Can't think of a good posting title

I was going to save all this stuff for a New Year's Day posting but screw it I just feeling like posting it tonight instead. For openers, this Bill Mantlo tribute fan art envelope is something I mailed off about 3 weeks ago (from California to Greece) but as of this blog posting it still hasn't arrived. The last time it took a whole month for one of my fan art envelopes to get to Greece but the one before that never arrived at all so who knows this time around? Good thing I always take a picture of these at the post office.  

As in my last posting here's something else I've had for a while but never featured on this blog. It comes from The Micromails letter page of issue 40. It's a wonder ROM was not mentioned more then a couple times or so in the published fan letter pages of The Micronauts given that Bill Mantlo was the writer on both titles but we'll take what we can get. Look at that last sentence. Might as well have been another life time ago when you had a new issue of ROM, Micronauts (the real thing, not that fake shit from idw publishing) and The X-Men to look forward to every month. 

A while ago somebody mentioned something on social media about a dire wraith appearance on something having to do with Marvel Legends Darkstar. They didn't include a photo so I had no idea what they were talking about and I just dismissed it as internet noise. Bet then I saw this packaging art lifted from the cover art of Darkstar Winter Gaurd #3 at a big box store recently and it suddenly all made sense. That's pretty cool I'm fairly certain this is the first time the dire wraith have appeared on any published media outside of a comic book or magazine format. The Darkstar Winter Gaurd mini-series is just about the only decent thing Marvel has done when it comes to any ROM related continuity in the past 20 years.

And I also have some newly discovered comic book/sci-fi related public art from The Bay Area to share. I found these murals at Ochoa Middle School in Hayward. How frigging cool that would have been to go to a school back in the day and have these to look at all the time.

Speaking of Iron Man, I was reading issue 164 online recently. This guy who is from what was then (1982) West Germany wrote a pretty long letter to the staff working on Iron Man at the time. As you can see he had no shortage of ideas and suggestions including a couple good ones when it came to all things ROM.

Galadorian Horror Story variant

 So hopefully you've also seen the original version of this fan art in the previous posting. This past weekend I decided to try out some other ROM related fan art source material from the same artist and photoshop it into the piece in the last posting. I think it turned out pretty good, we now have a version of the Galadorian Horror Story in which ROM is facing a more defined and familiar threat.

Well I supposed with Thanksgiving being a bit later this week I should make a mention of what I'm thankful for this year. There's the obvious stuff ofcourse such as having my health and gainful employment in the midst of this never ending pandemic. But I'm also thankful for BILL MANTLO who just turned 70 earlier this month. Without Mantlo, the 80s would have been a bit less awesome and his legacy makes it possible for us to still enjoy reading and re-reading his stuff today not to mention the inspiration for all this ROM related fan art that's still being put out in the here and now. 

 

 I'm gonna make another addition to this posting. Here's something I've been sitting on for a while now that I never got around to posting for whatever reason. It comes from New Warriors 35 (1993). I only came across this as a back issue a few years ago but when I read it I realized how much more abilities the torpedo armor gave it's user then we knew of when Brock Jones was using it in the ROM series. As the reader you can draw your own conclusions why that may have been but I'm guessing the writers of New Warriors came up with some of that for the sake of making Turbo a bit more interesting and or formidable.

Galadorian Horror Story

I've been bugging my good friend (and fellow artist and ROM fan) from Greece for the past couple months or so to do a little more ROM fan art. And sure enough on Halloween day no less he sends me this amazing piece. When asked what was his inspiration for it he replied with the following . . . . 

"Well, for me reading Rom always felt a bit like a horror story so I wanted to draw something that gives a sense of that and making the threat vague to the viewer I believe it works better sometimes."

Revisiting some good ROM fan art by Preston Asevedo and Rich Wentworth

The following fan art is stuff that's been on social media for years now so you might have seen it before but tonight I felt like it was time for these works to take their place on this blog. Up top from Preston Asevedo we have a rather creative "What If" themed concept of what a cross over between The Spider-Man and ROM story lines might have looked like. Creative, interesting and well illustrated from basic drawing principles stand point. Just the kind of fan art I love to see. Plus, with the Venom sequel having recently come out it seemed fitting to feature this one from Asevedo here.

