ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” — from the film The Wizard of Oz (1939)
I seem to have increased the number of my Internet handles with this article. My fictional writers, whose names appear in the byline, are indeed that—not real. So is the photographer. (Yeah, painfully obvious, right?) But I’m real, and so are the creative people behind the stories I value in the Robotech saga. I’m not here to talk “canon” or convince anyone of why that word is meaningless to me. I’ve loved a number of different sci-fi properties and a few comic book universes, but I certainly have not loved all of their content; I’m used to not caring about what is considered “canon” or “official.” I wrote this web article to help us celebrate a date in a specific part of the Robotech lore that was about to pass in real time—the wedding of Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes. As the date of this event approached me and others in real life, I thought that something should be done online to share with people who have the same reverence for the best of the Robotech material that I do. This mock article is a reflection of how I see the animated series, the first straight-to-video story, the pre-millennium editions of the novels, and certain comic books as contributing to the Robotech saga in ways meaningful to me (and others, as the number of people who like my Robotech-related Facebook pages would attest). For anything that wasn’t in my preferred lore but was needed for the purposes of the article and supplemental pages, I made up. I do not necessarily think of every single thing I invented for the article or the supplemental pages as part of what I now go by for my personal take on Robotech; the main purpose of the article is to entertain while observing a Robotech event. In addition, I put considerable thought into what I was working on, and I had some fun with it. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy it for what it is—a celebration!
The article is not only a celebration of two characters’ nuptials but also the material from which I had drawn. What follows is an incomplete list of the Robotech contributors who made a positive impact on me and who influenced this article with their existing work: Carl Macek and everyone else who worked on the original production of the Robotech animated series and the first release of the Sentinels made-for-video; Japanese animators who unintentionally became Robotech contributors when Carl Macek decided to use three previously unrelated anime series for Robotech; authors Brian Daley and James Luceno, who shared the pseudonym Jack McKinney as they wrote the Robotech novels; writer Bill Spangler and artists Michael Ling, Greg Lane, and Fred Perry for their work on the comics series The Malcontent Uprisings; and John Waltrip, artist of the Robotech II: The Sentinels Limited Edition Wedding Portrait poster. As with the other listed talents, he and his brother, Jason, produced Robotech material that I enjoyed immensely; the Waltrips worked on the long-running Robotech II: The Sentinels comics series as artists and writers. Of course, I should mention Sentinels comics writers Tom Mason and Chris Ulm. The two wrote many issues before the Waltrips eventually would take over writing the series. By the way, the comic has a scene taking place aboard the Robotech factory satellite in which Minmei tells Rick that she wrote a song for Lisa and him, setting up Minmei and Janice’s performance of “Together” at the wedding.
But the two sources I looked at the most while working on the article were the Sentinels video by Carl Macek and company and Sentinels Novel 1 by James Luceno. I tapped into a significant amount from Jim’s first Sentinels book in regards to the wedding, and so much that he brought to not only Lisa and Rick’s nuptials but also the before-and-after moments surrounding them has made me very thankful of the work he did on their novelization. (Before Robotech Novels 19 to 21 by James Luceno, Brian Daley wrote the odd-numbered novels while Jim wrote the even-numbered ones for the first 12 books, but for Novels 13 to 17, the odd-even arrangement was switched between the two. Jim informed me of the switch, leading to one of the updates for this Acknowledgments page. So, Jim wrote Sentinels Novels 1, 3, and 5 while Brian wrote 2 and 4 of that series within a series. Both wrote Robotech Novel 18, with Jim taking the first half and Brian taking the second half.) In addition, Brian Daley’s writing in Robotech Novel 5 gave me the name of Lisa’s mother, so I worked in the name Andrea, though I did it well after the article debuted. Hey, articles in real life get updated, too. I made a tweak here, a tweak there, in general, but I plan to have the article remain as it is now. The only thing that will really change over time is hyperlinking more characters’ names to more finished supplemental pages. I did a few more pages since that whirlwind first year, and more are definitely in the works.
Like just about anyone with a fanpage for an animated series and/or comics material, I’ve found images at various parts of the Internet, as well as made a few scans of artwork, and I’ve retooled images. Sometimes, the retooling is a matter of using an image in a different context, and other times, I’ve used my very limited graphics skills in attempts to make an image sharper. Much of the time, both things have been done for an image. But the Sentinels wedding poster had the most repurposing by me. I wanted to give a nod to the Waltrips’ comics work on Rick and Lisa’s wedding; I ended up covering the lettering on the poster so that it could pass as a picture in the wedding album. For not being better at this sort of stuff, I apologize. I’ll post the original image sometime.
Throughout the years, I’ve been fortunate to keep in contact with two people whose work I especially admire, and they are James Luceno and Bill Spangler. When I think of Bill, I can’t help but think of the best of the Robotech comic books. As for Jim, his creative perspective has been invaluable to me, and he has wowed me once again when I asked him if he possibly had a day in mind for Lisa and Rick’s wedding. He actually did! Of course, the year was established in his and Brian’s work on the Sentinels books, but in Jim’s notes he had written while working on Novel 19, The Zentraedi Rebellion, he assigned both a month and day. Although the month can be inferred toward the end of Novel 19, he had a day in mind that was not included in the book. Jim picked a date with personal significance to him, once more impressing me with how much he invested of himself in the series. So, that explains why I have June 18, 2020, as the date for the Hunters’ wedding. I had intended to debut the article in real time, and that was exactly what I did; I launched the article and posted about it on my Robotech-related Facebook pages right on June 18, 2020 (and right before midnight U.S. Eastern Standard Time)! By the way, I was thrilled to hear from Bill and Jim about my article after its launch. Both really liked it and had cool things to say!
Special thanks to Greg Chu, who had an exchange I remembered years later, one that I modified a lot and expanded for comedic reasons as I developed an important quote for one of the characters. As with other parts of this website, the Acknowledgments page is a work in progress, and I will be revising it as I add more content to supplemental pages. But the article is effectively done. If you haven’t read the whole thing yet, please do so. After you finish reading the piece, go back and click on any names that happen to be underlined.
I already mentioned social-media pages related to what I’ve done online in regards to my Robotech interests. To check out my Robotech-related Facebook pages, go to the Links section.
See you on the flipside!
Bryant Shiu aka Mecha 8