Len Wein...and now Harry Dean Stanton

Bill Sienkiewicz

Ya know it's ironic that this tragic news about Len Wein's passing should come just over a week after I fished this issue of Comics Interview 32 out of a quarter box. Which as you may have guessed I grabbed because of The Swamp Thing article inside. Cheesy as the early 80s Wes Craven film was it seemed really cool to me at the time and it was actually my introduction to The Swamp Thing character. And then one day I saw an issue at a drug store some where and that would be the beginning of what was a pretty big Swamp Thing collection. I even had this Swamp Thing action figure at one point it was actually kinda cool it had this detachable hand with a line attached to it that pulls the hand like a fisherman's reel.
As for Wolverine, I was a fan long before it was hip to be a Wolverine fan in the 80s I collected every appearance I could find. Back then a Wolverine appearance in a non-X-Men title was always guaranteed to bump up it's value but I didn't care much about that I just wanted to read more Wolverine and seeing him interact with other Marvel super heroes from Captain America to Spider-Man and even ROM was beyond awesome. Ofcourse Wein's body of work went far beyond just co-creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine and I think it's nice to know all that will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

September 15th Update: So now we have it happen again this week. Another big name from our child hood as comic book and sci-fi fans has passed away. This time it was Harry Dean Stanton who died at 91. Stanton has had a long career on both the big screen and small spanning for decades. I knew him best as Brett from ALIEN and as Brain from Escape from New York. And don't forget about Stanton's brief appearance in the first Avengers film where he plays a security guard who finds Bruce Banner amid a mass of debris caused by him falling through the roof of an abandoned building while he was The Hulk.

My scathing letter to IDW found in ROM (in name only) issue 4

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Well you can all thank ROM curator Gary Martin Jr. for this weekend's blog posting. This letter page that Gary sent me is from a digital copy of "Rom the spacknight" issue 4. Gotta say I was pretty surprised IDW printed that one. Well I'll tell you this Mr. Ryall, I'll take the "knee high metal disco boots" over the anime style metal snow boots you came up with for your ROM in name only series. I think Ryalls reasoning for having ditched ROM's classic hardware was also bullshit. Prior to this letter being published I had several correspondences earlier this year with IDW by email in regards to my ROM re-design grievances. And each time their responses becameare more baffling I feel like we're really talking two different languages just as you see here with chris ryall's reply to my letter. I mean we might as well be a Clinton and Trump supporter debating political-ideological differences which as you can imagine would be as pointless as a tic tac toe game or a dog chasing it's own tail.
Have you seen the cover variants for that issue yet? Most of em look like shit, all these cover variants idw keep doing are the same thing over and over again do you think it would kill em to make a cover that's a reflection of the story inside the issue for a change? So now I have to deal with the dilemma of "to buy or not to buy" ROM in name only number 4. I vowed to never buy any of IDW's shit ever again after the shitty Micronauts #1 but I might have to make an exception for this issue given that it does have a letter from me giving me now a total of 4 different titles I've now had my letters published in.

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Also from Gary we've got some old school stuff. This here comes from a Comics Buyer's Guide special on HULK back issues complete with a price guide and brief review on all the issues it covered. The special also included an entry for Incredible Hulk 262 (dire wraith back story) but I'm just featuring the entry for 296 because this one has a been of interesting commentary. Gary also found some entries for X-Men 187 and 188 for an X-Men Comics Buyer's Guide Presents special. But the asshole who did those entry write ups was a real dick head with his smart ass remarks about how the dire wraiths were some kinda second rate villains and what not. I'm not posting his shit fuck him.

November 5 update: Buying a copy for the IDW Rom in name only series for me is a lot like casting a ballot in the 2016 presidential election. Most people don't want to do it but feel like they have to in order to keep the option they hate even more out of the Oval Office. In my case I don't want to give IDW any of my money but not having a copy of my letter might be a worse option then this one time only purchase. Figures my LCS (CRUSH COMICS) only had one of the shitty cover art variants in stock. Apparently the ROM in name only series is selling better then the shitty Micronauts reboot from IDW according to the owner of CRUSH.