Now these 3 by Rich Wentworth are also cool for many of the same reasons. Although they each scene deosn't have as much going on in them as the Asevedo piece they still feature ROM in some sort of setting that kinda plays with your imagination and in general they have a certain style to em that I like.

October 13th Update: I'm making a late addition to this posting with this here fan art by Lou Russo. I can't imagine what sort of "what if mutliverse" kind of scenario that would have brought together these three franchises. But given that I love Star Trek, the first two ALIEN films (the rest sucked) and ofcourse ROM, I can't help but be intrigued. Seems appropriate to update this posting with this piece from Russo's today given that William Shatner a.k.a Captain Kirk was actually just in space today.

What If

What if ROM had encountered The Micronauts? What if ROM and Earth's heroes had lost the Wraith War? What If Sal Buscema had never left the series? What If Marvel had retained or at least reacquired the rights to ROM spaceknight? I know I know, so many What Ifs over the years about what could have been, should have been or just shit that was very unlikely in any reality but sure would have been cool anyways. 

Well here's one I bet that never crossed your mind. What if there was a reality where instead of an invasion of the planet Earth as we know it in the mainstream Marvel Universe of the mid twentieth century the dire wraiths invaded the dystopian future world of Judge Dredd? The apocalyptic conditions of the "Cursed Earth" would have no doubt reminded them of their Hellish home world which they were driven from by Galador's spaceknights (see ROM spaceknight 1).

The original by Brittany Michel 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BadCarrotStudios?ref=search_shop_redirect

Wanted to see what it would look like in color so I brought it into photoshop and so here we go. Most of you I hope will recognize the source material from ROM spaceknight annual 3 (Bill Mantlo and WM Johnson).

Oh yeah and that reminds me of this. I believe it was an unpublished piece of fan art done by Scott Reed in the spirit of the great Sal Buscema's signature Marvel 80s penciling style. It came out pretty good it was on ebay and if I recall correctly it sold for $180 last year.

September 25th Update: 

https://www.jpost.com/j-spot/steve-ditko-estate-tries-to-regain-spider-man-doctor-strange-copyrights-680207

 

 

Thank the Gods of Galador there's finally some good new ROM fan art to enjoy

Well, after more then a two month dry spell of any worthwhile ROM related fan art we finally have something in the form of this ROM spaceknight 18 cover art homage commission piece by Jeff Slemmons. This is exactly the sort of fan art I love to find. It's creative, well illustrated and nostalgic. A winning combination that's sorely lacking in most of what I usually come across. You might say this sort of fan art is my "happy place" that I like to retreat to in the face of the ongoing disservice both marvel and idw publishing have to the legacy of the classic 80s series. 

 https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1751944

The legendary Sal Buscema made a recent appearance at a comic shop in Gainesville Virginia which unfortunately is about as far away as you can get from what part of The United States I'm in. I know exactly what I would say to him if I ever got the chance to meet him. Other then some obligatory words of praise I would have to let him know how heart broken I was back in the day when he left the ROM series. Silly as this sounds I kinda still am to this very day actually.

 

August 31st Update: As you may have noticed from the previous posting, on occasion I like to post really cool local public art related to the sci-fi/comic book genre. I just discovered this anime mecha mural in San Francisco today and I wanted to share it with the 3 or 4 or maybe 5 people who will read this posting.

ROM's Cafe

Located on A street in Hayward California I swear when I first saw this place the logo looked like it was directly taken off from any issue of the ROM spaceknight series. Just a coincidence I'm sure but pretty cool to see just the same.

A new commission fan art piece by artist Jim Califiore. Well I'm posting it here so obviously I like it and I don;t even mind the minor artistic liberties Califiore took with ROM's armor. In fact, this is a nice basis of what IDW's reboot could have looked like. I'm quite positive this would have gone over much better with the fan base both new and old.

 

One of the things I love about fan art is that you don't have to worry about any sort of legal red tape when it comes to who you want to feature together. This latest here is by you're truly. I've had this cross over character concept idea for a while now I'm glad I finally got around to getting to it.

 

I spotted this a couple days ago along the side of some kind of portable office for a moving company in San Francisco. Just another good example of the cool public art you can find around here when it comes to all things comics and sci-fi.The first two films from the ALIEN franchise were absolutely classic iconic sci-fi horror and I love em both. However, I can't say the same for the rest unfortunately. 

