Marvel Universe fan art trading cards by Greek artist Kapandais Nikolaos

It seems years of nagging my fellow artist and friend about trying out doing some sketch card fan art has finally paid off, and in a big way. He cranked out a bunch of these awesome kick ass business card sized fan art pieces over the course of just a couple weeks. You might say the ones you see above are the Bill Mantlo subset collection but there's many many more . . .

What I posted here are just a few samples, there's nearly a dozen in all check em out over at his deviant art gallery...

https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap/gallery

I was browsing at one of those over sized hard bound Marvel encyclopedia books a couple weeks ago when something occurred me when I was looking at Sabra's bio. Writers for comic books actually have a better grip on reality then leftist antisemites do. You see up there where it reads "BASE Jerusalem Israel"? One of the things antisemites love to ramble on about on social media is how Jerusalem is actually in "palestine". And that's despite "palestine" not being listed on virtually any geographic map or even on whatever GPS app that is on your phone. Ya see even within the fictional world of The Marvel Universe there are certain basic facts that are a reflection of the real world such as the existence of gravity or that the planet earth is round and not flat. Another basic fact, Jerusalem ISRAEL nuff said.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/sabra-ruth-batseraph-x-men--308707749468370811/

If you're any kind of Marvel 80s fan then you shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out the cover art this commission fan art piece by artist Carlos Franco is based on. 

August 9th Update: A big thanks to Eclectic Lee for the heads up on this dire wraith reference made in the pages of Avengers Annual 13 (1984). I love it when this kinda nostalgic 80s stuff turns up, it's right up there with the discovery of great new ROM related fan art. 

 

ROM and the spaceknights of Galador vs Ronan The Accuser epic cosmic throw down

Here's my latest 3 1/2 X 5 sketch card fan art after months of not feeling motivated to actually produce anything despite some of the ideas I've had rolling around in my head. Some of those ideas included a hypothetical encounter between ROM and Ronan the accuser and doing something (as a separate piece) with one of the most bad ass looking spaceknights ever, Gloriole. So I decided to just put it all together as one scene and later added Firefall which I thought was a nice touch. This would have been so awesome! Almost as much as Terrax The Tamer mixing it up with Galador's spaceknights in ROM 26 (thank you Bill and Sal!) when Galactus showed up to make Galador his latest meal. Just as Terrax was forced to contend with all those different spaceknight powers so to would Ronan in some other type of confrontation scenerio. Like I said it, would have been awesome.

The official handbook of the Marvel Universe #9 back in 1983 was actually my first introduction to the Ronan the accuser character. Quite literally over the decades I've seen him evolve from what basically was a Fantastic Four villain to a much more complex character and ultimately something of a anti-hero  in Marvel cosmic story like The Annihilation Wave and War of Kings.

1985

March 3rd Update: A little something interesting I found today in regards to some of Bill Mantlo's thoughts on the cancellation of the ROM series. Issue 66 was the official end of the Wraith War on Earth but the series went on for another 9 regular issues and 1 annual. As those of you who have read the series know the story concludes with a post apocalyptic situation on Galador in which a new generation of spaceknights went rogue and turned on the rest of the population in a "Skynet" kind of way.

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March 4th Update: I recently added another blockade runner to my growing rebel fleet. This one has more of a blue stripe color scheme and is with out the battle damage detailing.

Hayward CA

March 12th Update: Mondays suck as we all know. Finding these awesome Black Panther and Okoye PVC figures on my door step went a long way to getting over a case of the Mondays. And just for the record, even before I heard the unfortunate news about the Toys R Us chain closures I would have been happy to buy these at my local Toys R Us store had they carried them. That Hayward store has been around since the early 80s and I used to go to that Chucke Cheese as well back in the day when it was full of video games.

The good ol days of letter columns in your comics

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Last weekend I grabbed a copy of New Warriors 35 (1993) in a $1 box because it had a bunch of action with the Torpedo armor. While browsing through the letter column I found a cool letter I thought I'd share with you all along with this nicely done panel with Turbo and Nova. It's funny back when I was in my early teens I never really cared much for the letter column section of my comics. It always seemed like the letters mostly consisted of fan boys asking stupid behind the scenes questions about who's working with who and why did that guy stop working on that title and how they would like to see this n' that and so on. Now of course I see these letter columns with a different perspective  . . . at least some times hence this posting.

