Why Bill Mantlo/ROM fans should remember Portland

Left click to enlarge interior mural from previous store location

It's hard to believe there are any ROM and or Bill Mantlo fans out there who don't know about Floating Worlds Comics by now but I guess there's still a few of you out there. In 2007 and 2010 Floating Worlds Comics hosted an art benefit auction to raise money and awareness for Bill along with some other related promotional events. That's the only comic shop I've ever known to have done something like that on behalf of Bill which is pretty crazy when you think of the kind of career he had. The promotional events at Floating World Comics had also resulted in an influx of ROM related fandom and newly created art work onto the internet just prior to me discovering for the first time the enduring fan base for the big silver guy which was some where in late 2008. So of course during my trip to Northern Oregon right after Thanksgiving Day Weekend I'll be sure to add a visit to Floating World Comics to my itinerary. You can see past blog postings about the Bill Mantlo benefit art auctions here . . .
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/search?q=floating+world+comics

I'll be updating this posting as soon as I get back late next week. Meanwhile, here's a couple of things you might enjoy. Written by Mantlo in the pages of HEAVY METAL magazine this is a futuristic short story about tyranny and rebellion told in an old English style of writing . . .

http://theporporbooksblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/rising-of-moon-by-bill-mantlo-writer.html

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Dec. 4 Update: Well I'm finally back from my trip and the ironic thing is when I flew out of Oakland on Teusday morning it was raining like crazy but the minute I touched down in Portland it was dry as a bone which was the case through out all of Northern Oregon for almost the entire time I was there. Needless to say I had a great time and I'd like to make some recommendations to all my fellow sci-fi comic book geek freinds who may some day happen to find themselves out in the Portland, Seaside and Astoria areas. Just a block down from Floating World Comics is this cool 80s retro video game arcade/bar called Ground Kontrol. Like I said it's also a bar so they do card you at the entrance. Only a short walk away is Billy's Galaxy which was one of the best vintage toy shops I've ever seen. Among the collection of awesome stuff there they had a couple of ROM dolls but I ended up buying this Gobot I used to have called Pathfinder. And on a side note amazingly even the small coastal town of Astoria (where Kindergarten Cop and The Goonies were filmed) had an 80s retro video game arcade called The Arc Arcade.

One last thing, I grabbed a copy of Incredible Hulk #258 (Mantlo / Buscema 1981) at Floating World Comics for some lite reading on the plane for the trip home and I discovered this house ad on the letters page. This is actually the first time I've ever seen this particular ROM promo in print although the 6" banner strip ad version I've had for a while now electonically thanks to Gary Martin Jr. although that version includes some extra art work in the left hand bottom corner. . .
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2012/07/marvel-80s-house-ads-promos-with-rom_24.html

Extra copies of Bill Mantlo A Lifetime in Comics still available

I spoke to the owner of Floating World Comics (Jason) earlier today and he informed me that they had a decent amount of copies of this wonderful magazine still in stock. If you have a Paypal account that would probably be your best bet but I'm sure he'll work out something with you if you have another way you want to pay. The cover price is $7 plus S+H so figure around $10 total. It's well worth every penny of your hard earned income all you 99 percenters who are Bill Mantlo fans.

Floating World Comics  400 NW Couch St  Portland, OR 97209    phone# (503) 241-0227
 

Now if this is what that Age of  Ultron preview had looked like then Rom fans certainly would have had something to get excited about. But at least this is something cool to look at.

ROM spaceknight 27 tribute fan art

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I just got this fan art by Brian Douglas Ahern from Gary this morning. I'm sure he'll be leaving a comment any time now with all the details as to how he acquired it because there's some history with this art work. I actually discovered it back in March of 2013 when I saw it in an online photo up on the wall at the old Floating World Comics shop in Portland. Although never featured in any of the forums for the Bill Mantlo benefit auction it was apparently part it but don't quote me on that. The only version of it I had was this grainy blown up thumbnail I posted March 2013 . . .
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2013/03/bill-mantlo-stacking-deck.html