I was recently reflecting on the "ROM Remix" project from several years ago https://romremix.tumblr.com/ as a concept it was kinda cool but ultimately poorly executed due to the poor quality artists that contributed to the project. The lone exception being Robert Duckett who did page 4. He did a fairly good job especially in the first few panels.

Pick the ROM issue Spidey!

I asked the dude who posted this on twitter where this came from but he never responded so unfortunately I can't tell you if this is some sort of fan art or if it came out any publication.

So today I bought a brand new Marvel comic for first time in almost years. Marvel's treatment of the ROM spaceknight legacy has prompted me toward a personal boycott of new comics to say nothing of the cover prices these days. But I finally made an exception for this one shot issue of Magneto & The Mutant Force which has Sabra among the cast of characters. I'd say it's been around 3 years since she last made an appearance in any Marvel title so I had to check this out.

In this alternate reality there are no Avengers and Sabra is part of a mutant rebellion led by a paraplegic Magneto against the government which Squadron Supreme are agents of.  It would have been nice had there been a bit more of her in the issue but over all I thought it was ok. Been out of the loop for quite a while when it comes to all things going on in the published Marvel Universe so I'm sure there's some context to the story I'm missing here.

And here we have the latest commission piece from our pal Sal. Unfortunately I don't have any details about about who it was for or how much whoever paid for it which I think we all are curious about. I think this is the best commission form Sal in quite a while.

Totally awesome fan art by Dakota Alexander

 

 

After coming across this fan art on social media I reached out to the artist and had a nice chat with him. According to Dakota, ROM is a visaully fascinating and challenging character to draw and very symbolic of the 80s. Which as we all know is the greatest decade in human history. He wanted to give this piece a sci-fi movie poster feel bolstered with some Akin & Garvey style line art. I'd say it all came together quite nicely which is why it gets a spot on blog site for ROM fans who aren't dicks. Dakota's Instagram account @drumsoftheserpent

 

Also very cool, but unfortunately just a fake. But it looks pretty damn real though, wish I had one.

Here's something else cool I just found on farcebook. Unfortunately I don't know the original source material for this old promotional Marvel superheroes photo but I as you can see it's at Rockefeller Square in New York City.

What a ROM and Daredevil 2021 team up might have looked like

 I usually don't do humor/satire based fan art but once in a great while I get inspired to come up with something. Not exactly the team up you were thinking about I bet.

And here we have some borrowed images from different fan art pieces that digitally re-purposed into a new scene.

I recently by good fortune came across this rare photo of the man that so many of us have so much to be grateful for. It really pisses me off about the shitty things that happen to good people (while still fairly young) rather we're talking about Bill Mantlo or Chadwick Boseman. And on the other hand pieces of shit like donald trump in their 70s get covid-19 and make a full recovery. That shit just ain't right, seriously.

 

Seattle's salute to the legacy of Chadwick Boseman

One of the many things I love about Seattle is that no matter how many times I come here I always discover something new and awesome during my visit. As one example of my most recent visit is this mural celebrating the film legacy of the late Chadwick Boseman. Unfortunately I couldn't find a damn thing on the internet about it so all I can tell you is that it's located on the outskirts of the downtown area.

I wish I could have taken this photo with out all those cars in the way but parking in and around downtown Seattle is almost as bad as San Francisco these days. So on the left we have two American legends James Brown and Jackie Robinson as played by Boseman in the films Get on Up and 42. Ofcourse in the center is Boseman as king T'Chala a.k.a The Black Panther and next to that a straight forward Chadwick Boseman portrait. I can't be one hundred percent sure but to the right of the portrait is Boseman from Spike Lee's post Vietnam era drama Da Five Bloods. Now, aside from the photos posted here I do also have this short video of a less obstructed view of the mural, please share... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIUZ3nJgcHc&lc=UgybkkZlibid57GBLhR4AaABAg

 

Not to be totally out done by Seattle when it comes to public tributes to all things Black Panther and Chadwick Boseman here we have this awesome mural located in San Francisco's Bay View district. And like the one in Seattle I can't find anything online about for some weird and annoying reason.

 And when it comes to all things Black Panther here's a dire wraith reference published from the Skrull Secret Invasion story line. Turns out in their collective alien arrogance the skrulls seriously under estimated the Wakandan's and their king. I know this is open to interpretation but that would be cool if he was referencing the skirmish in ROM spaceknight 50 as opposed to a much older confrontation in this ancient alien family feud.

