We're shooting at this guy's face, in space...I think it's symbolic, but I'm not sure.

Because I'm old, I remember the days when TV was pre-cable, limited to what you could get by antenna--which, in my town, wasn't a lot! I might've been able to get more Canadian TV than American...no, but it was close. And of course, this was pre-VCR, so if you missed something, that was probably it. But, sometimes I would visit my grandparents, and have access to, if not better, at least different TV. I have a very strong memory of the tailend of some episode of what we called "Japanimation" back then, with a crew struggling to keep their ship from falling into the sun: I to date still have no idea what that show actually was! I'm thinking Star Blazers but I'm not positive; I've still never been able to sit down and watch that. (I probably could on YouTube or something, but, yuck.) That half-remembered show, and the Ken Steacy cover, got me to pick this one out of the cheap bin: from 1989, Star Blazers #4, "A Blast from the Past" Plot by Phil Foglio, Doug Rice, and Markalan Joplin; script by Phil Foglio, art by Harrison Fong and Bill Anderson. (Also, the letters page was put together by future Vertigo editor Shelly Bond!)

I feel like Star Blazers was on syndication in America around '83-84? Roughly the same time as Voltron, at least near me--and not that near! The Wikipedia entry does mention this comic series...namely, as weaker than the first series. Well, I can kind of see that, Doug Rice did the art for the first one, and he would later do fun giant robot comic Dynamo Joe for First Comics, as well as my favorite Manhunter! (The Mark Shaw version with the cool blue mask!) Anyway, this series involves the Star Force against a exiled Earth general, who had found some alien allies, tech, and a mercenary fleet. Said general was trying to get revenge on another, for taking the fall for war crimes; which I don't think necessarily had anything to do with the rest of the series. Also, at this point everybody seems to have the "wave-motion gun," so maybe two different fleets get straight-up smoked in the space of a few panels, seemingly leaving it the big alien ship against the Argo.

Somehow, I have a model/figure of IQ-9, the little robot from this show: I want to say he was usually the comic relief/R2-D2 type. This was a Comico book, which we've seen barely a fistful of here over the years: for starters, we've seen surprisingly little of Sam & Max Freelance Police Special, one of my absolute favorite comics ever. Steve Rude's Space Ghost was a memorable one. We've also seen Gene Colan's Bloodscent and a random issue of Robotech, the latter in a post where I complain about Star Blazers being on at maybe four in the morning, weekends, two towns over. Although, shoot, I think I have another Comico book right handy! Wouldn't have bet on that one.