What If

What if ROM had encountered The Micronauts? What if ROM and Earth's heroes had lost the Wraith War? What If Sal Buscema had never left the series? What If Marvel had retained or at least reacquired the rights to ROM spaceknight? I know I know, so many What Ifs over the years about what could have been, should have been or just shit that was very unlikely in any reality but sure would have been cool anyways. 

Well here's one I bet that never crossed your mind. What if there was a reality where instead of an invasion of the planet Earth as we know it in the mainstream Marvel Universe of the mid twentieth century the dire wraiths invaded the dystopian future world of Judge Dredd? The apocalyptic conditions of the "Cursed Earth" would have no doubt reminded them of their Hellish home world which they were driven from by Galador's spaceknights (see ROM spaceknight 1).

The original by Brittany Michel 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BadCarrotStudios?ref=search_shop_redirect

Wanted to see what it would look like in color so I brought it into photoshop and so here we go. Most of you I hope will recognize the source material from ROM spaceknight annual 3 (Bill Mantlo and WM Johnson).

Oh yeah and that reminds me of this. I believe it was an unpublished piece of fan art done by Scott Reed in the spirit of the great Sal Buscema's signature Marvel 80s penciling style. It came out pretty good it was on ebay and if I recall correctly it sold for $180 last year.

September 25th Update: 

https://www.jpost.com/j-spot/steve-ditko-estate-tries-to-regain-spider-man-doctor-strange-copyrights-680207

 

 

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...

Customizing your comic collection box lid

For many many years my dad used to work in data processing going all the way back to the tail end of the 70s. He used to bring home "computer paper" boxes like the one you see here for storage purposes and one day some where in the mid 80s I think I started using them for my growing comic collection at the time. At one point I had about 7 of these boxes filled with comics but I've down sized over the years to now only 3. In the past I've decorated my comic boxes with pasted on clip art from beat up issues that were worthless but had cool and corresponding art with whatever collection I had in that box.
So right now I have a ROM spaceknight box, a Suicide Squad box and one other newly acquired box re-purposed (I like that word) for my miscellaneous issues that didn't contain any art work on it. But it does now, although not with published clip art. Instead I wanted to personalize it a bit more by using color copies of my own fan art featuring ROM with other Marvel characters. Maybe some day I'll get around to also covering the sides of the lid and perhaps the whole box to but this will do for now.

A couple weekends ago I picked up this People magazine special on Carrie Fisher. It was really interesting especially in regards to a lot of crazy shit going on behind the scenes during the shooting of the original STAR WARS trilogy including and affair with Harrison Ford and even Fisher doing coke in between shoots. I also really liked some of the vintage photos of Fisher and felt like posting them for other fans who might not know about this issue of People.

SOLD

At first I was gonna update the previous posting to let any other would be interested parties know that the Onyx mini-series has been sold but then I decided to just replace the previous posting since a sale announcement posting serves no real entertainment or archival purpose. But to those of you who caught it as I said I would probably include some envelope art in the deal. Oh indeed it's such a better deal then what was being offered up at ebay and it happened with only the 2nd interested party here only the first inquirer  turned out to be a flake.

Nothing new to talk about or share here and I suspect their won't be until around FCBD. I've seen on twitter and facebook how people are just sucking up to IDW about the new series with the usual base compliments and "likes" it's like nobody dares post anything negative any where where Chris Ryall might see it. I know for a fact that most everybody is not happy with the new look for ROM rather you hate it or just think it needs some more work. I Also know many of you have been waiting for this for a long time so don't you owe it to your self to take a few minutes and let IDW know what's on your mind instead of just passively watching them  . . . do what it is they're doing like a deer in headlights? Well I certainly have, although I'm not holding my breath for IDW to ever print that letter.

letters@idwpublishing.com

Left click to enlarge

February 10th Update:  WRITING WORKS!!! I will have you all know that I just copied and pasted Joseph's comment with the facebook replies into an email and fired it off to IDW and got a pretty prompt response. Out of respect for confidentiality I won't make their response public but I can assure you all that IDW is aware of the public criticism of the new look for ROM but seem to be "bewildered" about it. The correspondence actually went on as I'm writing this update which is around 11 AM pacific time. They even refereed to the manga style armor of the Jim Starlin 2001 spaceknights mini-series as rationale for this new look for ROM. I even told em straight up just go with what you guys had on the cover and how we were all happy with that and the collective WTF through out the internet when we saw the inside pages. Folks, it's clear to me IDW just doesn't get it and we're going down the Star Wars pre-quel path here with George Lucas. At what point did it make good marketing sense in the field of creative arts to not listen to the fans? For fuck's sake if you care anything for The Greatest of the spaceknights and the legacy of Bill Mantlo & Sal Buscema's creation email IDW now! Or hit em up on twitter and farcebook, it may be all for nothing but ask your self . . . what would ROM do?

Rom on roids cover variant by Michael Golden

Update February 13th: Thank you to Brian W. for bringing this to my attention today (see today's comments). It's nice to see an old school ROM cover artist back at it again although to be honest this isn't some of the best work from him I've ever seen especially if you compare it to the ROM covers he did in the 80s. All of which I love ofcourse but may favorite I think is issue 18 with ROM and The X-Men fighting Hybrid. Notice how the armor design here is more a reflection of the zero issue art cover as opposed to the interior? Don't know if that's what Rom's neutrilizer is gonna look like even though we don't get a really good look at it here. I hope IDW doesn't foul that up to and come up with something radically different looking not to mention that cool looking straight line stream of crimson energy that the neutrilizer discharged. If you're in the mood to see a some old school Mantlo/Golden era fan art check out what I found today over at deviant art . . .
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rom-VS-Acroyer-587533905

Update February 14th: Now that's more the kind of ROM I want to see. I lifted this image off of the latest Hasbro cinematic multiverse online chatter this morning. I'm not gonna get into all that but I just really like this illustration ROM looks so fucken slick not all "beefed up" and clumsy looking like that Michael Golden variant. Like I said before the minor but noticeable changes IDW had for him at first were fine with me but they just went way too far.