Having recognized this as being one of the better art pieces from that auction I contacted the owner of Floating World Comics to see about getting a copy but it seemed my request fell on deaf ears. Remember my posting just over a month ago from my last Portland trip? Why couldn't they have made a nice large format reprint of this art from the benefit auction instead of the garbage they had available!? If I had seen this as a nice 11 X 17 print on some good paper stock for only $5 I would have been like score!
It sure feels good to be getting back to postings with some old school ROM stuff again. However I anticipate this being my last one for the month although I may have an update coming later today or tomorrow. Next posting should be right after I come back from my trip to Greece and Israel which should be June 4th or 5th. I sure picked a swell time to do some international flying between that terrorist shit in Belgium recently and this current mystery of the downed EgyptAir 804 flight.

May 22nd Update:
Yesterday I swung by my LCS and had a look at Micronauts #2. From a story stand point it looked like a marginal improvement from the first issue. But I'll say this about it the art work is way better then what we saw in the ROM zero issue. You can preview the first six pages here and see what I mean . . .
http://www.comicbookresources.com/comic-previews/micronauts-2-idw-2016

Fan art from a couple of mystery artists

It's been nearly a week since I last posted something that's a first for this blog in a very long time if I was running a business here I'd say it's been a slow week over here. But I do happen to have some cool fan art that Gary Martin Junior found that I've been sitting on for a while now. Unfortunately aside from the signatures I don't know who the artists are. I'm pretty sure you're all seeing that very sinister looking Dire Wraith sketch card for the first time but some of you may recognize the Rom fan art which I believe is from the first Floating World Comics Bill Mantlo benefit art auction. That clever interplay between negative and positive space certainly makes that one of the more unique and creative Rom fan art piece out there.

Update: By coincidence I happened to come across a photo gallery image from Floating World Comics that lists this piece as being done by Aaron Albert even though that's not consistent with the signature seen at the bottom of the art work
http://comicbooks.about.com/od/conventionsandevents/ig/Bill-Mantlo-Tribute-Gallery/Mantlo-Tribute---ROM-Art.htm

Also, speaking of those benefit auctions I just had an after thought about the fan art that was done by an artist who goes by the name Kako. I wonder if his piece was inspired by the cover art (Micheal Golden) for Rom #10? He's got the same style F-16 fighter jets in his art work as seen on the cover.

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The Rom fan art just floating around you probably didn't know about

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 For those of you who have been following this blog for a while now you know I don't like much the majority of the fan art that was created for the Bill Mantlo benefit auction. And it seems like the least best stuff has gotten the most saturation on the internet over the years. The best example of that is the Sal Buscema at the top left there on the wall at Floating World Comics. As I posted before I know none of you had seen it before I featured it here earlier this year: http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2012/06/end-of-june-rom-fan-art-sightings-sal.html

The bottom left piece has been around a lot and I think it's pretty good even though I felt Rom's head needed a bit more work. But I don't like the piece next to it at all and that one turns up a lot too all the time on the net. The top middle one gets points for over all style and design but I would have really liked to have seen Rom drawn better. But the top right one is pretty sweet yet when have you ever seen it before?

Then there's the bottom right piece which I've seen a million times now on the internet as just a black n' white line drawing. I wouldn't have even known it existed as a color version were it not for this wall art I did a screen shot of. I like it so much better in color especially when it comes to the details like on the Wonder Bread which is pretty much iconic packaging art these days. I can't even remember the last time I saw that in recent years at the grocery store but I sure remember it from back in the day.

Here's something I've been sitting on for quite a while now. Over the years ROM cover art has had the benefit of some really great talent like Michael Golden and Mike Zeck. But arguably non have been quite as stylish as the covers done by Bill Sienkiewicz. This particular piece is something of a mixed bag for me of likes and dislikes. Any of you out there got an opinion about it?