P.S. Wakanda Forever you skrull scum

Much like the skrulls in the above panel here we have Rick Jones lamenting his uncanny survival skills against hostile aliens which includes dire wraiths ofcourse. To the best of my knowledge this panel comes from Incredible HULK 341.  

April 16th Update: Thanks to this commission art by Keith Williams that was posted on Farcebook this morning we now at least have one good piece of ROM fan art for the month of April.

ROM spaceknight 48 spotted in the Star Wars tribute comedy FANBOYS

 It's currently a short list when it comes to known movies that ROM issues have been spotted in (Robocop, The Lost Boys, Explorers, Unbreakable and TRON the sequel) but it just got a bit longer now that I just saw Fan Boys (2009) for the first time today. Here's the scene  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_aAMNEqylU

On something of a side note here, this movie is actually pretty funny and has a great soundtrack.

But also there's some sad news today. Yaphet Kotto has done a lot of work in both films (The Running Man, Live & Let Die from the James Bond film series, Raid on Entebbe etc.) and TV through out his career but my favorite role with him will forever be Parker in the sci-fi horror classic ALIEN. Much to my surprise right after learning about Kotto's passing I also found out that he was Jewish. I also wanted to mention the passing of Christopher Plummer earlier this year who was another good actor with films to his credit like Dreamscape, Dolores Claiborne and Star Trek The Undiscovered Country. Rest in peace gentlemen.

March 23rd Update: Just by blind luck while screwing around on twitter tonight I discovered this seemingly unknown awesome commission ROM art by artist Armando Ramirez.

 https://twitter.com/MandoRam21

The return of Marvel's premier Israeli superhero

 So after several years of an absence of Sabra in The Marvel Universe it looks like she's gonna be showing up in an upcoming one shot issue due out in early May called Magneto and The Mutant Force. And I might add if you go by this cover art variant she'll be sporting her classic costume and be more ethnically sephardic in appearance. I have not bought a new comic book from Marvel in many many years because of how pissed I am about their handling of the ROM spaceknight legacy but I might have to make an exception here . . .we'll see. 

On something of a side note there's something else I've been meaning to say for a while now. Not too long ago during a random internet search for Sabra I came across some Sabra clip art that was lifted off this blog and used as anti-semitic propaganda on a notorious white nationalist website (which shall remain nameless here)  in regards to the tragic passing of Stan Lee. Ofcourse there's nothing I can do about people lifted images off this blog for whatever reason. But if any of you white nationalists pieces of shit come back here to this blog again I'm going to at least have the satisfaction of having a special message waiting for you...

Your lord and would be savior of a one term twice impeached and all around disgraced ex-president donald trump is not going to make a come back on March 4th. And if you're reading this after March 4th then know that trump is not going back again to defile The White House after Joe Biden's tenure. So all you cult of trump losers can take your anti-semitic, racist and Qanon bullshit and shove it up your collective "master race" asses.

Some really really well done ROM fan art done as a commission piece by Carlos Rodrigo. This kinda stuff really brings back good memories. I originally found this on Farcebook and it was really washed out in appearance due to it not being inked. So I brought it into photoshop for some quick digital enhancements to make it pop a bit with some contrast.

ROM Spaceknight 25 unpublished Al Milgrom cover variant colorized!

I've always wanted to see this cover variant in color so I recently went ahead and did it myself. There's a little bit of interesting history on this art work http://lkseitz.blogspot.com/2012/06/rom-25-cover-re-imagined-by-al-milgrom.html

 

So here's something my friend from Greece was working on back in 2020. Now when I saw it first which was a few days ago it basically just had Steve Rogers holding holding Old Glory with no real back ground to speak of. But to me right away the imagery felt like a statement on where America is right now, especially since the trump inspired insanity on January 6th. So I decided to go all in on that narrative and add The Capitol building in there. 

 Animated Gif version can be seen here...

 https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap/art/Captain-America-Gif-868842853

I can only assume that the vast majority of white nationals, Qanon zombies and other members of the cult of trump that laid siege on Capitol Hill on January 6th haven't read much in the way of Captain America. It's too bad because they could have learned a thing or two about what American idealism is all about. Truly the clip art here are words to live by.