ROM Spaceknight fan art rewind and more!

 

Pretty much put this ROM vs Hybrid scene together in the same way I did the one in the previous posting. Moving on we're going to be revisiting some really professional looking past fan art piece from years ago that for reasons I can't remember I didn't feature here at the time. So let's get to it...

And speaking of beautiful custom figures related to the ROM series, this Torpedo one has gotta be one of the very best I've ever seen and I've seen quite a few over the years.  

This one come from artist Eteuati J Lalau. I'm assuming that's Galactus's hand that ROM is either perhaps materializing from or away to where ever Star Trek transporter style.

 This one is from artist Nalldo Ribeiro. Now normally ROM wouldn't have much to worry about from a single dire wraith trying to get the drop on him but this one looks like it's jacked up on roids or something. I also like this spaceship type corridor this scene is taking place in. It tells a story that your imagination can run with.

This cool space battle scene comes from artist Brian Douglas Ahern (a.k.a Brizy) who's work is no stranger to this blog. 

This sketch card scene taking place in the skies of Israel's capital of Jerusalem was inspired by a splash page in Incredible Hulk 250 (1980) in which The Silver Surfer flies all over Earth lamenting his terrestrial imprisonment by Galactus. In the process he has these scant encounters with various international characters (like Sabra ofcourse) which acted as a prelude to their eventual Marvel Comics full appearance in upcoming issues of The Hulk...

 https://earthsmightiestblog.com/hulk-250-1980/

But, in 1996 a Fantastic Four animated series would utilize that same Silver Surfer story line which gave us an animated version of Sabra's encounter with the surfer as seen here...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWKyH94Ie9g

 It's been awhile since I've posted any local cool comic book/sci-fi pop culture public art. Here we have a fantastic mural of Godzilla, King Kong, Voltron and Ultraman playing the NES game system on Mecha Godzilla. It can be found in San Jose's Japan Town here in The San Francisco Bay Area. 

March 15th Update: Well we're only about half way through March and already we've had a pretty long list of celebrities that have passed away this year. For me, Raquel Welch, Tom Sizemore (died too young) and Jewish Israeli actor Topol have been the ones that have saddened me the most. I go way back with Raquel Welch with films like Fantastic Voyage and Topol in Flash Gordon. Tom Sizemore came along later and although his sci-fi stuff like Red Planet wasn't bad, HEAT, Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan were his best moments as an actor.  

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

 

 

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.

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...

Always bet on black...Black Panther that is

   I'm going to give away one, just one spoiler because in some ways this was the coolest part of the film for me. The Black Panther opens up in Oakland California which is right here in The East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. Oh I can just imagine how audiences in theaters in Oakland must have reacted to that. And on a related side note the director of Black Panther (Ryan Coogler) was born in Oakland.
   So now that I got that out of the way how was the film? It wasn't great like Civil War but overall it was pretty good. We're treated to a lot of that Marvel cinematic universe humor we've become accustomed to along with the continued development of Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther which Civil War did such a great job of getting started. Also, a lot of good supporting characters that you actually get into fairly early on in the film. I liked how Black Panther featured so many strong black female characters with out it ever feeling like they were some kind of mandatory tokenism.

   Now all that being said it was kinda hard to see Michael B. Jordan (Killmonger) as a bad guy. I've had my eye on that actor for years now and he was superb in movies like Chronicle, Creed and Fruitvale Station. I'm so used to him playing a hero or some sort of sympathetic character as opposed to being a real dick of a villain but he certainly demonstrated his acting range here. Now make sure you keep your butt in your seat for the end credit scene even though it's a bit of a slog having to wait through the entire credits scroll. The end scene has the most significant Avengers tie-in moment and quite frankly the movie would have been incomplete with out it.
  Pretty sure trump isn't going to be in any rush to see this movie. Too many black folks in it, not to mention all those empowered female characters. But if he did manage to see it in between his FOX News binge watching schedule he would probably end up tweeting that Wakanda was just another shit hole country.

As I've said before, the vast majority of new ROM related fan art that turns up every month is amateurish looking crap as far as I'm concerned (especially when it comes to twitter) but once in a while something worth posting here comes along. Found this at some obscure site I'm not familiar with and unfortunately I couldn't find the artist so that I could accredit it accordingly. The biggest strengths of this piece are the way the dire wraiths are drawn and the over all colors they really pop. He or she did a fair job on ROM himself but making the neutrilizer bigger would have helped.

The Defenders 62 left click to enlarge

Here's a little random something from the tail end of the 70s which was basically the lead into the awesome 80s. This panel I believe is the only real moment of action with The Torpedo during the some what silly Defender For A Day story line.

Left click to enlarge

When I saw this I just had to post this here also this is pure political satire genius. Hopefully, you're someone who's watched The Rocky & Bullwinkle show and know the always conspiring russian characters Boris and Natashia. The Rocky & Bullwinkle show wasn't a Saturday morning cartoon like Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends or one of the ones that came on in the afternoon like The Transformers, G.I.Joe, Thundercats, Voltron, Robotech for example. I remember it being on early in the morning before school. If only the writers of The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show could see what was going on today with the russians.