Found ROM art that doesn't suck - Part 3

Your not seeing things on the left side there, this guy actually ended up making a kick ass rendering of ROM below his chemistry class notes. In fact you can see a whole series of note book drawings of various comic book characters at Greg's Gallery: http://www.math.hmc.edu/~levin/Personal/Gallery/E/East.html After one good look at this one it should be obvious that I can't say enough good things about this drawing. The first thing that jumps out at you is ROM's neutralizer but indeed every aspect of this drawing is so cool especially the action pose and the details in the armor. Greg's style reminds me a lot of the Pat Broderick & Mike Gustovich art team from ROM annual #1.
On the right, Francesco Francavilla has an interesting piece with some very unique qualities. Although visually not as dynamic as other works I have feature on this blog this one has the unique quality of perhaps capturing the personality of ROM better then anything else I have featured so far. You can feel the compassion and concern of the character as he approaches the dead astronaut. It was a good piece to be done in black n white and the tilt in the perspective of the scene adds an element of drama. Here we again see a good example of foreshortening. Interestingly enough I picked up this image on a website that mentioned the Francavilla piece being the favorite in the 2007 Floating World Comics Bill Mantlo Auction. He summarized the rest of the work in the auction as the following:
"I spent about half an hour just looking through all of them – some awesome, some goofy, some just plain weird, some inexplicable."
Well let me tell ya bro the the over all body of work from the 2010 auction wasn't any better.

Up next part 4

Bill Mantlo benefit art auction left overs in Portland

Shitty art work from past benefit auctions

Just got back from a weekend get away in Portland and paid a brief visit to Floating World Comics while I was there. They had some of these 11 X 17 glossy prints on a pretty thick paper stock of some of the art work from the past benefit auctions. Sadly none of them was of any of the good art that came out of those auctions. Most of the art work that came from those auctions were really amateurish and down right bizarre much of the time. Too bad, a high quality print of some of the better art work would have been a nice thing to take home with me. Those prints were only going for around $5 and there's no sales tax in Oregon.

So moving on to more satisfying matters. Just before I left for Portland I got a copy of Excalibur 121 in the mail which I bought on ebay. I think you can all guess why I wanted that issue and it came just in time to give me something to read on the plane even though Oakland to Portland is a fairly short flight. Some of the highlights is the opening sequence with the debriefing of Sabra by her superiors over a mission she under took with Excalibur.

When the story back tracks to the before mentioned mission we find out that Sabra doesn't play well with others here. Even when it came to fellow mutants she has a common heritage with (Kitty Pride ofcourse) things got of to a rough start. But toward the end of the mission Sabra gets a lesson in the value of team work which in turn may help explain her having been more of a team player (especially with Storm) in what would be the pages of future X-Men issues back then.

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ROM spotted in Portland Oregon! Auction update.

Hey check out what I just found! Somebody actually made a home made ROM costume. Even though it's not exactly a state of the art fabrication I think part of it's charm is that you can easily tell even in this photos that it's made out of card board and tin foil. As I'm sure you've all guessed by now this appearance by "ROM" at Floating World Comics is part of a promotional move on behalf of the Bill Mantlo fundraiser art auction. Speaking of which the biding results art interesting thus far to say the least. Based on comments left on my last posting and on emails I received there seems to be a general concensus that most of the art is pretty bizarre. Yet, so far it's many of these odd pieces that seem to be getting most of the bids. How refreshing to find that the art scene of an 80's comic book character from a series that has been over for more then 25 years has it's own avant-garde click. I certainly hope hope the sarcasm in that last sentence wasn't lost on all of you. I've never followed an Ebay auction before so I guess we'll see how things develop over the next couple days. Maybe there will be a surprise or two yet?

End of June Rom fan art sightings & the 80s Sal Buscema Rom vs. HULK sketch art that you never knew existed!

The movie Prometheus inspired a series of these "June favorite aliens of the month" entries in which severl different aliens and alien characters are featured in this flying saucer and blue light scene. Rather then try to explain further it it's probably best you check the rest of em here: http://www.panelsonpages.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&p=62495#p61741

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 This Ego The Living Planet sketch is by artist Jeremy Haun which he did while at a Comic convention in St. Louise earlier this month. Ego looks great although it would have been nice if he had spent a bit more time on Rom. But on general principle I think it was pretty cool that out of all the more mainstream characters in the Marvel Universe who have encountered Ego over the decades that he decided to use Rom here. As many of you recall Rom encountered Ego in Rom issue 59 in which he freed fellow spaceknights Seeker and Scanner from Ego while also banishing numerous Wraiths in an act of mercy who had also been captured by Ego and were being slowly digested.

