Nichelle Nichols passes away at 89 but leaves a legacy for the ages

I had just completed putting this posting together prior to the sad news about Nichelle Nichols having passed away so for this posting I'm going to lead with her. I've been a Star Trek fan for pretty much all my life although my interest in Star Trek came on a bit more gradually and a bit later in my adolescence then in the case of Star Wars. I know that given the age of the original cast members that this sort of news shouldn't come as a huge surprise but it still feels like a punch bellow the waist.

Did you know that after season 1 of the original series that Nichols considered leaving the show despite Gene Roddenberry begging her to stay? Apparently it was Martin Luther King who ultimately convinced her to stay on the show. It can't be understated enough how much of a pioneer Nichelle Nichols has been in the history of America's civil rights movement with everything from the first interacial kiss on TV to her efforts for creating more diversity at NASA. She was 89, so when you think of all she achieved both professionally and personally you have to take into account what was going on in America in her life time as a black woman. A beautiful human being both inside and out, Nichelle Nichols leaves an amazing legacy for not just Star Trek fans but also for great achievements off screen to. 

 

 

 

Well the last posting featured fan made cover variant so why not one more to open up this posting to? This was originally a black n' white sketch card https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap/art/Micronauts-sketch-card-922465755

But I felt it had potential to be something more so I colored it and added the other necessary embellishments to give it that Marvel 80s touch.

 

Here's my latest envelope fan art. This one has an 80s properties or what might be today a "Hasbroverse" kinda theme to it. I think the "Hasbroverse" concept works better as envelope fan art then it does as an actual story line we all remember what a train wreck that was with IDW.

No photoshop nonesense going on here. The Godzilla prop on top of that high rise and the full size Gundamn robot are both quite real. A friend of mine is on an extended stay in Japan right now and he's been sending me some fantastic photos in recent weeks. Some have to do with all things in Japan that are related to the comic book/sci-fi/fantasy genre. Of those, I wanted to share these two in particular because this stuff is awesome and you'll only find in Japan. Those must have been a Hell of a sight to see in person.

 

 Just on a whim today I decided to revisit a fan art piece that I did 11 years ago although it doesn't feel like it was that long ago. I was always happy with how Ikon came out from a figure composition stand point but I kinda lost my focus with the other elements in the sketch piece and as a result it never did look quite right to me plus it also felt like it was missing something to. you can see the original here romspaceknightart.blogspot.com

IKON was Marvel's attempt to fill the Greatest of The Spaceknights void. And at times there was some promising moments as we saw IKON team up with cosmic powerhouses like Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Quasar, Silver Surfer and Ronin. We even at one point got to see her lead a task force of classic spaceknights giving us a bit of the old Mantlo magic from the original series. But that was very short lived and Marvel true to form fucked it all up with her apparent untimely demise along with Galador. We would see a couple brief unexplained appearances not long after that and then that was it. Haven't seen her since 2014 so fuck you very much Marvel Comics. And don't think I forgot about you also IDW with your shitty ROM and Micronauts reboot fails you fucken suck also.

 

 

WELL SAID!

ROM Spaceknght 50 tribute fan art

 

This piece is a combination of what is mostly black n white art work borrowed from 4 different artists and arranged together and colored in photoshop. The Torpedo is by Anderson Mendes, ROM is by Steve Butler, Starshine is by Kapandais Nikolaos and the Dire Wraith and Skrulls are by me. 

 

As you can see by the signature this Ron Joseph piece was done 7 years ago and although I've posted Ron's stuff here in the past I never posted this one for reasons I can't explain. Well, I'm gonna correct that little oversight right now.  

Here's another one that's been around for years now but I never posted it before for whatever reason. But I think it deserves a second look obviously. The scene here between ROM, Firefall and The X-Men's Dark Phoenix certainly suggests an interesting story going on here. Would have been nice to get artist Scott Reed's take on his inspiration for this piece.

