A surprise discovery weekend full of ROM related Marvel 80s nostalgia fan art

For most of this year I was pretty sure my January 1st post would be my last. But then this weekend came along and a number of cool stuff turned up. The kinda stuff I like to post, but has become increasingly rare. So for the 3 or 4 of you out there still checking out this blog I'm pleased to share the following with you. 

Unam The Unseen, one of the most tragic figures of  any spaceknight from back in the day. I don't know anythng about how this ficticious fan art cover in terms of who or how it was put together. I see the name Batista, as in the artist Chris Batista I assume. Is it hand drawn with some graphics added in photoshop or is it AI? Either way, it's an intriging concept and well illustrated with it's bold Marvel 80s cover art style.

Now this cropped cover art reproduction for ROM spaceknight 18 with the Wolverine yellow costume variant is all but certainly AI. But I never the less like it, despite it not being the most creative fan art from a conceptual stand point. It kinda reminds me of The Brothers Hilderbrandt in it's almost photo realistsic style and vivid colors.

Here we have a 3D printed statue of The Torpedo. According to the artist Kelly Green this is just a prototype so it's possible an even better updated version may turn up down the road. I absolutely love the pose, it has the prospects for a great referrence for some new fan art some day.

Now here's a show down many of us woud have liked to see back in the day. Tony Stark's genius technology vs Galadorian spaceknight armor. Many thanks to artist Ron Frenz for bringing this little sneak peak at what might have been. 

October 26th Update: I found this recent upload on deviant art today and I knew I just had to get me some Sabra all up in here.

https://www.deviantart.com/chaosemperor971/art/Sabra-(Ruth-Bat-Seraph)-1401752638

Unfortunately today also has brought us some really sad news as well, and on the heels of Tom Skerritt's passing no less. We just lost Walter Koenig who was another icon of science fiction history. Koenig was best known ofcourse for playing Mr. Chekov but I also want to give him some props for his work on Babylon 5 as the arrogant and devious psi cop Alfred Bester. To my surprise, Koenig played a very convincing villain character who was also well written. His addition to the cast as a semi regular came at a time when the series was starting to find it's legs. When Babylon 5 first came out I thought of it as a discount Deep Space 9 show. Rest in peace Walter, and thank you.

October 29 Update: When I heard earlier today about Patrick Stewart having passed away I was like you gotta be fucken kidding me. Walter Koenig and Patrick Stewart in the same damn week, really!? Ya know it's funny I can still remember thinking to myself  "Hey I know that guy from DUNE" after the first time I saw Stewart as Jean Luc Picard. I can also remember the first time I saw Stewart's death scene in Logan. The shock and sadness from that was pretty potent at the time and that was just as Stewart playing in a tragic moment of a beloved character. So many great memories, thank you and rest in peace sir.

What the Hellhounds!?

The source material for this piece which I put together in Adobe photoshop comes from two other artists. The Torpedo was a line art character study from Eric Jansen. All I had to do to that one was basically add some color to it. ROM is a cropped version of an original piece from Greek artist Kapandais Nikolaos. All I did to that one is add some grey tones to make him contrast from the background a bit more.  

Here's a brand new awesome fan art piece of ROM blitzing a pack of Black Nebula Hellhounds by Kapandais Nikolaos. And this time this one is all him. By the time they realize just what the Hell hit them they'll be on a one way trip to Limbo.

https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap/art/Rom-Spaceknight-955323949

A couple months ago I was hesitant to post these pages that were part of a SABRA story pitch to Marvel Comics from writer Matt Yocum and artist Jake Bilbao because I felt they were a little too "real world" in terms of subject matter. I've recently had a change of heart. Mostly because I really just want to share this stuff with as many people as possible out there. It's really great material when it comes to the question of what could have been.

  

Almost certainly by late 2023 we will start to see official movie trailers turn up for Captain America New World Order. But before those trailers we will almost certainly by privy to production and "first look" type still images from the film. Some of those no doubt will include Shira Hass as Sabra. I can't help but wonder if all the leftist antisemites as well as the ones within the muslim world will freak out out again and act like a bunch of cry babies with dirty diapers as they did back in September when the Sabra character appearance in the MCU was first announced? The Sabra character was created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema with creative input from Belinda Glass. Thank you all!

April 8th Update: For any Star Wars fans out there I've got something to share that I just started last night and completed this morning. The show down from the season one finale of Disney Plus's Kenobi was one of the best light saber duels ever in Star Wars. The exchange that Kenobi and Vader had at it's conclusion was also some great writing that was the icing on the cake. That was definitely my kinda Star Wars.

April 10th Update: We'll, just when I thought I'd seen it all when it comes to comic book/sci-fi related public art in The San Francisco Bay Area. What we have here is an amazing Miles Morales Spider-Man mural. I've been past this block in Oakland more then once in recent months so I know this mural is pretty new. It's located on 29th Avenue right before the highway 880 south bound onramp. Check it out if you're in the area.

 

ROM Spaceknght 50 tribute fan art

 

This piece is a combination of what is mostly black n white art work borrowed from 4 different artists and arranged together and colored in photoshop. The Torpedo is by Anderson Mendes, ROM is by Steve Butler, Starshine is by Kapandais Nikolaos and the Dire Wraith and Skrulls are by me. 