 I found this in a back ground photo of the wall space of  Floating World Comics in Portland Oregon. Thank goodness the photo image was really big so that I was able to enlarge and crop this sketch from it and present it here at a good size (magnify it!). Outside of the Sal Buscema signature at the bottom left I can't tell you anything else about it unfortunately. Needless to say this is beyond awesome it's nothing short of criminal that nobody has ever showcased this before anywhere for a broad audience. And remember true believers you saw it here first on the blog site for ROM fans who aren't dicks!

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  Cmon people make some noise in the comments section this is some pretty great stuff I found this week.

Bill Mantlo tribute piece - sketch

Any body remember the Watch-wraiths? They were these constructs that the science Wraiths developed as sentinels and body guards. We only get to see them 3 times through out the ROM series but I always liked em and wished we could have seen them more. Especially if they maybe had shown them in flash back sequences during the Galador-Wraith war fighting other Spaceknights.
Now over to Transformers II which was the return of Michael Bay to his usual over the top pander to pop culture shitty movie making style. But even this peice of shit did have it's moments like the forest fight scene in which Optimus takes on almost all the Decepticons on his own cause he's bad ass that way when he has to be. Even though he's too modest to admit it, which is really what makes Optimus Prime so awesome more so even then him being a great warrior! Besides, as Yoda said in ESB, "Wars not make one great" and I'm sure Prime would agree. There's this one point where Optimus climbs on the back of a Decepticon that's bigger then him and gets his "meat hooks" into the Decepticon and literally rips his fucken face apart! It was a great scene in the midst of a sequel that was so very inferior to the first TF movie. Here it is to the sound effects of the epic kick ass film 300.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak_SvePnFXM
So anyways that's where I got the inspiration and idea for this sketch which I'll hopefully have colored by the end of Friday or Saturday. The dude at Floating World Comics wants this by Sunday for the Bill Mantlo art auction but I'm hoping he just wants to see something having been done and not the actual work in his hands. Shit I just found out about this on Tuesday afternoon and it's Thanksgiving today. Stay tuned folks I'll have the finished work posted as soon as it's . . finished. Sketching stuff always takes me longer then to color it so who knows I might have this done by tomorrow night. All I got going on tomorrow is I'm heading to S.F. in the morning with some friends to cause some trouble with the lunatic left wing fringe. They're going to be staging another pro-terror demonstration in the middle of the busiest shopping square in S.F on Black Friday.

Bill Mantlo finished tribute piece

Well here it is folks as promised. So the scenario you have here is the Dire Wraiths making a bee line for what they think will be refuge among the stars as they leave their watch-wraith servants to keep ROM occupied. It took me basically 48 hours to get this piece done which is an 8 1/2 X 11 water color with fine point colored markers. I want to thank all of you who both left comments and emailed me words of praise and encouragement while I was working on this. All that really remains now is for Floating World Comics http://www.floatingworldcomics.com/main/ to reply to my email inquiry a couple of days ago so we can take the next step to getting this into the auction and hopefully raise some money for Mantlo's family who no doubt are struggling with his medical care. If there is anybody out there who has any info. on Bill Mantlo's current condition please do share it with the rest of us by leaving a comment. Last I heard his condition wasn't that great and didn't seem to offer much hope for improvement. But perhaps unknown to most of us things have made a turn for the better since then. By the way if your curious what has been part of the auction in the past go to Spaceknight 2 in the blog roll. The first six to seven works from the top down have appeared in the last week and I can only assume are works for the up coming auction. To be honest I'm not sure what to make of most of the new stuff so far but again I'd certainly like to hear other people's thoughts rather you leave a comment here, on Spaceknight 2 or even with an email to me directly.