Roboculture

I heard this term thrown around by some guy so I might as well use it as the heading fo today's entry. As you all know by now, Funimation will be officially releasing the DVD tomorrow on American soil. Unfortunately for me (bet you didn't see that coming) I won't be seeing it for a long time - which might jeapardize this:

Anyway, if that doesn't pan out the way I want to, there are always fallbacks. I could always go back to the Southern Cross universe, a place untainted by Tommy Yune's influence at this time. I actually recently purchased a heavily discounted book all about "Webcomics". Yes, webcomics. I haven't gone through the book, only scanned it but wow!

The book is really, really informative. It contains stuff about the rise of the art form, and how it has evolved. The best part is when they interview artists and how they developed their stuff. There's like these little diagrams and charts which show the story-making process, the script-writing phase, and all kinds of junk. It's really, really inspiring. Not to mention easy, man, I wouldn't have to animated again!

The only problem I ever see with this is how to reach my intended audience. How does one do that? There's an article somewhere in the book but I have to read it. Posting in the Robotech.com forum would be the first step, but since nobody really cares about the stuff I do there (I posted some threads about my works and voila, no one replies) I might have to branch out to different areas. Which makes me wonder, how could I possbily market this thing at all it being what it is!

I mean, okay, making a webcomic on the Southern Cross universe is risky. Nobody likes it. Not the mainstream folks anyway... And hey, I'm no writer. Like Tommy Yune, I'm just a lowly artist, who, when writing dialogue, use tons of cliches, lame comebacks, and been-there-done-that dialogue exchanges.

Now I have encountered some folks (probably one or two!) who are supposedly better writers than me, but it remains to be seen since I haven't seen there works yet. Again, should I post at the Robotech.com forum where nobody would give a rat's arse? I'll try, but I'm not hopeful. Who'd wanna help a bloke named MedMapGuy? Sheesh, I should choose a better name, but I've used this name for some time now so it hold nostalgic memories for me, so it stays, no matter what (I might talk about my history on creating fan-crap sometime in the future when have nothing better to do.

So in the end, the key to making a successful series would be to create very character driven stories. Find a good writer for that, and I might start a webcomic that could reach a wider audience than the one found in Robotech.com.

Incidentally, Robotech_Master 2000, creator of the Robotech Talkshow, also encountered some good webcomics. I don't know if this influenced me, but it really made me consider it.

SPACE STATION LIBERTY ICONS!
Robotech Master 2000's Talkshoe Internet Radio Show

Well, here I go again, talking about Robotech_Master 2000's Talkshow. I'll try to make this quick. As you know, Mr. 2000 is probably the only active member in the fandom doing the whole radio show thing.

With that, the guy has begun to make prerecorded shows similar to what Justy Ueki did with RDF Underground. Wow!!! Right? Yes, RDF Underground is back from the frickin' dead!! Wooot! And this time, Masters even has the weirdly geeky Talkshoe intro to go with his show! Wow! And music, seems strangely different from the usual rock choices that Justy picks. It's refreshing, its good, maybe this time Justy should guest star in Master's show.

I liked his latests efforts so far, and I hope the guy does more shows, because a fan like me needs his Robotech fixes regularly.

Unfortunately again, Masters said it won't be a regular thing, so sadly, I won't expect too much from the show. I wished though that there would be shows that would involve the ol' Robotech hardcore geek stuff that was prevalent in the old episodes. Man, those were the days - I just hope no one talks about how big a galaxy is cuz' that stuff weirds me out a bit. But it's still interesting, in a strange way.

So anyway, I mentioned something about icons? Yes, I made a few of them for Master's show. Y'see, the guy's requesting new icons so he can advertise his wonderful show to Project Wonderful. I don't really know what it is, but he wants to do it, it also involves art, so I'm interested.

According his thread, these are the requirements:

Button - 117x30
Square - 125x125
Half Banner - 234x60
Banner - 468x60
Leaderboard - 728x90
Skyscraper - 160x600

As you can see, I've made 4 icons, all 125x125. Again, I'm not icon maker, and some folks such as
Darrtallion and Valkyrie22 have 200 times more skill that I do in making this stuff, so I guess it wouldn't matter if Robotech_Master hates the stuff I made. Whatever.

If in the event he doesn't like them, I could always use them to promote stuff I made, which isn't a bad thing actually...

But ya' know what's weird? I also made an icon for RDF Underground, it was supposed to be for a website dedicated to Robotech, but was put on hiatus due to lack of development time and available content.

It's pretty nice actually, but with RDF Underground sleeping with the fishes, I don't think I'd use it. It's a good thing that Mr. Ueki decided to keep his site open for now, so maybe having this icon link to his site's archive would still be a good idea.

And c'mon, doesn't it look like a nice icon? The design is based on the TS-25 satellite that was seen briefly in the Southern Cross Saga of Robotech. I figured it looked like a transmission thingy so I used it to look like the RDF Underground's headquarters or something.

What do you think? Does it look good?

Finally, I've started writing up junk for "Yaki-Udon Part II" which would probably gloss over the art pieces I've seen at the Udon Crew's Art Page. It will also include my postive review of "From The Stars", a comic brought to you by Tommy Yune and the crew. Thanks to Captain JLS for pointing out some things for me. 

Space Station Liberty? What the heck is that? Well, if you've been with the fandom long enough - You should know by now that it's a Internet Radio Talk Shoe Thingy wherein callers would phone in to participate in a discussion. In this case, Space Station Liberty (SSL), it's a place where all the Robogeeks and Robotards gather to talk about this mutation we call Robotech. It's very, very cool, and should have nothing to do with this blog. Unfortunately, it does. Sort of.

I've known Robotech_Master 2000, the host of the show, way back before the whole Talkshoe thing made him a darling to Harmony Gold employees. I remember hearing his first attempt with the wonderful DVD-commentary style piece on the episode "Enter Marlene". It was quite illuminating, since I believe I heard it when I was fairly new to Robotech.com. He never made a second one, and I thought the guy disappeared for good. Then he starts the whole Talkshoe thing.

So far, the guy has racked up almost 20 episodes, with many scheduled within the month. He is really on a roll. The thing is, although I love the whole special guest of the show thing, I seem to fondly remember the old shows better. The ones where the stars would be the fans, not some Harmony Gold rep trying to pimp their company. Maybe its because I just enjoyed the geek talk a lot - you don't get discussion like this in real life, especially where I live. It seemed quite refreshing at the time, and it sure beats the Robotech.com forums where (at the time) all people kept talking about was who was your favorite Robotech character for the umpteenth time(ugh).

And that's why I especially enjoyed the early episodes, its because they talk about really detailed story stuff. Stuff I could actually use for a fanfilm. It was really fun to hear these folks talk about the Tirolian Border Fleet, or the Late Return Theory, or how mediocre some of the Robotech comics were. You didn't really get these discussions in the later episodes, for fear of offending the star guest (who might've been an HG employee or a sexy actress). The only guest I found to be really open to this stuff was none other than Tom Bateman. Which made me think - Why the heck wasn't this guy picked to write the new Robotech stories? Who knows where the comic series Love & War would've gone? (that series essentially parroted the television show, simply terrible)

I haven't been able to check out the later shows about Shadow Chronicles since I haven't seen the DVDs yet, but maybe they're chock full of hardcore geek discussion I can use when making my fanfilm. Who knows?

Keep it up Meadows! Ask HG to get a better pic of you too! It just looks wrong...