A salute to John McCain spaceknight

   Like so many other people all over America yesterday I was shocked when I heard the news about McCain's passing yesterday I just didn't see it coming this soon after his decision to stop his cancer treatment. John McCain was on my short list of republican politicians I actually respected although it's not like my list of dems that I respect is all that long either. And when I woke up this morning it occurred to me that John McCain and the ROM spaceknight character actually had a lot in common. Just look at the obvious similarities.
   Both were soldiers who understood the meaning of sacrifice and lived by a code based on honor. They were very empathetic toward others and felt conflicted at times when they did not feel like they were living up to the ideals they espoused to. And they both fought for something bigger then themselves and almost always put what they fought for first before anything else including self interests. In short, they both embodied everything that donald trump is lacking as a human being and as a president. Case and point, here's a typical trump supporter from the white nationalist rally in DC a couple weeks ago. So fucken stupid!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0nKDW69UBA
   McCain's death is made even more tragic seeing as it happened on the heels of another larger then life iconic American taken from us, Aretha Franklin. Other notable deaths this year so far I think are worth mentioning here would be Barbara Bush, Anthony Bourdain, Margot Kidder and Harlan Ellison. All these people have either done some work that I liked and or were just celebrities I remember growing up with. If you're a life long science fiction fan as I am then I bet at one time or another you've either watched something or read something that Harlan Ellison had some part in writing or producing. Issue 286 of The Incredible Hulk written by Bill Mantlo and penciled by Sal Buscema was loosely based on a time travel episode written by Ellison (Soldier) for the classic Outer Limits TV series. It turned into a bit of a copy right infringement matter but was quickly and easily settled out of court between Marvel and Ellison. I talked about this before on this blog actually back in 2013. Where does all the time go? Pun intended.
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2013/10/bill-mantlo-vs-jim-shooter.html

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Aug. 29 Update: As something of a follow up to the previous posting about racial matters that Marvel Comics has tackled over the years I decided to show case this panel from Secret Wars 8 (1984) from the classic original series. Interesting how it juxtaposed Reed Richard's color blindness with Victor Von Doom's racist attitudes as seen in the previous posting. Even as a kid back in the day not even quite into my teens I recognized what a cool and thoughtful moment this was. Kinda thinking Reed Richards would not have likely been a trump supporter : )

The greatest of the spaceknights vs nobody's favorite superhero and how comics tackle racism

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This guy I used to know on social media who was both a ROM and Captain Atom fan used to call Captain Atom "Nobody's favorite superhero". Can't seem to recall what exactly he meant by that but unfortunately he's disappeared off the grid and now hasn't been seen for years now so I guess I won't ever get a chance to ask him again. Those of you who saw my last posting will no doubt recognize the source material for this art. I had some down time recently so for the Hell of it I decided to print out the sketch and try out adding some color to it. Can't imagine what kind of scenario would have these two heroes unleashing holly Hell on each other like this but it's not like we've never seen this sort of thing before right? But it's never the less interesting and creative and it's just the sort of fan art I like to post here.

Allow me to pivot here. I saw Blackkkklansman on it's opening weekend and I loved it and I hope some of you will see it while it's still in theaters. I thought the movie did a great job of telling a fascinating story based on a real life situation back in the 70s while drawing a straight line to today's troubles in race relations and political partisanship. There was also a lot of great humor but aside from all that I thought it was very interesting and unexpected with how it dealt with Adam Driver's character. For some people (some "very fine" people I'm sure) this Spike Lee joint might have been a bit too heavy handed or even over the top. A minor issue at best, this was never the less a great film on many levels with much contemporary relevance.

Fantastic Four 278 (1985)

Black Panther Civil War TPB 2007

Speaking of the history of taking on racism in artistic forums I had some thoughts about the world of comics. It's interesting when I look at comics of the 80s and how the writers seemed to take on racism in it's more blatant forms. But clearly in more recent years writers have become much more sophisticated with putting a spot light on the more subtle forms of racism. I think that's very commendable, especially during times like this with all the dog whistles, assault on the truth and pretenses to national security to what are largely policies and statements motivated by this culture war of race politics.

ROM 1

I saw this commission fan art of ROM and Bug from The Micronauts by artist Steven Butler this past weekend. But whoever posted it had this really faded and washed out looking version of it which I thought was a damn shame because this art work is supremely professional quality and deserved better representation. So I copied it and brought it into photoshop where I was able to darken the line work and even give the image a little bit of contrast so it visually pops.

