ROM Spaceknight: Election Year 2020

 

Just ask yourself, who would the greatest of the spaceknights vote for in November? Let's make America dire wraith free again. By the way, can you spot the political Easter egg in this fan art?

 

Dec 12 Update: Fans of the original ROM spaceknight series will no doubt recognize this repanel fan art as a tribute to issue 50 in which The Torpedo is among the casualties during the dire wraith massacre of Clarton. Most definitely one of the most tragic, shocking and all around "holy shit" moments of the series.

 

Dec 26 Update:  Now I just want to start by saying that the original Micronauts comic book series was wonderful, especially when it comes to the first year of the title. However, there have been times where I wondered what a Micronauts comic book would have looked like had it been more closely based on the Mego toy line. Back in the late 90s I drew a handful of pages for fun with that concept of mine. I recently decided to put together my favorite panels which I think still hold up pretty well.

 

Chadwick Boseman, you left us too soon wise king. May your after life rewards be great.

The Black Panther is dead at 43? I just don't even know what to say about this bomb shell of a news story today. Right now it doesn't even quite feel real. I want to wake up tomorrow and have this God awful news story be nothing but a bad dream. In recent years I've almost grown accustomed to celebrities from my child hood passing away but this is really different. Just because of his age alone, in a way this feels like more of an emotional gut punch then when Stan Lee passed away. This kinda feels like the real life version of the iconic and classic 80s Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel. Just so sad, I really fucken hate 2020. Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer 4 years ago which means he was still working as an actor while fighting this shit disease. Truly a real hero both on and off screen.

I think we can all relate a bit more to these panels especially from The Death of Captain Marvel (Jim Starlin).

 Chadwick Boseman with vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris who I'm prying will be our next vice president. In a bit of irony here, The Black Panther movie opens up and ends in Oakland California which is where Harris is from. So tragic also that he didn't at least live long enough to vote in November.

One of the best SNL episodes in years!
 

Welcome to Galador

  Some dire wraith infestation perhaps. But no Covid-19 pandemic or IDW at least. Long live the 80s!

"ROM original" accept no substitute

 I posted this from Comic Scene Magazine issue 2 (1982) back in September of 2013. But in honor of Joe Sinnott who recently past away I think it would be fitting to post again.

 July 4th Update:  I recently discovered a number of cool San Francisco murals of Marvel superheroes so I decided to post my favorite ones. They were mostly located in the North Beach district but a couple were also downtown.

Commission art by Steven Butler

  
July 24th Update:  Finally, something has come along worth posting here from an artist other then myself and my friend Nikoskap. This is absolutely every thing I like to see when it comes to fan art (commission or other wise). It's creative, professional in quality and takes me back to the 80s in the way good nostalgia fan art should do. Hats off to artist Steven Butler and his master piece. You've done the ROM Spaceknight legacy justice.

by Jeff Slemons

 And look at this ROM 27 homage piece by artist Jeff Slemmons. Two awesome pieces of ROM fan art in one week, this is truly unprecedented. The Gods of Galador be praised!

Some new unexpeted fan art

Off the topic of my head, aside from cleaner air and less traffic there isn't other wise any upside to this corona virus pandemic nightmare. Millions of people all over the world are either not working, working much less or now don't have much of anything to do on the weekends. So, we gotta fine something to do with all this new found spare time. Most of the art work posted was dome in collaboration with https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap

This one with Bug was done just before all this covid 19 shit but it's pretty recent so I'm going to include it in this posting.

This Mego toy line based MICRONAUTS piece is something I did way back in the late 90s but I decided to post it online for the first time just because.

Also, I'm throwing in some fan art I did of random Marvel characters that I like (Thunderbird, She-Hulk and Blade) that I did in the late 90s....

And if you also happen to be a Star Trek fan I even have something for you to. This Deep Space 9 battle scene is a water color painting I did back in 2002.

I've been re-reading a lot of G.I.Joe back issues recently and although I certainly always liked the Joes (especially Snake-Eyes) it was always the villains that were the most entertaining and intriguing characters.

Speaking of all things G.I.Joe, I recently discovered a fantastic story line that involves Israel in issue 2 of G.I. Joe Special Missions (1986). The Joes are forced to make a deal with a nazi war criminal (doctor otto totenschadel) after a WW II German bomber loaded with a deadly nerve gas is discovered stuck in a glacier in Greenland. Unfortunately they come into conflict with a Mossda (Israel intelligence) that are hunting  totensdachadel.

We learn for the first time as far as I know that a team member of the Joes is Jewish. G.I.Jew Lance Steinberg code name Clutch.