Here's some more stuff from Ron Joseph with some embellishments from me again. In this case I added ROM to this scene of The Soviet Super Soldiers trying to take down The Hulk and added a little bit of depth with some shading effects. Check out the original source material from Joseph at these links...

 https://www.deviantart.com/ronjoseph-artist/art/THE-HULK-vs-the-SOVIET-SUPER-SOLDIERS-11x17-888596989

https://www.deviantart.com/ronjoseph-artist/art/ROM-vs-THE-HERCULOIDS-pencils-pg02-544320560

 

Here's some unpublished Michael Golden Micronauts art I came across last year. It would make for a nice coloring project. albeit a bit a labor intensive and time consuming one.

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.

Heart Attack! Rom spaceknight 12 re-covered

This commission fan art piece just recently showed up on the internet today. Nicely done I must say! I like fan art that takes some imagination even if it's just about creating a different way to visualize a scene. There's something a little more to it then just ROM by himself flying in space or on an action pose I'm so burnt out on that shit it's like how many times can you re-invent the wheel? Not to mention that the artist here (Kevin Sharpe) really knows how to draw people this doesn't look amateurish at all. Also awesome is that this is classic ROM not IDW R.I.N.O. Now you might be saying to yourself you'd like to see this in color but I for one like it just fine in black n' white I was never a big fan of the original Jack of Hearts costume.

SOLD

At first I was gonna update the previous posting to let any other would be interested parties know that the Onyx mini-series has been sold but then I decided to just replace the previous posting since a sale announcement posting serves no real entertainment or archival purpose. But to those of you who caught it as I said I would probably include some envelope art in the deal. Oh indeed it's such a better deal then what was being offered up at ebay and it happened with only the 2nd interested party here only the first inquirer  turned out to be a flake.

Nothing new to talk about or share here and I suspect their won't be until around FCBD. I've seen on twitter and facebook how people are just sucking up to IDW about the new series with the usual base compliments and "likes" it's like nobody dares post anything negative any where where Chris Ryall might see it. I know for a fact that most everybody is not happy with the new look for ROM rather you hate it or just think it needs some more work. I Also know many of you have been waiting for this for a long time so don't you owe it to your self to take a few minutes and let IDW know what's on your mind instead of just passively watching them  . . . do what it is they're doing like a deer in headlights? Well I certainly have, although I'm not holding my breath for IDW to ever print that letter.

letters@idwpublishing.com

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February 10th Update:  WRITING WORKS!!! I will have you all know that I just copied and pasted Joseph's comment with the facebook replies into an email and fired it off to IDW and got a pretty prompt response. Out of respect for confidentiality I won't make their response public but I can assure you all that IDW is aware of the public criticism of the new look for ROM but seem to be "bewildered" about it. The correspondence actually went on as I'm writing this update which is around 11 AM pacific time. They even refereed to the manga style armor of the Jim Starlin 2001 spaceknights mini-series as rationale for this new look for ROM. I even told em straight up just go with what you guys had on the cover and how we were all happy with that and the collective WTF through out the internet when we saw the inside pages. Folks, it's clear to me IDW just doesn't get it and we're going down the Star Wars pre-quel path here with George Lucas. At what point did it make good marketing sense in the field of creative arts to not listen to the fans? For fuck's sake if you care anything for The Greatest of the spaceknights and the legacy of Bill Mantlo & Sal Buscema's creation email IDW now! Or hit em up on twitter and farcebook, it may be all for nothing but ask your self . . . what would ROM do?

Rom on roids cover variant by Michael Golden

Update February 13th: Thank you to Brian W. for bringing this to my attention today (see today's comments). It's nice to see an old school ROM cover artist back at it again although to be honest this isn't some of the best work from him I've ever seen especially if you compare it to the ROM covers he did in the 80s. All of which I love ofcourse but may favorite I think is issue 18 with ROM and The X-Men fighting Hybrid. Notice how the armor design here is more a reflection of the zero issue art cover as opposed to the interior? Don't know if that's what Rom's neutrilizer is gonna look like even though we don't get a really good look at it here. I hope IDW doesn't foul that up to and come up with something radically different looking not to mention that cool looking straight line stream of crimson energy that the neutrilizer discharged. If you're in the mood to see a some old school Mantlo/Golden era fan art check out what I found today over at deviant art . . .
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rom-VS-Acroyer-587533905

Update February 14th: Now that's more the kind of ROM I want to see. I lifted this image off of the latest Hasbro cinematic multiverse online chatter this morning. I'm not gonna get into all that but I just really like this illustration ROM looks so fucken slick not all "beefed up" and clumsy looking like that Michael Golden variant. Like I said before the minor but noticeable changes IDW had for him at first were fine with me but they just went way too far.

