Roboculture

While the whole world - okay, while America and Australia rant and rave about The Shadow Chronicles, I'm stuck here talking about my Robotech experiences. And that isn't really a bad thing. Now I present to you 'Yaki' Udon: The Art of Wildstorm Part 2!

FROM THE CRAPPER

After my initial purchases of Wildstorm's Love & War and Invasion series, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. I just bought all six issues of Love & War (at dirt cheap prices obviously), and it left me confused. The art was subpar. Why did this happen? Why was it this way? I never finished Invasion, so I also didn't know what happened to Lancer and pals. So that too confused me. Prelude was better, at least in terms of art, but suffered towards the middle.

Despite this, I craved more. I only heard about From The Stars from the website, and I realized that it was the comic I had to get. The shots you see above were from the Robotech website, and these shots really intruiged me. (At that time, I didn't know this was the FIRST comic they released, I initially thought it was Love & War) The art was positively deilghtful - with colorful backgrounds, crappy character art, and great looking dogfights.

After exploring the myriad of comic shops and bookstores around the city, my search turned out empty. Nobody carried stock for this Robojunk. Luckily, my family planned a trip to go to Hong Kong. I realized, if my country didn't have it, then HONG KONG must've carried it! They've got these incredible bookstores like Powerbooks and stuff so I was really excited. After a bit of searching, I found out that only one book store carried it. It was in that Times Square place. I went up and I asked the folks there, HEY WHERE THE HELL IS THE ROBOTECH?! (Not really), and it turns out that it was sold. Horray!!

So my journey for this frickin' Robotech book turned out empty. After a few weeks, I stumbled on a book store which allows customers to order stuff off the internet and it would be delivered there in at least 4 weeks. Wow!!! Cool!! Sign me up!! (This idea was unheard of from where I live at the time) So whaddaya know, I was able to order From the Stars from the internet without having to use a credit card. Joy!

So there. Roughly four weeks later, I got From The Stars. Yey!! New Robotech!

And then, disappointment.

I won't be discussing the faults of the story, cuz' it wasn't involving and stuff, but the art. When I first turned to the segment known as Robotech #0, man was I blown away by the style sucktitude. The mecha designs and stuff were drawn exceptionally well. Certain characters, if not drawn in a certain way, looked pretty good. But then you see Rick Hunter. Rick Hunter and Lang. Gosh, I thought, what the hell was I getting into? It looks so weird. Yes, that's all I can say. It looks weird.

The style really disturbed me, you know? Especially when the blonde monster you see in the lower right of the image. Yes, my dear readers, that thing is Roy Focker. One of the coolest characters in Robotech. Well, okay, the style isn't all that bad - but it doesn't feel like Robotech that much. I wish they got a real manga artist to do the art for the comics. Yes, I firmly believe that Robotech works best if the style of any secondary works sticks to the show. This is just too disturbing. It's like Harmony Gold's crushing my childhood memories with their so-so works. The coloring was great though, really saved the art from being total crap. Udon Crew's done it again.

Later issues were not so good. Long Vo's (main line artist for L&W and this series) style fails to capture the anime feel, with certain panels looking like a poor man's imitation of the anime. Dynamic movements of characters aren't correctly expressed in certain scenes, especially if you compare them to certain mangas I have read (I don't read a lot though) I've said it earlier, but yeah, that's my feelings for the later issue of this series.

I also noticed this from Long Vo's style (which didn't evolve from what I've seen in L&W) is that the guy uses a lot of side views. Anime and mangas don't use that many side views for certain characters, so it irked me a bit to see so many dramatic scenes using this. Maybe he got lazy or something.

Another of my biggest caveats here is one of the comic's protagonist - Claudia Grant. The way she is drawn is just horrible. She looks like a really ugly kid. It's just embarassing looking at her. I think it had something to do with the difficulty of drawing her because yeah, it is really hard to draw Claudia. But c'mon! These are professional artists! They should'a done there research!

I mean, look at the shot of Claudia (left, below), and compare them with Haruhiko Mikimoto's interpreation of Claudia (left). I don't know but I think there something edgy and sexy on Mikimoto's Claudia. When I look at Long Vo's interpretation, its just, sad. Claudia in From The Stars looks like a kid. And a very ugly one at that. None of the spark and sexiness of Claudia seen in the show can be found in this comic. It's just awful and painful to see Roy falling for this kid. Of course, this relationship look cool in Do You Remember Love, but here, it's like meh.

