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. 

Left click to enlarge

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