The giant sized Micronauts ROM cross over annual that never was

A big thanks to Gary for giving me a heads up about this commission piece by Brian Douglas Ahern for what I would assume is for a big time ROM and Micronauts fan. Most long time ROM fans will recognize the guy who's menacing the Micronauts as marvel's first evil spaceknight, Mentus. I like the creative aspect of this as a concept (taken from Micronauts 8) although I do have one little bit of criticism as far as the art work goes. I think the inking on ROM and The Micronauts is a bit too lite they lack depth but this is other wise a solid piece. There's also an interior page to go with this cover concept to help give it a bit more context  . . .
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1258857&GSub=104286

Sept. 24th Update: Also just in from Gary who found this in the October issue of PREVIEWS comic book catalog magazine. Some of you may remember Christos Gage as the writer of the ill conceived 3 issue Hybrid return story arc from Avengers Academy a few years back. Well at least his heart was in the right place because he is something of a ROM fan. Plus we've seen this sort of thing before among marvel writers who like ROM like Abnett & Landing (The Annihilators) and Johnathan Hickman (Infinity).

Rom spaceknight 32

BIG WOW Comic Con San Jose CA. 2015

So just this past weekend I went to the BIG WOW Comic Con in San Jose which I've gone to for the past 2 years (not counting this year's) now. Off hand it was cool this year for me because this time I was able to go sporting the ROM t-shirt I ordered from Redbubble last Fall. I had a few random people through out the day there give me my props when they saw it . . .
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2014/09/gods-of-galador-my-new-rom-t-shirt-fits.html
Ironically I didn't get a chance to take a close look at the official convention program book until just this afternoon when I noticed something under the artist guest list I didn't catch in the previous years. That's pretty cool that among the huge breadth of work Golden has had over the decades that ROM and The Micronauts was included on this short list of art credits. Same goes for The She-Hulk as far as I know like with ROM he only ever did some of the cover art for that title too.

Left click to enlarge

April 23 Update: In keeping with the local theme of this posting I decided to do something with ROM in another S.F. Bay Area city. But don't forget part of the story from ROM #48 (see August 12, 2012 posting) actually takes place in San Francisco so in a way this is something of a tribute piece to that issue.

April 26 Update: Ok one last thing before we close out this month. Last night I was doodling while in a  "fuck marvel - hasbro" kinda mood and it actually started to come out as a pretty good sketch. It makes me feel better when I just some times don't have the words or don't want to repeat myself.

Screw basketball this is Man-Thing Madness

Well I've got this temporary lull in my schedule and I decided to enjoy some of my down time with one of my favorite leisure activities which is to draw. I had this story idea for a while now in which The Dire Wraiths possess The Man-Thing in order to create some sort of mayhem in the their latest scheme against humanity. Discovering their, plot ROM shows up to save the day by breaking their spell which in turn have the dire wraiths running scared because now they've not only lost control of the Man-Thing but also have their greatest enemy on the scene. But it isn't ROM that does them in because as you all should know Whatever knows fear burns at the touch of The Man-Thing!
On a side note here if you want to read a some what cheesy but entertaining Man-Thing related story from the bronze age of comics written by Bill Mantlo I recommend Marvel Premier 28
http://bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com/2011/10/legion-of-mediocrity-marvel-premiere-28.html

Awesome 70s & 80s Man-Thing appearance cover art by Michael Golden

That's gonna pretty much do it for March it's been another much to do about nothing month in regards to all things ROM related as far as any news or any cool fan art and what not. It's not to say no new fan art has appeared this month but it just hasn't been the sort of thing I want to post on this blog any more. Some new fan art has turned up this month but of that new art work here's the most recent piece which happens to be by someone who's got some serious illustration skills but unfortunately didn't put much imagination into their ROM fan art  . . .
http://iszyiszard.deviantart.com/art/Romspaceknight-522296953

