ROM's Cafe

Located on A street in Hayward California I swear when I first saw this place the logo looked like it was directly taken off from any issue of the ROM spaceknight series. Just a coincidence I'm sure but pretty cool to see just the same.

A new commission fan art piece by artist Jim Califiore. Well I'm posting it here so obviously I like it and I don;t even mind the minor artistic liberties Califiore took with ROM's armor. In fact, this is a nice basis of what IDW's reboot could have looked like. I'm quite positive this would have gone over much better with the fan base both new and old.

 

One of the things I love about fan art is that you don't have to worry about any sort of legal red tape when it comes to who you want to feature together. This latest here is by you're truly. I've had this cross over character concept idea for a while now I'm glad I finally got around to getting to it.

 

I spotted this a couple days ago along the side of some kind of portable office for a moving company in San Francisco. Just another good example of the cool public art you can find around here when it comes to all things comics and sci-fi.The first two films from the ALIEN franchise were absolutely classic iconic sci-fi horror and I love em both. However, I can't say the same for the rest unfortunately. 

I was recently reflecting on the "ROM Remix" project from several years ago https://romremix.tumblr.com/ as a concept it was kinda cool but ultimately poorly executed due to the poor quality artists that contributed to the project. The lone exception being Robert Duckett who did page 4. He did a fairly good job especially in the first few panels.

NOVA 619 vs the Dire Wraiths concept fan art

I finally had a complete chill day this past Sunday and I got one of my back burner fan art projects done. A couple months ago this British guy contacted me on deviant art about getting some input about this story line he and some friends had written having to do with this confrontation Nova has with the dire wraiths. As I understand it this is supposed to be some manner of online comic with something of a Halloween theme. Needless to say I liked their script and it inspired me to come up with some art work. At this time I don't want to give too much away about it but for now I can tell you this much, the dire wraiths are masters at deception which can be a formidable weapon that even raw power can't always over come as The Torpedo* found out the hard way. For this battle Richard Rider will need much more then his Nova Prime powers. Sometimes it's your will and even your imagination that makes the difference between life and death, in particular your brain getting sucked out of your skull kinda death.

For those of you who would like a comprehensive review of Nova's origins check out this cool video and yes they made sure to include ROM #24.

* Special note: The Torpedo and Nova were both co-created by Marv Wolfman

Sept. 23 Update: I just got confirmation today that the Marvel Age Magazine #7 "Ron" misprint has nothing to do with this custom doll for anyone who's interested in knowing.

Cool late 70s Marvel house ad and new bullshit from Marvel to kick off 2014

Oh talk about a cool blast from the past I found this full page house ad in Avengers # 177 which also happens to be a great action packed issue ( November 1978). Here's the TV commercial for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMYl_oygRU So the deal here is if you send in some sort of proof of purchase from the packaging of a Micronauts Battle Cruiser you can get two free Marvel Comics. This was a good way of getting kids who were into The Micronauts toy line also interested in Marvel Comics assuming they weren't already which had obvious marketing benefits given that Micronauts #1 debuted January of 1979. To no surprise this was the last paragraph that appears in the Bullpen Bulletin page of that very same Avengers issue.

Alright so that was Marvel Comics back then, let's take a look at the here and now which I couldn't be less enthusiastic about.

Left click to enlarge

Well, marvel does it again. Apparently Hybrid makes a brief appearance in the first issue of the New Warriors series. As you can see he and the current Nova are having a skirmish in what appears to be some sort of govt. building in new Mexico. Needless to say we get no explanation about anything here like . . . oh let's say how Hybrid is back after having gotten blasted back to Limbo again a couple years ago in Avengers Academy. Marvel has pretty much made Hybrid into some kind of WWF fall guy now like that no name wrestler who always loses to the popular one every body roots for. We can all thank Gary Martin Jr. for taking another one for the team cuz I sure as fuck don't buy new stuff from marvel any more.

OK THIS ALSO REALLY PISSES ME OFF! I just found out that Bill Mantlo doesn't own any portion of the rights to the current White Tiger character apparently because that character is now a woman. But keep in mind the new White Tiger is actually the daughter of the original and wears pretty much the same costume and mystic amulets. Now also keep in mind that permission to conceive or use this new White Tiger was never obtained by marvel from Michael Mantlo who is Bill's legal guardian. And marvel has been using that character in both print and in it's TV cartoons for at least a couple years now if not longer. Now considering how marvel won't use the name ROM or even have Rom appear in human form you gotta ask yourself what the fuck is going on with those assholes who run marvel comics these days!?