It so happens the last few days of last month and the first few days of this month came and went with me coming across some really cool Star Wars Rogue 1 related stuff in my particular little area of the East Bay. My apologies for the glare and reflection on these first two photos but I had to take the pictures through display windows. The Rogue 1 Painting is from a frame and art shop in Castro Valley.

Over at a comic shop in Union City I saw these absolutely amazing statues. The one of Grand Moff Tarkin is especially impressive the likeness to late actor Peter Cushing is nothing less then uncanny. Next to him you've got the Star Wars Christmas animation special version of Boba Fett and Jyn Ursa just behind him. To the left there was some Star Wars cosplay that showed up at Relay for Life event in Hayward. That's the imperial shore trooper armor from the Battle of Scariff in Rogue 1 which I still affirm is the only all around good Star Wars movie to have come out since the original trilogy.

August 10th Update: Once in a great while I like to post some newly discovered public art that I think is really cool and unique. In this case we have this particular image of Bruce Lee from a large mural in downtown Oakland which chronicles the city's history and culture. That's the thing about The San Francisco Bay Area even if you've lived here all your life you'll still discover something new and amazing from time to time. Lee was born in San Francisco but lived in Oakland for a while and had set up one of his martial arts schools there.

August 17th Update: As many of you know I'm a big fan of ROM related fan art that is not only conceptually creative but also of a more professional caliber in terms of drawing skills. This ROM vs Captain Atom sketch certainly fits that bill. I can only hope that the artist who goes by Breez Evahflowin on farcebook sees fit some day to finish it up so that it can be happily displayed here.

A Spaceknight and an Avenger walk into a bar...

Fan art by unknown artist, caption by yours truly

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  Don't you just hate it when you find an image during a Google search and want to know more about it but clicking on that image just directs you to an error page of some kind? That's what happened here, so I don't know who did this cartoon or what the premise is because it certainly looks like the sort of art work with a story behind it. So, I decided to come up with a caption that for me at least fit the scene.
  Also, here's some 80s nostalgia I bet most of you haven't seen before. I actually stumbled upon this years ago during a random Google search but lost the image when I accidentally closed the search window and was not able to find it again to save my life. I believe this is some sort of poster insert or possible splash page from Strange Magazine. Although the Strange art work here is original I'm pretty sure I know which classic ROM spaceknight issue was probably the direct inspiration for it...
http://berkeleyplaceblog.com/2018/06/12/rom-30-1982/

MASADA

I just wanted to open up the second half of this posting by saying that I'm not into Young Blood or anything else from Image Comics for that matter. But I do have an interest in Jewish super heroes in comics so I think this back story from Young Blood Strike Files #6 featuring Massada (code name taken from the biblical desert mountain fortress in Israel) is worth taking a closer look at. In this story a friend of Masada's goes awol (away with out leave) from the Israeli Intelligence in order to go on a personal crusade and take out an anti-Semitic hate preacher (Hashim) who is obviously based on the real life anti-Semitic hate preaching piece of pig shit louise farrakhan.

Concerned that her friend (Sibbechai) is going to get himself into some serious trouble while making a martyr out of the hate preacher she tries to track him down before he makes his move. Needless to say she has some mixed feelings about going after her fellow Jew especially if it results in saving the life of a filthy Jew hater like farrakhan . . . er I mean Hashim. Think of it in terms of Luke Cage being in a similar situation over david duke or a Mexican superhero with trump.

After a failed attempt to apprehend Sibbechai, Masada attempts to warn Hashim but he dismisses her warnings as part of some grand "Jewish conspiracy" to silence him.Ultimately she's forced to use her powers that enable her to enlarge her size (like you saw with Ant-Man in Avengers Civil War and more recently in Ant-Man & The Wasp) she manages to thwart the assassination attempt leaving the hate preacher only lightly wounded unfortunately. But as they say, haters gonna hate so ofcourse Masada having saved his miserable life does nothing to change Hashim's paranoid Jew conspiracy delusions. A bit of a predictable ending but pretty accurate none the less I'd say.

http://imagecomics.wikia.com/wiki/Deborah_Konigsberg

San Diego Comic-Con photos

I know some people who managed to make it this year to the convention and were nice enough to send these photos to me. I went to the San Diego Comic-Con back in 1998 and as awesome as it was back then it's bigger, more grandiose and way more difficult to get in these days. To the left you can see I still have the 1998 convention guide with that beautiful Alex Ross Superman cover art.

