Cosmic Marvel Dream Team

So this one here actually started off with a fairly recent Silver Surfer fan art piece by Greek artist Kapandais Nikoloas. I took into photoshop on a day where I had some spare time on my hands and played around with it and started added other characters from separate fan art pieces from his gallery. It took a little time to get them to all blend in so that the finished piece didn't have too much of a "patch work" look to it and I think I was fairly successful in that endeavor.

 

Also recently, I was reading through a bunch of back issues online of Marvel Age Magazine. I came across this letter in issue 19. I remember back in the day when I got my hands on that copy of that Marvel Universe Handbook (issue 15) and thinking the exact same thing. I dunno why I never wrote any letters to comic book publishers back in those days I really regret it now.

Sabra by Kapandais Nikoloas (2022)

 May 22th Update: I have to admit for years now every time a ROM fan would wish for a omnibus collection I used to snicker to myself because it seemed like such a pipe dream. Well, not any more so I guess the laugh is on me this time. This is definitely the coolest thing to happen for the ROM spaceknight character since that action with several points of articulation came out some 5 years ago. I don't know if this will open new doors for MARVEL and Hasbro when it comes to all things ROM but this certainly comes as welcomed news just the same. After more then 2 decades it's nice to see MARVEL finally show some degree of respect to the ROM fan base. Would be really interesting to see what went on behind the scenes between MARVEL & Hasbro to make this happen.

Well it certainly wasn't all good news today. Actor Ray Stevenson passed away at only 58! As I was going through his filmography I realized all these years I had him mistaken in the movie Book of Eli for Sex and The City actor Chris Noth. Ain't that some shit!? Not seeing much about his time on Dexter in his acting credits which is a shame because he was good in that to. Now I find out he's supposed to be this bad ass in the upcoming Ashoka series so now I'm looking even more forward to that. Rest In Peace Ray. 

May 24th Update: I don't know what the Hell is going on this week. But now we just lost the legendary Tina Turner who I think most would agree was a national treasure. Among other things, I've got so many great 80s memories from Turner especially when it came to her music videos on MTV. It's too bad she didn't do more acting work back in the day, she had great on screen presence in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. 

June 14th Update: Just heard the sad news about the passing of John Romita. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been talked about by the millions of fans out there on social media about his epic and legendary career. On an interesting side note, his son (John Romita Jr.) penciled the ROM sales pitch art as seen above and some years later penciled Uncanny X-Men issues 184,185,187 and 188 which were some of the most pivotal ROM spaceknight-wraith war tie-ins of the 80s.

It's been a while since I "book ended" one of my postings with recent photos of local public displays of solidarity with Ukraine. Here we are now well over a year into this shit. Fu#% russia, & the same goes for the regimes in iran and china to.

  

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...

Superskrull vs ROM and Captain Mar-vell variant homage fan art

By Nick Baldwin

Just when I think I can go on a hiatus or other wise let this blog sit idle something else comes along that warrants a posting. In this case we have something that turned up yesterday on deviant art that was actually inspired by some of my own fan art
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/ROM-and-Captain-Marvel-vs-The-Super-skrull-482864758 Rather you want to consider this some variant fan art or more of a homage it's just all around cool and one Hell of a compliment.

And the cool new fan art just keeps on coming! This one by a Brazilian artist turned up on deviant art this very morning check out the full image
http://victorhugo.deviantart.com/gallery/#/art/ROM-the-Space-Knight-493069320?_sid=41595fad

Left click to enlarge

Nov. 8 Update: I found myself with a surprising amount of free time on my hands today so I decided to take a jaunt up to the radical left wing shit hole (where soda now costs more then pretty much any where on the fucken planet) known as Berkeley. There's a comic shop up there I wanted to look around at and they happened to have had an October copy of BACK ISSUE! Just read the Micronauts article last night it had a couple of cool extra stuff too as you can see above but it was basically an expanded version of the Micronauts chapter of the Bill Mantlo: A Life Time In Comics tribute magazine.

Nov. 9 Update: Ever since I first published this posting it seems like something else keeps turning up one way or another so here's yet another update. Another fellow over at Deviant Art took it upon himself to color this already. For those of you who don't have an account with Deviant Art just get one already it's free and it only takes a few minutes to set up. You can see the original full size art work here . . .
http://smackos101.deviantart.com/art/Super-Skrull-vs-Mar-Vell-and-ROM-493462919

Nov. 10 Update: It just seemed to be raining ROM fan art over at deviant art last week here's another one I recently discovered it's definitely worth having a look at . . .
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Rom-The-Space-Knight-493498486

Rom, Captain Marvel America, Iron Man & Sabra team up fan art

About a half dozen new pieces of Rom related fan art have appeared in the past couple of weeks or so. But with the exception of the Sal Buscema commission art I posted last week it's all been pretty mediocre. So, I just did something my self. As far as I know Sabra and Captain America never appeared together in any sort of team up situation.

That's a shame seeing that both characters are iconic symbols of patriotism from their respective countries which happen to be closely allied. Now as you can see here they could be springing into action against most any enemy. First thought would be the Dire Wraiths of course but what about HYDRA? I totally dig the idea of Rom teaming up with Captain America and Sabra to fight a bunch of fucken nazis. Speaking of Hydra and Cap. any of you notice how last week's episode of Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D totally corresponded with the events of Winter Soldier with direct references and all?

 

Chris, good job on your latest spaceknight customs.

Rom and Captain Marvel take on the Super Skrull

Left click to enlarge

I remember seeing these comic book bag sets in liquor stores and dime shops back in the early 80s, good memories. Special thanks to Gary Martin Jr. for providing a photo image of the 3 pack bag set with Rom 45 in it.

Ya know you can never be too sure when you're gonna all of a sudden be able to just sit down and start putting pencil to paper and get something pretty good cranked out which I was able to finally do again yesterday afternoon on my day of. I guess this resulted between all the new fan art that turned up this past weekend and the nice chill day I had Sunday. This took me about 3 hours or so to do I hope you all like it.
Also, see the latest Rom and Micronauts fan art from Dann Phillips http://dannphillips.deviantart.com/

Captain Marvel guest appearence, nuff said!

Here's another great cosmic team up that would have been right up there with The Silver Surfer and Rom . . .well almost as great. The artist who I lifted this awesome Captain Marvel rendering from doesn't appear to be responding to comments left under their work so I didn't even bother to ask about using it. So the best thing I can do is to make sure this artist gets due credit is to leave a link to their deviant art page. I guarantee you'll be blown away with the work you see there especially when it comes to the Marvel Cosmic, Transformers and Masters of the Universe illustrations: http://espeng.deviantart.com/gallery/

Left click to enlarge

Here's another sort of team up I would have liked to have seen back in the day when Marvel didn't suck like it does now.

Just a heads up folks, Bill Mantlo's birthday is November 9th. I'll be sending his brother Michael copies of some of the latest fan art that I've drawn. If you have anything for Bill rather it be some fan art of your own, a b-day card or even a donation (you'll make the check out to Michael) I'll be happy to include it with my package for the mail.

 Speaking of B-days I'd like to extend a happy birthday weekend to one of my most regular commentators Joseph who turned___ yesterday.

After having read some of your comments earlier today and then taking a second look with fresh eyes I finally realized this is a fake. Sorry folks looks like we got bamboozled that is not an actual copy of Rom spaceknight #8 that Rahm Emanuel is holding. How could this have happened!? To me, the photoshop ninja.