And finally here we are with more of my photoshop trickery. I did this years ago but just posted it here for the Hell of it.

Just a couple of days I was at one of those dollar stores looking for some cheap snacks when I saw this little E.T. Lego set. The E.T. figurine in particular just gave me this on the spot rush of nostalgia. I loved this movie like so many other kids back then. And ya know what? I caught part of the movie on some channel a few months ago and I gotta say it doesn't hold up too bad even these days. I had a number of E.T. memorabilia items back in the day including a garbage can this is the only photo I have of it. Ofcourse you also see my old X-Wing ship and on the wall a mini Star Wars poster featuring The Millennium Falcon and some tie-fighters I wish I could remember where I got that from.

It's my dick in a box

I have a lot of new stuff to get through so let's get started. Yeah I know what's up with this posting title? Well I thought it was funny and extra points to you if you get the reference.  So it's not my dick in a box but it is something that I have of value that I did put into a box. Of all the collectibles I have, I felt like I should provide a special means of storage for my ROM Hasbro figure. First off I had to find a box that was just the right size. But I just couldn't have it be any old box so I had to customize it.

Now here's something I stumbled on while looking at some random ROM related stuff on the internet. No doubt you're wondering why I would bother to post an IDW cover to what has now become the IDW ROM series reboot fail.The some what "cartoony" style of this cover art is not quite my preference but in spite of that what I really like about this cover is that the ROM interpretation you see here is what I thought IDW was going for after we got our first look at the zero issue cover art. This is the updated kind of look I could have been into.

If you compare what you see above to the classic 80s ROM you will notice some minor design difference in the details of his armor. He's a bit more streamlined with an over all more "organic" look that feels some what less robotic. But at the same time, it's a tastefully done updated look that is still very much faithful to the original. Now I say that with the understanding that any version of ROM that does not exist in the Marvel Universe or has fingers instead of mittens would have just never gone over with some of the hard core fans but those particular things I could have gotten used to. We'll never know if this version you see of ROM here on this cover art would have resulted in a more successful reboot but I do know that I would have at least given it a chance. I will never understand what chris ryall and the rest of IDW were thinking with the shit they came up with.

I am not a Michael Bay fan and it's nothing short of a miracle that he was able to pull off a good movie with the first Transfomers film but every one since then has been shittier then the one before. So shitty that I don't even remember anything about the First Knight trailer or even it having been in theaters so I have no fucken idea about who or what this thing is from the movie. But I couldn't help but notice the uncanny resemblance it has to Ikon. Purely coincidental I'm sure. A character that I always felt had potential to do at least some justice to the ROM legacy with continued story lines involving Galador's spaceknights in the MCU but Marvel managed to eventually fuck that up to.

Fan art by John McCrea

This however is not fucked up. In fact it's pretty damn cool unlike most of the Rom related fan art I come across on the internet which is generally very amateurish and or lacks any imagination. Here we get to see a really nice visual concept of an encounter that sadly never happened.

One last thing, a quick round up of recent movies I've seen. Blade Runner was an all around let down but Thor Ragnarock turned out to be better then I expected despite the problems it had. Just saw The Justice League yesterday and despite the cautious optimism I had going into it I was pretty happy with it here's a short non-spoiler free review I wrote if you're interested . . .
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2017/11/justice-league-short-review-with.html

ROCK STEADY

Ya know when nothing good comes my way in terms of good ROM related fan art for a while I get kinda antzy and just say to my self what the Hell I'll just do something myself. If I had the time I would do a series of fan art pieces that have ROM making some sort of current pop culture one liner as seen in the previous posting. Unfortunately I'm going to be having a lot less free time starting next week as I embark on a new routine with work and such matters which will force me to curb my time on the internet. Anyways, for the time being I hope you all like this latest fan art, it's loosely based on Marvel Two-In-One issue 99 so it's something of a homage piece.

I know you've all seen the digital fan art above but when I by chance came across this Saturday morning NBC cartoon house ad in one of the Crsytar back issues I recently read I just wanted to put em together in a posting.

Jan. 30th Update: By chance I just stumbled across this little known ROM related Easter Egg hiding in plain sight for nearly 6 years now. There's a certain irony here I happen to live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is hippie dip shit central and I just finished my first week of a 12 week CDL (commercial drivers license) class course  . . .
http://sanctumsanctorumcomix.blogspot.com/2009/07/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-sigh.html

New fan art and a mention in SciFiNow magazine

A big thanks to Gary for finding the following on Instagram. When it comes to fan art for any characters we don't get to see much in the way of water colors unfortunately. This one comes to us from artist Vince Sunico nice job bro I especially dig how you did with Rom's eyes.

Left click to enlarge

Here's a nice sketch card by artist Mark Propst (a color version featured here later this week) that may have been inspired by the iconic 80s HULK rage face close up Bob Larkin. Mark has at least one other sketch card of Rom that could be something of a follow up to this one in terms of it's theme
http://iconosquare.com/p/757602894134377649_1018888070

Left click to enlarge

Hey Gary seems I've been doing some incidental curating as of late. This past weekend I happened to be up in Petaluma and while browsing at this book store I took a look at a July copy of a U.K. magazine called SciFiNow. I noticed an article in it called Cosmic Marvel from A-Z in which every letter of the alphabet headlined a short editorial of major characters ("J" for Rick Jones) and events in cosmic Marvel story lines in recent years. It's nice to find these Rom references in old school publications from the 80s and 90s but it's also nice to find them in recent stuff as well, as seen last year in GEEK magazine and with IDW's splash page.