Art work by Bob Layton

April 9 update: What a nice surprise to come my way just when I thought I had scraped the bottom of the barrel for all the good ROM related fan art out there. Originally done by Bob Layton and later colored by Ian Sokoliwski this one has actually been around for about a year and a half but as far as I can tell has remained largely undiscovered.

April 11 update: Looks like I lucked out again last night I came across what as far as I know is the only Torpedo (Brock Jones) sketch card out there. Also, we'll have to wait till October but it looks like Twomorrows Publishing will have something in print for not just ROM fans but also for fans of late 70s and early 80s comics. Aside from the synopsis see if you can spot ROM on the cover
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1195

New fan art and a mention in SciFiNow magazine

A big thanks to Gary for finding the following on Instagram. When it comes to fan art for any characters we don't get to see much in the way of water colors unfortunately. This one comes to us from artist Vince Sunico nice job bro I especially dig how you did with Rom's eyes.

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Here's a nice sketch card by artist Mark Propst (a color version featured here later this week) that may have been inspired by the iconic 80s HULK rage face close up Bob Larkin. Mark has at least one other sketch card of Rom that could be something of a follow up to this one in terms of it's theme
http://iconosquare.com/p/757602894134377649_1018888070

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Hey Gary seems I've been doing some incidental curating as of late. This past weekend I happened to be up in Petaluma and while browsing at this book store I took a look at a July copy of a U.K. magazine called SciFiNow. I noticed an article in it called Cosmic Marvel from A-Z in which every letter of the alphabet headlined a short editorial of major characters ("J" for Rick Jones) and events in cosmic Marvel story lines in recent years. It's nice to find these Rom references in old school publications from the 80s and 90s but it's also nice to find them in recent stuff as well, as seen last year in GEEK magazine and with IDW's splash page.


Update: And speaking of IDW only hours after publishing this posting I came across yet another albeit rather unique ROM reference in the recent issue of Rogue Trooper but I'm saving that one for the next posting : )

The Delmar connection

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I know most of you have seen this already but it ties into a little research I've been doing lately in regards to Brock Jone's participation in the Marvel Universe outside of his appearances as The Torpedo. I found out it pretty much revolves around Delmar Insurance which is where former pro football star Brock worked prior to his move to Clairton with his family to take a job as the local high school's football coach as seen in Rom #21. But as most of you know Machine Man's alter ego as Aaron Stack also worked at Delmar Insurance which is what prompted me to add The Torpedo into this fictitious cover which I did as an after thought.
First off I found this appearance of Brock Jones in Marvel Team Up Annual #3 (1980) featuring Machine Man, The Hulk, Luke Cage and Iron Fist and Delmar insurance.

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Also, while doing some research on Machine Man back issues I discovered that Brock was mentioned at least a couple of times in the series and may have had a cameo once. I also learned that Brock had a sister who worked at Delmar which I think I kinda knew about already in the back of my mind. Turns out she was a pretty regular character in that series and had a serious thing for Aaron. Imagine what a surprise that would have been when the lights go out. You know how Machine Man always had these special attachments added to him right? So I'm sure "Aaron Stack" would have come up with just the right attachment for that occasion too. Aaron Stack, that's a good porn actor name but then again so is Brock Jones.

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Brock Jones as himself and as the Torpedo first appeared in the Rom series in issue #21 in which we find out he didn't move to Clairton just to take a new job but also to keep his family safe from The Rocketeers he battled in his Marvel Premiere issues. Unfortunately we also learn in Rom #21 that the Dire Wraiths had infiltrated Delmar and learned of Brock's change of address leading to an action packed issue #22 in which Rom and the Torpedo battled a squadron of these now Wraith Rocketeers.

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If you don't have Rom spaceknight #21 and #22 go here: http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/rom_21-22.shtml