Before I forget, Lisa Hayes, in the last few panels of the comics looks crap. Some shots (if you haven't noticed) make her look like a plastic doll, but this time I think it's the Udon Crew's fault. Too much shininess in her face.

The jet fighter scenes are okay, but that's not saying much. The VF-1 are as usual, not very sexily drawn, and certain lines used by the artist are a little too thick. The dogfights here are a little better that the ones I've seen in Love & War, but I wished there was a more natural flow of action. Studying manga and the flow of action in the more action oriented stuff would've helped tremendously. Some sequences look a little awkward and not as intense as I had hoped. I don't know, I can't explain it, but whatever. You don't have to agree with what I said anyway.

Seeing as I keep criticizing Long Vo's work, I might as well talk about the good. Some characters, like young Rick, are not bad. They're drawn in Long Vo's anime style, but if that's the best the style's gonna be, then Rick looks good.
Seeing Edwards for the first time is interesting too. I mean his biceps are unnatural and Guile-ish, but seeing as I've read Prelude first, seeing young Edwards was nice. I mean, wow - the guy's got a tan. Donald Hayes looks great here. Nicely drawn, no problems here. So I guess what I'm saying is that at least, no matter how weird certain characters look, at least they look the part. Not like the freaks we see in Robotech #0. Aw man, that's just not right.

Which brings me to that same old point wherein Robotech shouldn't really be drawn any style else except anime. I mean, its nice if they're drawn differently (like someone's interpretation), but I would really like them to be relegated only to still art pieces. Similar to what was done in Robotech: Art 2. Can anyone imagine a whole comic series dedicated to Robotech Teddy-style? Yeah, gross. (I'd scan it, but it would ultimately be a waste of webspace)

So now I've reached the point where I just say, wow. I mean, it makes me wonder - why didn't they get an authentic manga artist from the start? Oh well. My only fear now is when Long Vo himself would magically appear and start criticizing MY art.

YEAH RIGHT! HAHAHA! I have such a low readership, the possiblity of that ever happening would be like Harmony Gold making a new Southern Cross comic! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

But yeah, as as I fan, I expected more from the art, and I suppose as an insane fanboy, I could say this crap.

MIRACLES DO HAPPEN

Now that I'm finished saying stuff about Long Vo's awkward anime style, I'll start talking a bit about other Udon Crew stuff. While I don't have any specifics on what the Udon Crew has worked on, I have seen their account in a popular art site and boy, am I impressed. Now these are the guys I aspire to be. As an artist.

Captain JLS recently pointed out to me that these guy's more notable work include stuff for a Street Fighter and Thundercat series.

They've got some really, really good stuff drawn by these incredibly talented line artists. I mean, there is just so many beautiful stuff that the Udon Crew worked on. Many of their coloring and line art are so vibrant and dynamic it just blows my mind. It really makes me wonder why Harmony Gold didn't find a much better artist for something like Love & War.

Oh wow. The color palette used is just so varied and awesome. What's really funny is that these guys handled a ton of properties like some Capcom properties like Darkstalkers, you have Starwars, Battle of the Planets and tons of stuff I've never heard of until now. What's really drivng me crazy is that the more I look at the art of these extremely talented guys, the more I lament on Robotech. I mean, Love & War looks like shit compared to the stuff these guys come up with. How did that happen considering they're from the same studio?! Deadlines? C'mon, I think half the comics Udon makes are always under strict deadlines too. Darn. Why did they get Long Vo? *Sigh* I guess I'll never know. Oh well! At least I can admire the beauty of the stuff these guys made. Wow. This now makes me wonder why Prelude of the Shadow Chronicles used such dark and ugly colors, but whatever. But the art there was okay.

All hail the Udon Crew! May they be commissioned to do another Robotech comic that will look like the stuff these guys are churning out recently! (As of Feb. 8, 2007)

*ADDENDUM* 

I just saw some art by Long Vo for Street Fighter. Not bad. Why did the guy draw Robotech so badly? *Sigh* Still, get someone else to do the art.