Update: And speaking of IDW only hours after publishing this posting I came across yet another albeit rather unique ROM reference in the recent issue of Rogue Trooper but I'm saving that one for the next posting : )

Those "critters" from X-Men 187-188

Left click to enlarge

Alright it's back to the wonderful 80s today! And this time I'm hoping I found a Rom related reference that even Gary Martin Jr. or Lee Sietz don't know about yet. So this morning I found an issue of New Mutants #24 in a 3 for $1 box while I was in S.F. when I noticed these panels that make an obvious reference to the Dire Wraiths. If you recall Uncanny X-Men 187-188 was part of the story arc involving an attempted assassination of Forge by the dire wraiths which was in part prevented by the timely arrival of The X-Men and Magik (Illyana Rasputin).
The pages of the X-Men wasn't the only time Magik would find herself battling those sorceress "critters". In Rom Annual #3 she helped Rom fend off some dire wraiths and escape from Limbo after having been sent there by Hybrid. After their return from Limbo they fought Hybrid together and along with the assistance of Brandy Clark defeated Hybrid's ugly ass  . . .
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2009/07/spaceknight-saturdays-many-happy.html

Left click to enlarge

So here's some fan art (unknown artist) I've appropriated from Gary's stash for this posting. To me this is an example of some art work that was so close to being great. I like the setting the artist put Rom in it certainly plays with your imagination. I like the detail on the armor and I also like the off center slightly over head point of view that's harder to pull off well then you think trust me on that. But there's a couple details when it comes to figure composition that don't quite settle with me. Rom's forehead is a bit too high and his arms are overly robust and long. So what do you think?

Left click to enlarge

8/19 Update: So I got an email earlier today from Gary Martin Jr. "A Rom curator" with some photos he took of some Guardians of The Galaxy HeroClix play sets he ordered online in order to obtain the Rom related figurines. So here we have the Ikon spaceknight figurine and of course you've seen the Dire Wraith one already. Just so you know there's a Dire Wraith Queen Volx figurine which is just a green colored version of the Dire Wraith sculpt and there's also 2 spaceknight warrior figurines that are gold colored and basically a version of the Ikon sculpt. You may have noticed in the bottom left hand corner of the information card a ROM #1 appearance mention for Ikon I assure you that's either some sort of misprint or somebody's idea of what would sound cool for gaming purposes or what not. I'm trying to keep this posting from getting any more long winded then it kinda is already and I don't think there's anyone here who plays HeroClix any ways so if you have any more questions I'm sure Gary will be happy to answer any questions you might have in the comments section.

Damn! Now that's what I call some good fan art!

Looks like things are picking up here again at least for the time being. I want to open up this posting by thanking Gary Martin Jr. for not giving me a heads up about this newly discovered fan art. Fortunately, I know about his secret hiding place he squirrels away all the Rom related art work he finds. But that's ok I can always go help myself to the stuff he finds that I've missed. Anyways, here's a new one by Yildiary Cinar. Talk about a solid illustration this is my kinda fan art, dynamic, slightly stylized and especially well done from a figure composition stand point.

Here we have the 3rd in a line of fan art I've seen so far when it comes to a ROM spaceknight / Green Lantern theme. Rom's head is a bit small in proportion to the rest of his body but this is otherwise a really solid illustration it's done by this guy
http://leolaino76.deviantart.com/

Ok a couple more things I want to get to here. The Vision of Comics gave me a heads up about this new novel (not graphic novel) by Dan Abnett about Rocket Raccoon & Groot that among other things featured a spaceknight by the name of Roamer. I passed that info along to our resident Rom curator Gary Martin Jr. who in turned asked me if I'd mention it on the blog. As you all know I don't care for Rocket or Groot but because I'm such a stand up guy so here I am mentioning it for Gary.
And just so you all know I also mentioned the Hasbro Rom doll to Dan Abnett on farcebook this morning in the hopes it might help get things moving along as far as what we all really want to see which is a return of ROM to the marvel universe and an end to these badly mishandled half ass continuities we've had to endure for years now.

Some new kick ass eye candy fan art!

Left click to enlarge

I actually wanted to make this latest digital art piece as the header art work on the blog but blogger keeps giving me shit about having to add a title to it which I'm not interested in doing I just want to drop the art work up there. Whatever fuck em! I love the original art work that I used to have up there  http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rom-mueller-pin-up01-filtros-372866616 but I've been wanting to have something more colorful for a little while now but it looks like I'm just going to have to go with out anything there for the time being.

As you can see some other blog worthy fan art turned up this week. This one is by Greek artist nikoskap. I really like the "gothic"modern art style that the male Dire Wraith, Deathwings and Hell Hounds are done in and that back ground strikes just the right tone for the scene.