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Macross Artist Hidetaka Tenjin Receives Comic-Con International's Inkpot Award

Comic-Con International in San Diego awarded its Inkpot Award to illustrator Hidetaka Tenjin (Macross Frontier) on Saturday. Tenjin attended the event in person, where Udon Entertainment offered early copies of Tenjin's Artistry of Macross: From Flashback 2012 to Macross Frontier book before its October 18 release. The book is the first in a series of books that Udon Entertainment will release featuring Tenjin's art from the Macross franchise.

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Tenjin made a statement about his book's publication:

I've been involved with MACROSS in a professional capacity for over two decades now, but I originally started off as a fan myself, so the prospect of bringing my art to a new international audience is something I'm extremely excited about. Hidetaka Tenjin's Artistry of Macross not only marks my first published work outside of Japan, it's also the first art book to be released in North America bearing the MACROSS name. While I'm more than a little nervous at the prospect, I hope that people enjoy it and that it helps to introduce them to the world of MACROSS.

Tenjin is an illustrator and mechanical artist whose works include Macross Zero, Aquarion, Noein - to your other self, Hellsing Ultimate, and Macross Frontier. He also drafted mechanical art for the Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato franchises. He started his career drawing the Macross' signature fighter, the VF-1 Valkyrie, for a fansite while he was in college. This later led to work for the official publications Macross Chronicle and Space Battleship Yamato Fact File. He is also a voice actor, having played roles such as Rafael Banderas in Garo the Animation and Goreinu in Hunter x Hunter. His recent work includes LeSean Thomas and MAPPA's Yasuke anime, where he worked on mechanical design.

Past Inkpot Award winners include Osamu Tezuka, Robotech's Carl Macek, Lupin III's Monkey Punch, Ranma 1/2's Rumiko Takahashi, Crying Freeman's Ryōichi Ikegami and Kazuo Koike, Sailor Moon's Naoko Takeuchi, Usagi Yojimbo's Stan Sakai, Silent Service's Kaiji Kawaguchi, Bleach's Tite Kubo, shōjo manga pioneer Moto Hagio, Domo-kun creator Tsuneo Goda, and Hayao Miyazaki. Kazuki Takahashi won the Inkpot Award in 2015.

Sources: Spotlight on Hidetaka Tenjin panel at Comic Con International (Kalai Chik), press release