Just for record, I wrote this blog entry entirely on my iPhone. Not bad considering. I am trying to clean it up and fix the misspellings.
I teased that I would talk about the Robotech books next yet realized that it was in fact the comics that happened first...
Late summer 1986, KTTV's run of Robotech ended at episode #27 "Force of Arms". I would not acquire a full library of recorded episodes. I would be doomed to miss episodes "Reconstruction Blues" through "The Trap" on VHS until the show would air via the Sci-Fi Channel (yet I will discuss that later).
Yet, I would bw able to relive these episodes through another media. I'm not sure the exact date or the episode but while watching and reading the end credits one day I noticed the credits listed "Comic book adaption by Comico Comics". What!? There is a comic book of Robotech? I thought to myself. I immediately put this to memory. I vowed to find it. The only hurdle was there was no comic book store in Roswell back then. If the Walgreens didn't have it then you might find it at the newsstand. But the wire spinner rack at the newsstand usually only had the biggies-Spider-man and Superman. So the quest would fade from mind. Until one day I would visit my Grandmother in
Alamogordo. We bought many of my comics at the Yucca Newsstand and while grabbing the latest issue of G.I. Joe I looked up to see three comics with the Comico logo. The white whale had been found and captured. Not only was there a Robotech comic, there was three! Robotech The Macross Saga, Robotech The Masters and Robotech The New
Generation.
It was around May or June 1986. The first issues would be #11 for Macross, and issues #8 for both Masters and New Generation. I wish I could remember the exact date thus I'm using the cover dates of the issues- not sure Comico released issues a few months before their actual cover dates. So my discovery may have been as early as March or
April. Shortly after I added the three titles to my monthly list. (back story: since Roswell had no reliable comic retailer, my Grandmother would go to Yucca Newsstand and buy my comics. Mostly G.I. Joe and a handfull of DC hero books).
I would not miss an issue until the runs ended early 1989. Actually Macross would run to Jan 1989 but Masters would be Apr 1988 and New Generation July 1988. I filled missing issue holes every chance I got. Many from classified ads at the back of comics. Yet a comic shop in San Antonio and QVC would finalize my collections. The comic shop in
San Antonio was called King Arthur's Comics. I was able to buy the last of my missing issues and even accidentally bought a few I already had. Back then I went by memory on the back issues and some of the covers didn't look familar. That was the summer of 1991. Only one issue would evade me. That was Robotech Macross #1! I would learn from Protoculture Addicts that issue one actually had the original Japanese logo of Macross. This was late 1984 when Harmony Gold was originally going to do a straight translation of Macross. Yet the plan would change and since it was released in Dec 1984, not many issues would surface. I did run across an issue in late 1987 or early 1988 at
Greenspray Books and Comics in Roswell. Yet the $30 price tag might have been a brick of gold to a freshman in high school. Thus it was out of my price range. And almost everyone who would come across it. I'm not sure if it ever sold or went with Greenspray when it closed a few months later. Yet, my patience and possibly a higher calling
assisted my eventual acquisition. I am not making this up but Fate played a hand in this comic. In 1994, I awoke in the middle of the night. It was 1 AM. The tv was on QVC. Not sure if it was because I fell asleep while watching a Star Wars collectibles show or if I rolled on the remote-changing the channel. How it happened is a mystery but the good thing was there on the screen was Comico's Robotech The Macross Saga #1! Original issues - apparently a warehouse find. The price was $19.95. Not cheap but as a working college student with a credit card, I didn't care. I immediately bought two copies! Now my Robotech comic collection was complete! All thankful to me waking in the middle of the night and my tv being on QVC. Funny thing, I found a third copy of this issue about ten years ago for $5 at comic show. Ebay usually sales the issue from $2 to $80. Yet I would list the value to me as priceless. Yet realistically it's more like two
dollars.
