Posted on October 21, 2024

Battletech: Fallout, 1995

Fair warning: I have very little good to say about this one, so settle in for some grievances.

This was the final project I drew for Malibu Comics, and it’s the one that broke my bond with them for the rest of time. Almost everything about it was miserable, and I was immensely relieved when it was over. This is what it took to sever my attachment to that company, which had gone on too long and become a burden. In other words, Battletech was the comic that made me want to stop working for Malibu altogether.

I don’t remember when I first heard of Battletech (the game), but since FASA launched it in 1984, it would definitely have been after I took my eternal dive into the world of anime and found all the classics that shaped me. Namely, the early to mid 80s mecha shows from Nippon Sunrise: Votoms, Vifam, Layzner, Gundam, etc. I loved everything about them and still do. (See profiles in the Anime World section for more.)

Battletech rode the wave that these programs created in the hopes of grabbing the attention of fans like me. I threw it some heavy skunkeye in the beginning, since they blatantly cribbed anime mecha designs that I knew for a fact they didn’t create themselves. Did they think no one would notice? Well, I sure did. And for that reason I kept my distance.

Over the next decade Battletech expanded into a franchise with multiple games (both home-type and VR simulators), books, and ultimately a TV cartoon that got a syndicated release in fall ’94. Malibu saw an opportunity to acquire another comic book license with a TV tie-in, and since the game had anime DNA, I was asked to create samples for the pitch. Looking through some of the game’s sourcebooks, I landed on a couple of robot designs I really liked and made them my subjects.

Then came an interesting twist in the story. After I finished these two pieces, I was told that they wouldn’t be appropriate because the designs I based them on were created by a Japanese artist, and they weren’t considered part of the “main catalog” or something like that. So I needed to do two more samples with “approved” mecha.

Here’s the thing; I picked the first two designs because they looked WAY better than anything else in the lineup. And no wonder; the Japanese artist was a professional mecha designer on the level of Shoji Kawamori. It turned out to be Atsushi Takeuchi, who worked under Kawamori and developed these designs for a Battletech game called MechWarrior.

The approved robots, by contrast, were “home-grown.” Unsurprisingly, they were clunky and ridiculous. It looked like amateur hour; a novice imitating a style with zero understanding what makes it work. But back into the fray I went, gritting my teeth while doing my best to make lame robots look less lame.

This effort had a successful outcome. Malibu landed the Battletech license and put the comic on the schedule. I was hired to pencil it, and it became one of the least enjoyable assignments of my comics career. The trouble started with the hiring process itself in the spring of 1994 as I was contemplating an exit from my staff job.

Despite the fact that my sample art was what helped to land the project, the “editorial staff” was not keen on the idea of me drawing the comic itself. I say “editorial staff” because at that point I was barely on speaking terms with any of them (read the “Malibu and Me” articles for a backgrounder), so I don’t know if it was all of them or just one with an axe to grind. The problem was this: they wanted it to be drawn “Image style,” and they didn’t think I could pull that off.

What’s “Image style?” It was that particular “look” that became the signature of Image Comics when it was founded in 1992. It was linework gone wild, excessive textures and gratuitous crosshatching that helped to mask bad figure drawing. Lipstick on a pig. As befitting the name “Image,” it was entirely about appearance. To kids just starting to read comics, it was dazzling. To those of us who had put in the work to build our craft from the ground up, it was insulting. Just like the cribbed robots in Battletech, it didn’t fool me for a second.

To the Malibu editors, who were much better at imitation than innovation, applying “Image style” to their comics seemed like the way to do business. It’s one of the things that, in my opinion, put them on the path to failure. If someone wanted “Image style” comics, they could just go buy Image comics. Imitators were redundant. By chasing after the Image dollar, Malibu only ended up creating surplus junk food. (Told you I didn’t have much good to say in this one…)

I had no intention of going down that road, and this led us to a standoff. They wanted Battletech to look like a faux-Image comic. I wanted to give up my staff job and needed the income. Fortunately, I had Mark Paniccia in my corner. He was the one editor I still liked, and this comic had been assigned to him. He found a middle ground by laying down some common sense with the others.

“This is a mecha-driven comic book, and you have one of the top mecha artists in the business right here ready to go.”

He told me later that this was what finally broke through their resistance and got me the gig. Thanks to Mark, the first obstacle was pushed aside. With the assignment secured, I could drop the staff job and return to my freelance life, free of office politics at last.

Story development was happening behind the scenes, but I was not involved. The scripts would be written by Ultraverse editor Roland Mann, who I soured on the first time he told a racist joke in my presence, so I kept as little contact with him as possible. We got some reference from the animated series, which had been in production for a while by now, since it was due to premiere in September.

