Wednesday, September 9, 2015

ROM sales pitch for DirectTV

Left click to enlarge
Marvel Age Magazine 34 Jan 1986
have you folks seen those NFL Direct TV commercials? I don't give a crap about football but those commercials are pretty funny none the less. I was talking to this dealer who looked like he was in the same age bracket as me about ROM and the last convention I went to a couple weekends ago. He was also telling me about how he hated the ditko art in ROM back when he was a kid but over the years learned to appreciate it or some shit like that. I told him fuck that it sucks now every bit as it did then. But this guy is another example of someone who hated ditko's work when he saw it at face value but later got caught up in ditko's legacy and now all of a sudden has a "new appreciation" for it, whatever. However there was one upside to ditko's work. It made the cancellation of ROM a lot easier to deal with I will say that even though at the time I thought it was being cancelled because readers were walking away from the series because of the shitty art.
I read Onyx#2 just before I went to work today it was pretty good. The story is definitely taking some interesting twists n' turns and you'll be happy to know Gary it does have some more ROM mentions in the back pages if you haven't discovered that already. I tell ya what would be cool if they inserted a ROM Easter egg some where in the story kinda like how they did in the first Predator movie with that one commando (Hawkings) reading a Sgt. Rock comic issue in a couple scenes.

September 13 Update: 
I just felt like adding something  to under score the point of this posting all humor aside. When you do a side by side comparison with an example of typical clip art from the pre-ditko era on ROM the contrast is almost shocking. So to all you "ditko mania" sycophants out there this is your wake up call.

15 comments:

  1. Ha! Cute drawing. Don't be Steve Ditko me indeed. I hear ya' about some people going overboard with admiring Ditko's legacy so much they overlook his bad art from the 70's on.

    There's no disputing he's a legend and a pioneer, but after the 60's the look of his artwork immediately looked and felt dated. It just didn't age well, but don't tell the people who think he's GOD that.

    Hope you had a decent Labor Day weekend though.

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    1. And ditko was doing shit like that all the way up until the early 90s. Contrast that with the awesome work Neal Adams and John Buscema were doing even as far back as the late 70s which easily holds up even by today's standards.

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    1. Loved it so much you posted the same twice or was that a blogger glitch ; ) either way the love is much appreciated good to hear from ya I hope your doing better.

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  3. I've grown to appreciate how crappy the Ditko art really was. I've seen better art done on deviantart by blind mimes in kindergarten.

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    1. Don't feel bad Brian it took some Star Wars fans up to at least 2 years to come to terms with the fact that the Phantom Menace was a steaming pile of shit.

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  4. aheh. Yeah, count me in as one of those kids who found the switch to Ditko art a bit jarring or just "blah". There are venues his stuff really shines. IE: Where it starts off with his art and sticks to it, or anthologies like the pieces he did for the horror comics. But just dropping his art in out of the blue?
    But look on the bright side. Could have been Leifield instead! Rom: Spinelessknight! Feetless edition! Micronauts: They came from non-euclidian biology Space!

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    1. welcome to the party pal. ya know i'm just pretty much at a point where i hate ditko's work when ever i see it. not a big Liefeld fan either but honestly even Liefeld would have been preferable to ditko
      http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2013/07/rom-liefeld-er-i-meant-to-say-rom-drawn.html

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  5. Oh Mighty Shlomo..... picked up Onyx Deux. Is it just me or does this seem like a reboot of the "Thornoids" plot from Rom #7?

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    1. possibly, although the killer vines theme isn't exactly unheard of think Poison Ivy from DC Comics or even Little Shop of Horrors. but you could always ask Chris.

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  6. Ahh good side by side. For me the last 3 issues story was so good it made up for the sub par art. Those would be the only issues I could overlook his art in ROM . All his issues sucked art wise though compared to what Sal did for for so long.

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    1. for me nothing could ever make up for that atrocious art work. i practically grimaced with every turn of the pages for the final issues of the series. ditko's work sucked when not just comparing him to Sal but by literally to any other artist working for Marvel in the 80s.

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  7. Found this in Google images and literally started laughing out loud! Well done! #DitkoSucks

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    1. Right bro welcome to the party, sorry about the late reply.

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