Cool late 70s Marvel house ad and new bullshit from Marvel to kick off 2014

Oh talk about a cool blast from the past I found this full page house ad in Avengers # 177 which also happens to be a great action packed issue ( November 1978). Here's the TV commercial for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMYl_oygRU So the deal here is if you send in some sort of proof of purchase from the packaging of a Micronauts Battle Cruiser you can get two free Marvel Comics. This was a good way of getting kids who were into The Micronauts toy line also interested in Marvel Comics assuming they weren't already which had obvious marketing benefits given that Micronauts #1 debuted January of 1979. To no surprise this was the last paragraph that appears in the Bullpen Bulletin page of that very same Avengers issue.

Alright so that was Marvel Comics back then, let's take a look at the here and now which I couldn't be less enthusiastic about.

Left click to enlarge

Well, marvel does it again. Apparently Hybrid makes a brief appearance in the first issue of the New Warriors series. As you can see he and the current Nova are having a skirmish in what appears to be some sort of govt. building in new Mexico. Needless to say we get no explanation about anything here like . . . oh let's say how Hybrid is back after having gotten blasted back to Limbo again a couple years ago in Avengers Academy. Marvel has pretty much made Hybrid into some kind of WWF fall guy now like that no name wrestler who always loses to the popular one every body roots for. We can all thank Gary Martin Jr. for taking another one for the team cuz I sure as fuck don't buy new stuff from marvel any more.

OK THIS ALSO REALLY PISSES ME OFF! I just found out that Bill Mantlo doesn't own any portion of the rights to the current White Tiger character apparently because that character is now a woman. But keep in mind the new White Tiger is actually the daughter of the original and wears pretty much the same costume and mystic amulets. Now also keep in mind that permission to conceive or use this new White Tiger was never obtained by marvel from Michael Mantlo who is Bill's legal guardian. And marvel has been using that character in both print and in it's TV cartoons for at least a couple years now if not longer. Now considering how marvel won't use the name ROM or even have Rom appear in human form you gotta ask yourself what the fuck is going on with those assholes who run marvel comics these days!?

Group hug everybody, let's enjoy some good art we can all agree on

So I think it's safe to say we've talked the Dikto controversy to death by now so I'd like to lay the matter to rest and get back to talking about something we all enjoy. I love this splash page from Rom 43. Just take a few seconds to look over the details of the scene. Just as Quasimodo marvels at how Rom's armor is a combination of living cells and circuitry so do we marvel at the combination of Sal Buscema's pencils with Akin & Garvey's inking embellishments.

Doesn't that splash page remind you a lot of this scene from an early issue of the Micronauts? Another great panel with lots of cool details both issues were written by Bill Mantlo but this came a few years before Rom 43. Damn, Karza looks bad ass here like Darkseid, Darth Vader and Doctor Doom all rolled into one. And no one ever rendered him better then Michael Golden although I must say Jackson Guice also did a pretty damn good job too. Hey, take a few seconds to check out who else does a good Karza  Phillips http://dannphillips.deviantart.com/art/Baron-Karza-197054493

Speaking of cool art having to do with all things Rom and The Micronauts I wanna give a shout out to Dann Phillips. It's very rare that any of the artists who's stuff I feature here ever come by and say hi much less actually join in on the conversations. Especially conversations as "lively" as the recent Dikto debate. For those of you out there who are smart enough to not be on farcebook don't worry you can always see Dann's latest work at his deviant art gallery. 

Thumbnail preview

And let us all rejoice that indeed there is something new to behold in Dann's gallery that was only uploaded a couple hours before I published this posting! Now there's also another piece of fan art in Dann's gallery which was added fairly recently and it features Black Bolt from the Inhumans fighting a collection of Marvel villains including The Abomination. In it there is something of a Rom related Easter Egg let's see if you can spot it. 

http://dannphillips.deviantart.com/gallery/

The emperor's new clothes

Let's open up this posting with a big happy 78th birthday to Sal Buscema! Can't say enough good things about this guy's work other then that it is timeless it would look as impressive in today's comics as it did 20 or 30 years ago as seen here in this clip art from ROM 24 and his ROM/Mars Attacks bonus pin up page from IDW last year. Blasting away with his neutrilizer while simultaneously bitch slapping skrulls and chocking the shit out of Martians now that's just bad ass all the way.