I got busy on character designs (with help from staff artist Keith Conroy), which turned out to be the only genuinely fun part of the project. I picked out a few people from the color department to photograph for facial reference, which gave them all something to look forward to when the art finally landed in their hands. Of course, I was stuck with the ugliest, clunkiest mecha designs FASA had to offer, so my approach was to find poses and camera angles that would give them some heft.

The first round of work was a set of three short promo comics, 4 pages each, that would be colored and plugged into other comics for cross-promotion. I penciled them in May and they were inked by Larry Welch (from the art department). Larry and I had worked side by side for well over a year, but this was the first time our hands landed on the same pages, which was a nice parting gesture as I danced out the door.

I drew two issues of Deep Space Nine over the summer, then started on the first issue of Battletech in August, penciling and lettering. I gave in to editorial directives (as much as I could stomach) to add extra linework in a way that made sense to me and grew organically out of the art instead of looking artificial. My friend Jack Snider had previously been announced as the inker for the series, which would have been fantastic after the masterful work he turned in on Return to Macross, but another inker was chosen instead. In typical Malibu fashion, this would prove to be the poison pill.

That’s “Image style” drawing on the cover to issue 3. Good luck figuring out what to focus on.

The animated series debuted in September while I was working on issue 1. Produced by Saban Entertainment, it was a combination of 2D animation and some early, rudimentary CG. I sat down to watch the first episode and was horrified. It was one of the worst cartoons I’d ever seen, replete with terrible animation and obvious on-screen errors that made it unwatchable.

I hadn’t begun my animation career yet (it was still two years away) but I could tell that something had gone very wrong with this production. Looking back from a place of experience, I assume it must have been fatally under-budgeted (Saban was notorious for this). Since then I’ve met and worked with some of the artists who drew the storyboards, and I’m sure they did their best. But if you only have enough money in the budget for a cut-rate Korean studio and nothing in reserve for retakes, you’re stuck with what you get. That’s exactly what these shows look like to me now; a first take that couldn’t be fixed. Plus, the voice acting was below average and the music was sandpaper on the ears. Three strikes and you’re out, Battletech cartoon.

Check out the series for yourself on Youtube here and see if you agree. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Nevertheless, the words “Based on the hit animated series” were at the top of every cover of the comics. This was a bluff, since the word “hit” defied definition. If pressed, maybe someone could claim it was a “hit” with their kids, or a “hit” with the guy down at the gas station, or a “hit” with whoever greenlit that rancid TV show. Malibu did this automatically with just about all of their licensed comics, beating the word to death and draining it of any meaning.

Anyway, the series may have been garbage but it didn’t deter me from putting my best effort into the comic. After all, my name would be on it. I finished issue 1 in late September and was quite satisfied with the end product. I still like it when I look back from thirty years later. But then it all went into the crapper when they handed it over to the replacement inker, who proceeded to drown it in the WORST examples of “Image style” I could imagine. Extra linework all over the place that didn’t mesh with the art and only added visual noise. Not even color could save it.

Samples from two different pages; my pencils on the left, “Image style” inking on the right.

The inking on the mecha, conversely, was under-detailed with no attention given to texture. This demonstrated to me that the inker was chosen for one function only and was otherwise unqualified for the assignment. It felt like sabotage. It was exactly the same on issue 2. Fortunately, things changed after that.

The inker did not return for issues 3 or 4. Either he couldn’t keep up with the schedule, or he didn’t want to do it any more, or editorial decided he wasn’t what the book needed after all. I don’t remember hearing an explanation. Regardless, it became a group jam after that with several inkers (some in-house) all teaming up to get issues 3 and 4 finished. I even did a few pages in #4 myself. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely an improvement. On the other hand, the color quality seriously declined, as if it was being rushed through to get the book off the schedule.

It’s entirely possible that preorders weren’t enough to turn a profit, or the TV show tanked (deservedly so) and Malibu just took the cheapest path to the finish line. This was also the point where Marvel had bought the company and was taking the reigns, so maybe there was pressure from above to quickly get rid of old projects and make room for new ones. Either way, the first issue came out in December ’94 after the cartoon ended, so there wasn’t much of a tie-in left at that point. The promo comics were bundled into an “Issue 0,” and everything wrapped when issue 4 came out in March 1995.

To tie it all up in one stinky package, the Battletech comic symbolized everything I disliked about working for Malibu. A ton of work (all done in good faith) compromised down into mediocrity by bad decisions. I dealt with it the only way I could: I kept clear of editorial, drew and lettered the pages to the best of my ability, got paid, and cut the cord. Malibu was fully absorbed and deleted by Marvel a few months later. The end.

With Malibu officially in the rearview, I was now on a whole new road with two partners, two steady clients, and some very exciting comics on the calendar. I can’t say it was easier, but it was a helluva lot more fun. I’ll start digging into that next time. For now, here’s my Malibu swan song. May it rest in peace.