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.

  

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.  

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...

Farewell 007

Roger Suave

So I'm just doing this spur of the moment posting on what is now mostly an in active blog site. Only heard the sad news about an hour ago about Roger Moore passing away at 89 from cancer. Right on the heels of Sound Garden's front man Chris Cornell no less but in his case his death was in some ways even more tragic given that he was only in his 50s. I figured I better throw something on the internet especially with all this russia/trump investigation and terror attack in Manchester drowning out all other news stories including this one. Again, what seemed to be one of those timeless celebrity icons from my child hood has left us. There's really not much of anything I can say that you don't know or haven't heard already if you know anything about Roger Moore's career so let me pivot a bit to some of the 007 toys I used to have when I was a kid.

Ya know I still see the 007 submarine car (Corgi) from time to time at comic and toy conventions, usually going for a pretty hefty price tag. Especially for the ones that are in better condition part of that being if the 007 logo sticker is still present and not too tattered and faded.

I also used to have both the large scale and smaller Moon Raker shuttle craft toys (also from Corgi). Both featured retractable landing gears and cargo bay doors that open. But the bigger shuttle also had a removable satellite which had extending solar panels where as the smaller shuttle just had a fixed molded piece in it but I loved both em just the same. I see the smaller shuttle once in a while at a con but have yet to come across the bigger one. I wonder if all these 007 toys will bump up in value now?

Left click to enlarge

Here, I'll add this to the posting even though you no commenting ingrates don't really deserve to see any new fan art. Found this on deviant art a few weeks ago and played around with it in photoshop just for fun I never had any intention of posting it. If you have a keen eye for detail you may catch the differences from the original http://www.deviantart.com/art/Marvel-Cosmic-for-Blastoff-Comics-WIP-467835104

Need your classic ROM fix? Here you go . . .

Fan art by Dann Phillips left click to enlarge

So as you can see there's a lot going on here aside from ROM being one of the onlookers to this epic DC/Marvel cross over battle between these two major bad guys. Ironically another cosmic marvel fan art piece turned up deviant art only a couple days before Dann's that included ROM, Galactus, Silver Surfer and Thanos but that artist never replied to me me unlike Dann so fuck em they only get a link as opposed to having their stuff actually featured here in this posting. There's just something to be said for social media etiquette it's just a thing with me  . . .
http://emmanuelmerlotti.deviantart.com/art/Rom-Spaceknight-by-Emmanuel-Merlotti-619409778

On the other hand this guy did get back to me from deviant art. So guess what? He gets to have his nice work in progress sculpture featured in this posting. More views from different angles can be seen here http://silent-cell.deviantart.com/

If you're thinking about buying all the IDW cover variants buyer beware. Pay attention to the most recent comments in the previous posting Gary has left IDW's shameless greed seem to know no limits.


July 6th update: Painted version of statue just posted
http://silent-cell.deviantart.com/art/Rom7-619763240

Rom, Silver Surfer, Nova and Quasar together for the first time

All this fan art I've been getting in recent weeks along with the Sal Buscema bonus pin-up page recently has gotten me all jazzed to do something myself. Here's a little something that's been in the back of my mind for a while now but until recently I hadn't been motivated to just sit down and do it.

Rom, Nova and The Silver Surfer fan art by Thomas Frisano

Damn this guy knows how to draw! Especially from a figure composition stand point. It would have been nice if he had put all these epic Marvel cosmic characters into an actual scene together as opposed to drawing them in 3 separate scenes on a single page but that's just me nit picking. On some particulars in regards to Rom I really like the way Frisano drew his head and eyes.

Also, for those of you who are interested in getting a copy of Bill Mantlo: A Lifetime In Comics I may have some good news for you in the next day or two.