November 6 update: This is why I like people who leave comments I basically had no idea the cover variant I picked up yesterday was done by Al Milgrom and was a homage piece to Iron Man 80. Although I think it worked much better on the Iron Man cover. And just for the record I'm not just beating up on Al I've also pooped on cover variants done by Sal Buscema and Michael Golden it just seems to me that these cover variants from IDW lately don't bring out the best in these iconic Marvel 80s artsists. Although I betcha if Milgrom had done this homage cover in the RTO (Rom the original) series it would have come out much better then this RINO crap (Rom in name only).

I can't think of a good posting title for today

I neglected to mention that the fan art I posted last week as well as what you see above was passed along to me from Gary Martin Jr. so you can all thank him for that. Tell me this cool sketch piece here doesn't remind you of Bill Sienkiewicz's style. Or maybe Berni Wrightson from the early Swamp Thing days? It's by a fellow by the name of Shamus Murphy and after a closer look I think it's an interpretation of the first page of issue 1 in which Rom emerges from the impact point of his arrival.  
I suspect this one may have been around for a while now but just largely unknown. This one here has been around in variant versions in black n' white which I've posted here before but it just recently turned up as a color painting it's quite excellent from in terms of use of color and figure composition . . .
 http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rom-Spaceknight-432394852

Did you know that the Starhawk character was co-created by Sal Buscema? Which gives me reason to believe he may have had a lot to do with the character's design which I've always thought was one of the coolest in Marvel since seeing him in a copy of  issue 10 (vol.1) of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I had back in the day. His entry was penciled by Al Milgrom who also did the cover art for numerous issues of the Rom series.
In spite of all that I've always found Starhawk's origins a bit convoluted apparently like Firestorm he's actually two people. Also, I've never been a big fan of The Guardians of The Galaxy both in regards to the original and the current group (so sue me). Still though, cool character design and great rendering by Milgrom.

P.S. I just started another brutal work schedule like I had last month. It's gonna last the rest of this week and possibly for most of February so I may not have much time for this internet stuff for a little while.

ROM original art on ebay coming out of the wood work lately

This is pretty cool. I don't know who the artist is but it has a Bill Sienkiewicz style to it that's for sure. I've been finding so much stuff on ebay lately for sale that I thought the matter deserved this impromptu posting this morning before I go back to bed. When you go to ebay type in the key word search field "Rom spaceknight original art" to pull up the listing of the latest stuff complete with thumbnail images of course. A lot of it isn't bad and it's all pretty reasonably priced for working stiffs like us.

The Rom fan art just floating around you probably didn't know about

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 For those of you who have been following this blog for a while now you know I don't like much the majority of the fan art that was created for the Bill Mantlo benefit auction. And it seems like the least best stuff has gotten the most saturation on the internet over the years. The best example of that is the Sal Buscema at the top left there on the wall at Floating World Comics. As I posted before I know none of you had seen it before I featured it here earlier this year: http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2012/06/end-of-june-rom-fan-art-sightings-sal.html

The bottom left piece has been around a lot and I think it's pretty good even though I felt Rom's head needed a bit more work. But I don't like the piece next to it at all and that one turns up a lot too all the time on the net. The top middle one gets points for over all style and design but I would have really liked to have seen Rom drawn better. But the top right one is pretty sweet yet when have you ever seen it before?

Then there's the bottom right piece which I've seen a million times now on the internet as just a black n' white line drawing. I wouldn't have even known it existed as a color version were it not for this wall art I did a screen shot of. I like it so much better in color especially when it comes to the details like on the Wonder Bread which is pretty much iconic packaging art these days. I can't even remember the last time I saw that in recent years at the grocery store but I sure remember it from back in the day.

Here's something I've been sitting on for quite a while now. Over the years ROM cover art has had the benefit of some really great talent like Michael Golden and Mike Zeck. But arguably non have been quite as stylish as the covers done by Bill Sienkiewicz. This particular piece is something of a mixed bag for me of likes and dislikes. Any of you out there got an opinion about it?