ROM spaceknight issue #22 commemorative fan art ( I really miss the 80s! )

I finally got around to  getting done the fan art that's been foremost in my collection of ideas for the past couple months.

Number 22 (1981) was the first ROM issue I ever had and in effect it started a chain reaction of fandom with me from the early 80s to today. So it seems this commemorative fan art is a good foot note to end things here. Yeah that's right, in my never ending quest to curb my time on the internet and lead a more productive life in the real world (mainly for more sleep and exercise in my schedule) I've decided to suspend writing any more of these time consuming postings indefinitely. It's no big deal I'll still be sharing all cool ROM related things with those of you I correspond with through other means outside of this blog such as on deviant art and by email, but I still don't do farcebook.

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But let me leave you with some of the cool stuff I saw last weekend while I was in Alameda for an afternoon. By the way that's the same city I ran into that guy who had the cool Nova t-shirt earlier this summer. Anyways, first up I took a photo of this cool new Star Wars window display at Toy Safari which as you can see carry's among other things vintage sci-fi and comic book based toys from the 80s.

I bet you forgot about this one : )

Only a couple retail spaces down was this new place called High Scores Arcade which is a video game arcade that features exclusively old school games from  . . . . yep you guessed it the 80s! You can get a look at the inside of the place here  http://www.highscoresarcade.com/games.html

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?

Step into the NOVA Year with some SABRA

I'm going to open up the New Year with something of a recap. I get the distinct impression that no one bothered to check out the Marvel Age 89 link to the Fred Hembeck two page spread for the Nova chronology a couple postings ago. That's a shame because when I read it I discovered some interesting things I probably should have known already.
Did you know that the original Nova series only lasted for 25 issues? Hard to believe considering the character's popularity today. It also puts things in perspective with Rom who's series lasted for 75 issues. The story line in Nova 25 (damn! I used to have that issue) didn't end with that issue but was actually continued in the pages of The Fantastic 4 and about a year and half later Richard Rider's adventures as Nova would come to an end (for the time being) in Rom 24 as you all know.

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Hat tip to Rick Hansen for sharing this with me. At first I wondered if this was some kind of photoshop none sense but after taking a closer look I'm more inclined to believe this is legit. No other information on this unfortunately.
 

Here we have Sabra rockin the Jew fro look. Along with Misty Knight, Sabra is the only other heroine in the Marvel Universe who can make that style look good. The posting I found this cool fan art at was a fun read. The artist isn't that familiar with the Sabra character apparently but was never the less inspired to draw her anyways because of all the Bill Mantlo related stuff I'm always posting on this blog. What you see here is probably the easiest digital coloring job I've ever done but of course you can see the original line art at the posting link below. This is a good example of the sort of art work that's easy to color unlike that Torpedo piece I did a few postings ago.
http://kimoyancey.blogspot.com/search?q=rom+

Behold, The King of Thessaly (K.o.T) has returned. On your knees dog!

What's up with What If?

I remember a couple of years ago I had this friend and fellow comic book nerd from my high school days asked what could I possibly have to blog about every week given that the series ended back in 85? The fool :) I explained it as best as I could at the time to him.  But you guys who come here get to find out right away about most of the coolest shit out there rather it be Rom turning up in an article for a recent publication (Geek mag.), some undiscovered clip art from back in the day (New Warriors Annual #1), a cool Marvel rap video paying tribute to fans calling for the return of Rom or the latest art work that kicks ass. A big thanks to all of you who have contributed to these postings lately you guys have provided some awesome blogging material.
Speaking of which, here's my latest coloring job of a commission piece that was done by Ian Akin from the dynamic inking duo Akin & Garvey. There's only one thing that always bothered me about this other wise kick ass work of art. The right leg is too short, it never looked quite right to me so I made a cropped version which I colored. You can see the original here  http://www.akinandgarvey.com/commissions/index.htm#
just look for the thumb nail button on the left.
 
If you're noticing any difference in this posting today from the day before when I published it that's because Rom curator Gary Martin Jr. informed me of an over site. In other words I fucked up, indeed there was a not one but two cameo flash back panels in the Nova back story of What If #36 volume1 (1982). Oh and it gets better I actually used to have this issue but don't ask me how the fuck I managed to fucken forget about these fucken panels.

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And of course as I mentioned before the Dire Wraiths would show up as part of some parallel universe  story line years later in What If #39 volume 2.

And as i mentioned in the beginning of this posting how cool Rom related things are turning up on a weekly basis here's the latest. So I'm going to make yet another edit today with Chris's latest custom spaceknight figure, Javelin.

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Eagle Moss Publications not afarid to print ROM

Hat tip to Gary Martin Jr. for picking up all this stuff on ebay for me to present here. "Eaglemoss Publications Ltd" is a London based company that licensed characters from Marvel, DC, & other entertainment to produce all kinds of merchandise mainly for their market in the UK.  Customers there could subscribe to a series of lead figurines packaged with magazines that were delivered every two weeks, and they'd get other special items like t-shirts & calendars, too.  Eaglemoss also translated their magazines into many languages other than English & exported them to a number of countries.  For some reason United States buyers were prohibited from subscribing directly from Eaglemoss, but Diamond Distributors made the items available for sale through comic shops in the United States.

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So first off you see here some snippets of clip art from the Rogue one-shot magazine. As you can see they reprinted the cover art for Rom #31 and also mention him by name. Many of you will recognize the scene from Rom #32 that the clip refers to in which Rogue attempts to absorb Rom's powers.

Rom spaceknight #32

And I guess you can say in this panel here are her after thoughts on what ended up being a vulcan mind meld as opposed to the usual power and memory siphoning that results when Rogue kisses her adversaries. I guess you can say Rom's plandanium armor is a chick magnet of sorts clearly Rogue is taken with Rom as far as what kind of person he is on the "inside".

Obviously this clip art goes to the magazine that comes with the NOVA figurine. Keep in mind that this magazine series from Eagle Moss was published within the last few years. As for any licensing issues to the Rom name and likeness you're guess is as good as mine why it wasn't an issue. It should also be noted that other issues such as for Galactus, Forge and The Skrulls make text mentions of Rom and The Dire Wraiths. But regardless of the how or the why I give Eagle Moss Publications some major props for including Rom and The Dire Wraith's role in the histories of these character and alien species profiles.

And by the way it looks like another page (#12) from that ROM #1 remix project has turned up. I don't mean to be a dick here and wish I could sound more optimistic but the more I see of  this project the less enthusiastic I get about it http://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-Spaceknight-Jam-Page-Inks-400065563

This is an update to this posting with something that turned up on deviant art just a day ago: http://www.deviantart.com/#/art/ROM-Spaceknight-400875215?hf=1