Wrapping up 2014 with some old school coolness and my latest fan art

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Marvel Update was a quarterly news letter brochure that Marvel Comics Group distributed only to their in-house departments, shareholders and business partners back in the 70's through the 90's. All those early ROM costume promo appearances we've seen floating around on the internet for several years now like this one
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-rom-1980s-cosplay-photo-found-plus.html  were originally published in that quarterly in regards to the launching of the ROM spaceknight comic book series. So in a sense, Marvel Update actually had the first appearance of ROM. Ever the collector and curator of all things ROM related the following clips seen above come from a winter and fall edition of Marvel Update which Gary Martin Jr. recently acquired.

Ya know I really miss the good ol days of illustrations done on envelope like we used to see in Wizard magazine (just like you said K.o.T). I think of it as something of a lost art form.

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Dec. 18 update: I neglected to remember that Hanukkah started at sundown yesterday. So in order to atone for my absent mindedness I decided to whip up this sketch art of Sabra taking a break from putting down jihadi terrorists and super powered menaces so she can light the menorah. More possible updates for this blog posting to come before the end of the year.


And here's that first update. This fantastic Dec. 17 ROMcentric podcast throws around those common questions about what the fuck is going on when it comes to hasbro and marvel in regards to ROM as a licensed property http://relativelygeekypodcast.blogspot.com/2014/12/qbp-040-rom-1.html

Easter Eggs, fan art, custom figures

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Most of you will recognize this FF 216 splash page with the ROM Easter egg as something I've posted before. But thanks to this Fanatastic Four trade I had from the library I was able to get a nice color scan of it. Take note of all some of the staff listed in the credits like Torpedo creator Marv Wolfman and of course Bill Mantlo. We also have the late Mark Gruenwald who's first wife (Belinda Glass) offered the inspiration to Bill and Sal for the Sabra character which is Marvel's first Israeli superhero.

Here's something of another type of Easter Egg from Incredible Hulk 472 (1999) which Gary Martin Jr. picked up fairly recently. Can you find what it is our resident Rom curator spotted here?

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I whipped this up a couple weeks ago but I think most of you have seen it already on deviant art. All the custom figures of spaceknights from ROM #26 that Chris has been making lately I think partly inspired me to sketch this scene.

And speaking of custom figures check this out. This Ikon spaceknight custom comes from Italy and was on ebay earlier this week with a starting bid of $100. Thanks for the heads up Gary this is pretty damn sweet I sure wish we could have scene some where along the line Ikon mix it up with Terrax like some of her 1st generation brother spaceknights did.

However, not to be out done by any other custom figure designer I proudly present the original greatest of the spaceknights custom by Chris http://custom777.deviantart.com/

And if you haven't seen this yet check it out. The only thing that would have made this cooler is for Buzz Light Year to get tongue spiked through that glass dome by a Dire Wraith. Something like that happened on page 18 in X-Men 186 where a guy gets it through his front wind shield http://braveandboldlost.blogspot.com/2013/12/buzz-lightyear-and-rom.html