Fortunately as it turns out The Joes manage to deal with the nerve gas with out any assistance from totensdachadel despite Cobra making a play for the nerve gas for their own insidious reasons. Meanwhile in the jungles of Brazil, The Joes and Mossad manage to work together and storm a neo-nazi compound where totensdachadel's sorry ass is using as a hide out.

In the end neither The Joes or Mossad take totensdachadel into custody but instead simply decide to divulge some rather inconvenient and self serving secrets totensdachadel had been keeping from his nazi buddies that proves to be quite fatal for him. A great story full of WW II history, politics and poetic justice.

Happy 2020: A year in review of 2019 fan art

https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap

For all you Micronauts fans who have a soft spot for BUG we've got something else cool for you to check out right here . . .

https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap/art/Bug-Galactic-Warrior-825215921

So, at the cost of sounding immodest I'd say the bulk of the good fan art that turned up in 2019 probably came from myself and my Greek friend. His solo work as well as our collaborative efforts have been featured quite heavily in the hand full of postings I've done this past year. Unfortunately, most of what I've seen other wise has been a mixed bag of disappointment ranging from . . .

 ...stuff that was just plain weird, obscure and borderline incomprehensible. Then you had pieces that were so amateurish from an illustration skill stand point to others that were utterly lacking in creativity or otherwise imagination. But there was...

 ...also some other work in which the artists did combine genuine illustration skills with some sense of creativity (the number of those pieces was a short list to be sure) to the point where their art work was more or less in the spirit of the Marvel series and evoked some sense of nostalgia. I would like to think that 2020 will have in store more of the kinda of fan art that reminds me of the good ol days as opposed to the dull and uninspiring crap I usually find but I doubt it.

February 23rd Update: Any fans out there of The Mandalorian? Great show, and the only good thing out there when it comes to live action Star Wars along with Rogue 1 in the past 19 years. I recently did some fan art on a greeting card for a buddy of mine.

Last year I did something similar for Okoye and Misty Knight who are some of my favorite ladies of color from Marvel Comics...

Starshine Unleashed

My Greek friend Nikoskap has been hitting out of the park lately with a lot of good Starshine themed sketch art that's turned into some collaboration pieces between us which I felt deserved a little more exposure beyond twitter, farcebook and deviant art. Clearly this blog is not entirely defunct as I had intended November of last year I keep making exceptions for the occasional posting.

September 6th Update: And speaking of all things Greek, I just dropped this in the mail earlier in the week let's hope The Enigma Force and the Gods of Galador insure it's safe arrival...

Fan art . . .the good, the bad and the bizarre

Think of this posting as a public service announcement. Kinda like an emergency broadcast on your TV once in a while.

https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap

The two works above are examples of the good. Well illustrated and creative while also being faithful to the source material. Everything below, would be good examples of the bad and the bizarre which unfortunately are far more commonly found then the good stuff. Yeah I know I'm kinda of being a dick by doing a posting like this but truth be told I had wanted to do this since early last year but had always felt it was kinda of crossing a line. But now, with this being a semi-retired blog these days I'm not really too worried about making new friends or my reputation. I'm just so very happy to finally really make this point.

All this shit should be banished to Limbo

I really love it when I come across some kind of ROM related fan art that reminds me of the good ol days of when I had a new issue of ROM or some kind of tie-in to look forward to every month. None of that kind of shit does that for me. When I see that stuff it's like that feeling you get when you see a dead animal on the road or people who spit in public all the time.

San Francisco's Mission District

March 30th Update: And speaking of good art. Here's some local stuff of a more large scale and public nature.

Oakland's China Town

June 12th Update:  I wanted to do something different for a change and feature ROM with his translator. I always thought that was a cool reveal from issue 50 so I imagine at some point ROM would have had to use his translator during his time hunting down the dire wraiths within the Skrull empire.

Rom spaceknight 50

June 20th Update: It recently occurred to me that I've never done any fan art of the male dire wraiths so here we go.

June 22nd Update: The greatest of the spaceknights vs Deathwing, nuff said. You might say this was a David and Goliath kinda match up.

June 29nd Update: Here's something from artist Lou Russo worth having a look at if you're a ROM fan who also happens to like Star Trek and ALIENS (the first two movie only) like I am. I'm not a big fan how he draws ROM most of the time but he came out ok here and as always I give Russo high Marks for creativity. The link below has the full size image...
https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1559313

July 18th Update:  Looks like I had one last sketch card up my sleeve as the saying goes.

Envelope fan art by David Holsey

August 14th Update: I really love envelope art especially when it arrives to it;s final destination still looking ok.