Absolutely bad ass fan art! Ant-Man and The Wasp and what I think of Steve Ditko's passing also the future of toy scalping

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Just by chance I came across what seems to be a largely undiscovered piece of fantastic ROM fan art by artist John McCrea. Damn this is bad ass and I found it on some twitter page that's full of a bunch of worthless crap consisting of lousy fan art, ROM fans trying to be cute to the point of ad nauseum and the usual uninteresting IDW ROM in name only crap. I really like this it's a bit reminiscent of Bill Sienkiewicz's style. 

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In other recent goings on today I saw Ant-Man and The Wasp which I thought was pretty good. Aside from the usual cinematic elements that make the MCU turn out hit after hit I just really dug how the movie took place in San Francisco as well as over in Berkeley which is right across The Bay. That was also part of Black Panther's charm for me with it starting and ending in Oakland which is right next to Berkeley.

Now I also did just hear about the news of Steve Ditko's passing. Knowing how much I've gone off on him over the years you might be wondering about my reaction to this news. To be honest with you I really just don't feel anything about it. And I say this being fully aware that I probably should try to look at Steve Ditko's work more in it's entirety then just simply through the narrow lens of his work on the original ROM spaceknight series. But ya know what? When you're 12 or 13 you're not really especially mindful of the names or reputations behind the comic books you like. You just know what you like or don't like when you open up an issue and flip through the pages it's that simple. And back in the mid 80s when Ditko's retro style art started to replace the more "Marvel way" dynamic art style of Sal Buscema that I had loved for years and was part of what hooked me on the original ROM series in the first place I'm afraid it just left such a bad impression on me I've never been able to really get over. Maybe that makes me a dick? I dunno but it's just how I honestly feel in the here and now.

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Going totally off topic here with this last thing I wanted to cover. I just recently broke down and bought this 1981 Datsun 280 Z Turbo by toy car manufacturer Johnny Lightening on ebay from this toy scalper. I called the seller a toy scalper because the car came in this Johnny Lightening packaging with a "Toys R Us exclusive" label on it. I contacted the seller through ebay and asked him how he had gotten a hold of it given that I'd never seen it in stores and he just straight up told me he used to wait on truck days and go right after the doors open. Man I hate that shit, and I wonder now that Toys R Us is gone how that will impact the toy collectibles market when it comes to new stuff.

Anyways, I've always liked this car especially in the blue and grey color scheme. It's so classic 80s, it even makes me sentimental about one of the earliest Transformers toys (Autobot Bluestreak) I got back in the day as a kid. The photo in the parking lot is a little over 3 years old and it's the only time I ever saw a 280 Z in person in a blue and grey color scheme paint job. It was parked at a Burger King only a couple blocks from where I live. I regret not having tried to find out who the owner was at the time I could have at least just asked em a few questions about it.

Meeting Yoda and Indiana Jones at Imagination Park in San Anselmo California

Despite having been a life long Star Wars and Indiana Jones fan I only by chance learned about this place a week ago despite it being less then an hour from me. I mean for crying out loud I'm old enough to have seen the original trilogy in theaters as well as the first 3 Indiana Jones films (didn't catch Kingdom of The Crystal Skull in theaters).

Some of the things I don't like about The San Francisco Bay Area is the cost of living and the oh so hip and cool progressive scene and I say that as someone who is not a trump supporter.

But I gotta tell ya, no matter how long you've lived around here there is always something new to discover. Especially if you're a local who thinks they've seen it all already.

Now if you didn't know about San Anselmo's Imagination Park before seeing this posting you might have some questions about it's history and I'm pretty sure most of the answers are here...
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/38615

Speaking of public art 80s action adventure and sci-fi properties I also happen to be a huge Robocop fan. Some of you may or may not be aware of the statue project in Detroit that's been going on for years now due to some set backs. Well it's finally completed and a spot for it has already been picked out at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit but the date to actually have the statue moved from the studio seems to still be up in the air. Now as it turns out I'm flying to Detroit in mid October for an unrelated matter. I would love to see it and do the whole photo selfie thing so I'm praying to the sci-fi fanboy gods that it will finally be in it's new home for all the fans to see and enjoy.

Robocop vs ROM now in color. Here it is from before...
https://www.deviantart.com/csuhsux/art/Robocop-vs-ROM-spaceknight-314679716