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Speaking of artists from Marvel Comics in the 1980s . . . .

When it comes to Steve Dikto's work in the 80s and 90s it's like the Emperor's new clothes. That is to say that no matter how lame the emperor's new clothes are because it's the emperor the people around him will always say he looks great. Now at least I got you all to admit (albeit begrudgingly) that Dikto's run on Rom was far inferior to Buscema's but there's always a bullshit caveat that comes with that admission like "but I'm still glad he worked on the book" or "but I still liked it".

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Ya know what I say about that? That's fucken BULLSHIT because if that same art work was attached to any other name other then Steve Dikto and you were taking it at face value none of you would have any problem saying straight up this sucks and we both know it.
But hey, why should I have all the fun here? One of my favorite videos from The King of Thessaly (K.o.T) actually has a review of a Speedball issue (at 6:50 into the video) written and drawn by Steve Dikto. May the Gods of Galador smile upon you bro for this one I miss your vids. Aside from that how can you not love a guy who stores his _____ in a tin adorned with anti-drug super heroes like Cloak & Dagger?

Bill Mantlo, more custom figures, more new fan art, just more all around cool shit

I found this photo of the Rom doll and it's Marvel house ad and it really reminded me of my days working as a  graphic designer in advertising because it looked like he was proof reading his ad. So I came up with what I thought was a funny dialogue bubble to go with the image. And don't forget Avengers Prelude to Infinity #17 comes out this up coming Wednesday let's hope we'll get to see what happens next with Galador and it's spaceknight guardians. You can bet I'll be talking about it here.

And as you can see we've got a new custom figure to show off, a dreaded Dark Nebula Hellhound. As for that Starshine II spaceknight (Brandy Clark) custom figure I've featured it here before but from a different angle. Light beams compliments of some of my handy dandy photoshop magic of course. By the way here's the best Rom custom I've ever seen I would love to get my hands on one of em: http://www.toyark.com/spaceknight-galador-4322/

Literally only minutes before I was about to publish this posting I came across another page for that Bill Mantlo benefit Rom spaceknight #1 re-creation project. Of the three pages I've found now, this one by far is the best yet not only can this guy draw like a pro but I personally really dig his style. Go ahead and check out the rest of the page here: http://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-Spaceknight-389369223

I want to make a very good point about what made the original Micronauts series (especially the "Golden era") so awesome and why the idea of it's legacy getting turned into some kind of  "happy meal" cartoon (see previous post) makes my skin crawl. If you haven't read issue #5 of The Micronauts please take a moment to read this page it's a real eye opener . . .

Just think, this was written in 1979 and look what it was dealing with. You have some socially significant commentary being made here about everything from people living under fascistic governments to religion and even class warfare. Just look at what's going on right now in countries like North Korea and Egypt or even right here in America with our own social and economic ills. For those who might continue the Micronaut legacy either do it right or don't fucken do it at all there's already enough Ben 10 bullshit kind of cartoons out there to "dumbify" today's kids. And now, for the lighter side of life . . . .

In part 4 of The King of Thessaly's Flea Market finds we get to find out more then we ever wanted to know about what goes on under Cloak's cloak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZiyx7N4Kk

Marvel 80s house ads & promos with ROM appearances part 2 of 3

Sometimes I like to think that perhaps on another Earth in a parallel universe Steve Dikto had never taken over as the pencilar on Rom.  Maybe Sal Buscema was the pencilar for the entire 75 issue run. Or perhaps another pencilar had taken over like Mike Zeck, Michael Golden or John Byrne. Oh well at least there's always photoshop to help with a pleasant fantasy even though it flys in the face of reality.

Part 3 will have some actual house ads & promos again I promise.