Saturday, September 1, 2018

Bill Mantlo was trying to warn us

Rom spaceknight 58

It's so interesting how sometimes a movie or comic book issue can take on a whole new meaning to you when you re-visit it as an adult as opposed to to when you first read or watched it some where in your teens. I just figured out now that the story line in ROM 58 which revolved around a mutagenic dire wraith taint introduced to the Earth's ecosystem was basically just an allegory for the harmful short term and long term impact of pollution from human activity. This is made even more obvious by the fact that actual man made pollution in the form of run off from a coal mine played a direct part in the previous two issues that took place in Beaver Falls Canada with guest appearances by Alpha Flight.


Soylent Green
Kinda makes you wonder if Bill Mantlo was a fan of dystopian sci-fi movies especially with issues like environmental collapse usually being such a central theme? I know I am. I love em in spite of being terrified by them at the same time. Now if you're tired of my politics becoming part of yet another blog posting you know I don't give a shit right?

Children of Men
I mean if you're one of these evangelicals that are still devoted to trump ask yourself if Jesus would be a trump supporter? Or for those of you who are Bill Mantlo fans ask yourself if he was still healthy today and in complete control of his mental faculties would he have voted for trump? And how do you think he would feel about his presidency thus far? And if that answer isn't as immediately obvious to you as it is to me then congratulations you win the biggest dumb ass in the universe award.

Dredd
The typical aspects of a dystopian future as told in most science fiction are environmental collapse, dwindling natural resources, out of control corporate corruption, massive class and gender inequality, over population, scarce natural resources, authoritarian governments and urban decay. Are we moving in that direction or just going through a really really rough patch on the road to an eventual brighter future?


I can't say for sure but if today we're seeing the early signs of a dystopian future right out of the movies all I ask is that I'm not around to see that shit go down. I'd rather check out while the world is still in half way decent shape.

Left click to enlarge
September 5th Update: Look what I found today, on farcebook no less. This is some damn good professional quality fan art (artist unknown) of Nova and ROM along with the spackenights of Galador taking on two villains who have proving to be almost as dangerous to planet Earth as donald trump and scott pruitt.

September 7th Update: Damn, just heard the sad news about Bert Reynolds passing away. I don't like this growing list of dead celebrities that I grew up with especially with 2018 still having almost a few more months to go. Boogie Nights, hands down one of the best movies ever made.

19 comments:

  1. That Nova/Rom piee is a commission piece done by none other than Sal Buscema himself.

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  2. I meant to type "piece" not "piee". Hahaha.

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    1. Damn Reno! You might be right. That certainly looks more like the Sal Buscema I love and know. The last time I saw anything like that was the Rom vs Mars Attacks bonus pin up page but the stuff Sal’s done since then for idw’s Rom in name only cover variants have been quite mediocre by Sal’s normal standards.

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  3. Yep, must be Sal's work, you can even see his signature at bottom right.Great piece and inked by him I can tell always loved it when he inked his own stuff.

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    1. The thing that threw me off about the signature is that the way the first name is written it looks more like it says Joe as opposed to Sal. I wonder where this art work first showed up whoever posted it on farcebook didn’t give any info. so I doubt they’re the original source.

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    2. Try this: https://www.facebook.com/170082243037293/photos/a.293910450654471/2030489136996585/?type=3&theater

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    3. i already found it at comic art fans over the weekend but thanks anyways
      http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1495758

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  4. Just now saw that Bert Reynolds died. Damn, don't know how I missed that, especially considering his legendary career, I didn't remember seeing a much about it on my Twitter feed at the time, which is weird.

    For some reason I couldn't comment on your latest post, but that really is a gorgeous ROM cover. How was that particular image not used?

    Nice-looking sketch card as well. Who doesn't like the Thundercats?

    I have the Pac-Man arcade one of those myself. Even used it in a sketch a couple years back with Iron Man. Didn't bother eating the gum though.

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    1. It’s a farewell posting there’s no need for any chatter on it I already said everything that needed to be said in the posting it’s self.

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  5. Replies
    1. Lee, just because i'm not blogging any more doesn't mean we can't still trade cool ROM related stuff that turns up. for example, check your email when you get a chance.

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  6. hey! what do you mean you´re leaving??

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  7. You can use deviant art to send me your email privately. That way I can still share with you the cool Rom related things that I find or otherwise come my way.

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    1. Hey dude, just saw you were leaving. Sorry to see that. I guess ROM is now truly dead.

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    2. i still find cool shit even though i'm not posting it any more i'll be happy to share with anyone who's interested in staying in touch and who actually checks their fucken email at least annually or God forbid maybe even more then once out of the year. as long as there's some cool fan art to be found from time to time there will always be a spark of life at least. ironically when it comes to corporate industry produced ROM nostalgia Hasbro has done a far better job of keeping classic ROM alive with their action figure it's not perfect but a far better "product" then anything marvel or idw has produced/published in the past 17 years. some of those Heroclix figures are kinda cool i'd grab those if i ever happened to see some loose ones for a couple bucks or so each. the Starshine one is the best of the bunch i might be willing to spend a bit more on that on ebay.

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    3. very well. I´m overloaded with chores this year, but once all is settled down i intend to continue my webcomic, and my fan-art, which include Rom and other Marvel characters.

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  8. Keep in touch with cool Rom things you find.I will miss this excellent blog it was a constant for so long .

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  9. I just saw that this is your last post (well, this and the new one at the top of the page). That's too bad... You have kept the Living Fire alive and well! Thanks for all the great posts over the years!

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    1. By the way, I can't log in to this blog, so I have to write this as "Anonymous."

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