ROM & Wonder Man team up sketch card

So in recent weeks I've been able to make it to a couple of comic shops not too far from me that have a pretty extensive collection of back issue discount boxes. A couple issues really stood out to me let's start with Wonder Man 1 (1986). Aside from the Kerry Gammill pencils and the Bill Seinkiewicz cover art what also made this issue cool was that it showed a very every day people side to the Wonder Man (aka Simon Williams) character we can all relate to. Struggling to manage his not so successful career as an actor with being a full time Avenger he finds even a cab ride is a luxury he can hardly afford. No Uber back in the 80s, too bad.

As I was reading this issue it occurred to me that Wonder Man was one of the many Marvel superheroes who appeared in ROM 65 sporting his signature leisure suite style costume. So all that combined with a nice and relaxing weekend made me feel like doing some art work and I thought it might be nice to do a sketch card for a change.

Avengers 226 letter column

I also picked up Avengers 226. Truth be told I haven't read the issue yet but based on some browsing I've done in it already it doesn't look like it has much going for it story wise. But the issue's letter column is another matter as you can see here. And check out the name of the dude who wrote this letter!

Avengers 221  Left click to enlarge

Can't believe no one else has ever noticed this 1983 easter egg yet

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This past weekend I went to a toy and comics collectibles show in San Jose where I grabbed a certain back issue from a $1 box. Not that it's all that hard to figure out what comic it was but for now I'll just not disclose that information. This is the first of a two page spread I was browsing through in which I was hoping to find Bill Mantlo or Sal Buscema in it. No luck there but on page one I did happen to catch something equally as blog worthy. I dunno if I'm the first ROM fan to ever catch this or if other fans out there never happened to mention it but there it is. Hopefully you've got a nice big monitor to look at this with.

ROM vs The Brood, the full picture

So here it is, the completed ROM vs The Brood sketch art. Didn't think I'd get to it this soon a couple of weeks ago the idea of finishing this felt like such a chore. But sometimes when the time is right what felt like a drag before becomes a slam dunk.

And continuing the ROM cover easter eggs on the big screen from the last posting here's the first time I've ever come across a Robocop review video on youtube that calls out the various ROM covers (as well as a copy of Iron Man) spotted during the liquor store hold up scene which we see at the 2:50 mark . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqU9fhsxoQ

ROM spaceknight vs The Brood

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This actually isn't finished it's a horizontal drawing. But I just don't have the time right now to finish this Sunday afternoon sketch today because as it is I should have used this time to get some studying done and or get to my fucken taxes. With everything that's going on right now I just needed a mental break and sometimes putting pen or pencil to paper does the trick. Nothing new or exciting since my last posting as far as ROM related stuff goes. None of the fan art I've seen had me saying "wow" to myself and even though some new videos have turned up it's nothing we haven't heard or seen before. They were a lot of the  . . "ROM was a Parker Brothers doll . . . the comic outlasted the toy (insert commonly found clip). . . Marvel lost the rights to the character (insert more commonly found clip) . . .and  . . huh . . zzzzzzzz..zzzzz . .zzzzz".

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Feb. 25th update: Big thanks to Gary Martin Jr. who sent me these screen shots and the following quote today . . .
"The Oscar has been awarded, the Blu-ray released, and we now have our best look at The Torpedo's treatment in the movie Big Hero 6.  While they couldn't give us a closeup on the display suit's helmet, I was surprised to notice on the latest viewing that ROM-related back story comic Marvel Premiere #39 appears prominently!"

On a side note I wanted to remind you all that the cover of ROM spaceknight 26 makes a brief appearance in an opening scene in Tron Legacy. Just this past Valentines Day Weekend I was in Santa Cruz and visited the comic shop from a scene in The Lost Boys where we catch a glimpse of ROM Annual 2.

Lost Boys comic shop scene at the 53 second mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZynRcyXIGKM
TRON Legacy opening scene at the 20 second mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEndyAOpI8A

Fan art that's worth a second look and The Torpedo's movie debut . . sort of

Yesterday this guy over at deviant art left a comment under one of my recent submissions about how cool a Deathlock vs ROM match up would be. Although it seems like the prevailing cybernetic throw down among comic book fans would be between Deathlock and The Teen Titan's Cyborg. Anyways, that got me thinking of this sketch art that was on deviant art for a while there but as far as I can tell it seems to be gone now. Fortunately I knew another source where I could procure this art work.

I think in the past I've resisted posting this because of the unfinished nature of this work. But in spite of that you can tell whoever did this has some serious illustration skills he/she hits all the major points: figure composition, perspective, foreshorting and shadowing it's a real pity they never finished this. If I recall correctly from when this art work was still on deviant art the other fellow in this sketch is Morbius The Living Vampire. I have no idea if this art work is still any where on social media but I'm going to also give it a home here where fans can see it.

So early yesterday morning I got an enthusiastic email from my good buddy Gary Martin Jr. (perhaps you've heard of him?) that included some screen shots taken from youtube videos of scenes from a Disney movie (Big Hero 6) he had just taken his family to recently. As you can see, someone who was involved in the making of this movie seemed to be really intent on showcasing a number of lesser known Marvel characters along with The Torpedo we can also see Orca, Black Talon and Sleepwalker. Although not seen in these screen shots Gary assures us that the actual movie scene does feature several seconds of a more full body view of The Torpedo. Good ol Brock Jones, gone but not entirely forgotten it would seem.

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Nov. 16 Update: Speaking of Easter Eggs, most of you know about ROM being scene briefly in that god awful ill fated Silver Surfer cartoon (episode 5) back in the 90s right? Well thanks to the wonders of modern technology (photoshop) we can now have ourselves a ROM easter egg in a good Saturday morning cartoon from marvel . . .
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Spiderman-and-his-Amazing-Friends-with-ROM-494916285