Sunday, June 15, 2014

The 80s Easter egg I totally forgot about!

Rom spaceknight #5 (Space Notes page) 
For those of you who have been reading Marvel Comics since the early 80s ask your self how many times you've seen this little editorial cartoon by Al Milgrom? I know I have! Although I'm pretty sure it's been years since I last saw it and I certainly didn't make the whole Bill Mantlo/Rom - Micronauts Easter egg connection at the time and until it just turned up on farcebook earlier today I had totally forgotten about all together. According to Michael Mantlo, "this pretty much sums up bill's reputation at marvel in the late 1970's"

Also, here's something I bet many of you haven't seen yet despite me having posted on this blog before. It's a fun little slide show check it out when you have a few minutes.
http://www.slideshare.net/romspaceknight/etter-about-rom-spaceknight-sento-to-hasbro-marvel-and-disney

left click to enlarge
sketch card

For those of you who saw my note here earlier I want to let you know that this new fan art from Dann Phillips I'm posting here today (June 17th) is not what I was anticipating. It's just coincidental that it turned up recently but who cares I'm just happy to post some sweet ass fan art whenever I get the chance. But with any luck I'll have even more to add here from some one else in what I hope will be within the next 48 hours (hint hint).


The Rom and Crystar team up that sadly never happened
No, this isn't the fan art I've been anticipating getting for the past couple of days either we're still waiting for that. I just whipped this up this very morning for a good friend I haven't seen in a while until recently. It's probably no much bigger then that ROM sketch card by Phillips.

20 comments:

  1. Great share, I too had forgotten about this caricature and it took me a few minutes to remember where it was published. I vaguely recalled it was on a letters page, so sure enough when I checked my ROM vault I found it in issue #5 (Apr1980) with "He Writes The Spaceknight: Bill Mantlo", a profile presumably written by Al or maybe Mary Jo Duffy. Don't remember if I had noticed the tiny comic covers, but the ROM name there wouldn't have triggered my completist/researcher's instincts in the same way as if I'd found it in a house ad in another series or article in a magazine. As always Shlomo thanks for being on the ball (especially when it's egg-shaped)!

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    1. thanks for the heads up on what issue that cartoon can be found in. I figured it had to be in some Rom back issue among other Marvel titles at the time. yeah I knew it was in the back probably next to the letter column but I still though I really wasn't looking forward to methodically going through back issues to find it again. when you get a chance check your email.

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  2. Oh wow. Now that takes me back. This is something comics today are missing, these interesting, quirky asides. I suppose they don't need them anymore because we've got Google, but still, it was always cool to read them after the comic was done. Like extra content so you didn't have to clean your room just yet.

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    1. that's one of the things that made the 80s so awesome even though there wasn't any internet back then. whatever kinda cool tid bits like this you wanted to come up with you had to work it into the book some how as opposed to referring people to some web site. not to mention the letter columns, in fact one of the followers of this blog recently gave us a heads up about a letter that made it into Rom 62 back in the day http://calvinscanadiancaveofcool.blogspot.com/2014/06/i-knew-one-of-my-people-would-help-me.html

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    2. That is too sweet! And he's got it forever. Black and white proof of his never ending geekdom. :)

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  3. At the VERY LEAST, they should let Marvel reprint the books that have already been published in the past (if not create new ones with his name and cyborg likeness). That way, poor, unfortunate people like me would be able to read them.

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    1. yes i am one of those poor unfortunate people too amigo but i just don't think Marvel cares about us old school Rom fans. that's why i don't buy new marvel comics any more.

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    2. Hear hear on reprinting. In hardback. Ultimate edition.

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  4. I LOVE the ROM and Crystar!!! That is now my new desktop. :). You are the best, Shlomo, thank you. You nailed it.
    I'm so glad to be back on the ROM radar.

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  5. That is some really cool stuff. Bill was really hungry for work and it showed with his incredible output. I also really liked that slideshow, kind of a cute way to push ROM out there and you gotta love that it came all the way from Brazil.
    And of course the fan art you post is always stellar. The team up I would have loved would have been with the Starriors.

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    1. oh good you checked out the slide show. it's nothing too fancy but it does do a pretty good job of underscoring some of the key points of what made Rom so cool.

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  6. The he writes the spaceknight is so fitting of Bills work at marvel. Awesome and thanks for sharing! I had seen that Dann Phillips sketch card but WOW not that Micronauts ROM one.Dann continues to impress and really is one of the best active fan artists there is.

    oh man hell yeah!! I have been a little busy keeping up here but I did go along and say how cool a Crystar ROM team up would be and here it is!! Great job shlomo

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    1. well that's the nice thing about fan art there's no sort of copy rights issues against it so if you can draw it then you can do and post whatever the Hell you want to. I kinda feel like that sketch came to life more once I decided to add the dialogue to it. almost seems like a panel from the marvel team up issue that should have been. thanks for swinging by.

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  7. Wow Shlomo thanks for the heads us and that cool find!! Gotta get a new monitor for my computer it kicked the bucket Ha! lovin the art work as well and about to check out the slideshow!

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    1. I think you'll get a kick out of the slide show as well and I have reason to believe the art work I've been waiting for since last weekend may yet come very soon. sorry to hear about your monitor but I hope if nothing else you got plenty of mileage out of it before it went belly up.

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    2. Oh yea I did and yes that slide show was wicked cool brother loved it Wow!!

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  8. That slide show was great. And if only we had a rom and micrnauts team up#

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    1. welcome back RT it's been a while since I've seen you here. glad you enjoyed the slide show as for the team up wishes if nothing else there's plenty of ROM/Micronauts team up fan art.

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    1. yeah I heard about Danzig using a skull or something from one of the Crystar covers but I'm kinda sketchy on the details. something worth looking into though.

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