I think if I have the time and extend the backlog out long enough to give me time to reread them, I'll even throw a few of the novels up here. After all, I just replaced my water damaged copies of THE ZENTRAEDI REBELLION and the three ROBOTECH MASTERS novels -- I really need to break these new copies in.

If you have any suggestions for subjects for future installments, to sprinkle in among the TV series episodes or for when the TV episodes are up, leave 'em here. It'll give me something to do while I'm sitting at the computer with a glazed-over expression on Tuesday night -- or, if one of the airports has free wifi, it'll give me something to do today while I enjoy my epic-length layovers.

Thanks for indulging me these past few days. I hope I didn't come off as TOO self-centered ... ^_-