 

As you can see by the signature this Ron Joseph piece was done 7 years ago and although I've posted Ron's stuff here in the past I never posted this one for reasons I can't explain. Well, I'm gonna correct that little oversight right now.  

Here's another one that's been around for years now but I never posted it before for whatever reason. But I think it deserves a second look obviously. The scene here between ROM, Firefall and The X-Men's Dark Phoenix certainly suggests an interesting story going on here. Would have been nice to get artist Scott Reed's take on his inspiration for this piece.

Here's some more stuff from Ron Joseph with some embellishments from me again. In this case I added ROM to this scene of The Soviet Super Soldiers trying to take down The Hulk and added a little bit of depth with some shading effects. Check out the original source material from Joseph at these links...

 https://www.deviantart.com/ronjoseph-artist/art/THE-HULK-vs-the-SOVIET-SUPER-SOLDIERS-11x17-888596989

https://www.deviantart.com/ronjoseph-artist/art/ROM-vs-THE-HERCULOIDS-pencils-pg02-544320560

 

Here's some unpublished Michael Golden Micronauts art I came across last year. It would make for a nice coloring project. albeit a bit a labor intensive and time consuming one.

ROM the original by Tone Rodriguez

The two awesome ROM pieces by Tone Rodriguez have been around for some year now but this outstanding Torpedo fan art piece by Anderson Mendes was done just last month. And he does commissions  anders.mendes@hotmail.com

 

Calgary Herald October 22 1979

Dec.8th Update: Just came across this archival newspaper article someone posted on twitter from the Calgary Herald back in October 22, 1979. That's pretty amazing that ROM's debut issue got any kind of mention in a mainstream Canadian newspaper to say nothing about an actual full blown article. The author Patrick Tivy, may or may not still be around today but if he is it would be interesting to talk to him today in reflection to this article he wrote over 4 decades ago. The article offers some interesting insight into the comic book collecting scene at the time. It's an enjoyable read but the very last part of it annoyed me a bit.

Dec.14th Update: Seeing cool fan art from other artists almost always makes me want to do something new myself so here we go. This is a tribute to ROM 19 in which we learn of the fateful show down between Firefall and a deathwing during Galador's first spaceknight battle with the dire wraiths. Firefall's (Karas) final fate as a soul trapped in Limbo was always a loose end I wish that had been tied up by the end of the series. Could have been something cool for Marvel to use in the post ROM spaceknight series years. But instead, true to form for Marvel they've done almost nothing but shit instead for the last 20 years.

 

Ringing in the new year with some fan art that kicks ass!

I had been bitching to my good friend and fellow artist and ROM fan in Greece https://www.deviantart.com/nikoskap recently about how December was so fucken devoid of any new ROM related fan art that was worth a shit with November not having been much better. Now one of the reasons I consider this guy a friend is because he actually checks and responds to his emails on a pretty consistent basis which is rare these days even the other ROM fans I've connected with over the years are such assholes when it comes to that. So woe and behold after I woke up on New Year's day a sketch had been emailed to me from my Greek friend which I thought was great.

Didn't have to go to work today ofcourse and I had plenty of spare time on my hands so I decided to color it in photoshop. I know I'm not really blogging here any more these days but I'm pretty damn sure this will probably be the best ROM related fan art for much of . . or most of  . . or maybe for all of 2019 at this rate. So yeah I'm gonna post it here seeing as this is something of a special occasion although certainly not nearly as special as my Stan Lee posting.

Look what was just posted today. This is fucken awful...
http://gramha.com/media/1947937774984684833

Here's something I neglected to post all these years so I guess I might as well now. It's from the last couple panels from Avengers 243 (1984). Speaking of all all cool things from the 80s . . .

I saw Bumbleebee last weekend. I wouldn't say I loved it but I did like it and I think it was a much over due sea change for the franchise. Ofcourse it taking place right here in The San Francisco Bay Area during the 80s was a big plus for me. The movie wasn't with out it's problems though the story line had more then a few logic gaps and at times got a bit too tongue n' cheek for my taste. Although I appreciate how this one was closer to the source material I still really like even till this day the first Michael Bay TF movie but as ever all the sequels aren't worth a shit and I'd like to forget they ever happened.

Back to the 80s one more time with a totally awesome Back to The Future themed chalk drawing on this sandwich board sign outside of  High Scores (80s video game arcade) in downtown Hayward. Trust me, that's a good deal!

Jan 6 Update: Since I used to watch Lavern & Shirley when I was a kid I feel like I'm obligated to make a mention about the passing of Penny Marshal with only days having remained for 2018. I was kinda disappointed that it drew so little attention in the mainstream media I don;t remember seeing anything about on any major news outlets.

Also, here's a thumbnail preview of something I uploaded just this morning. Just did this on a whim and partly through the inspiration of other artists who are friends of mine. The link below will take you to the full size image . . .
https://www.deviantart.com/csuhsux/art/Transformers-and-Rom-spaceknight-recornered-779992170

Jan 15th Update: Well, we're now 2 weeks into the new year and not a single descent thing turned up when it comes to good ROM related fan art but there is this. But I did I happen to see this on the back of a van by chance as I was out and about last week. The 80s just seems to be every where I go.

Jan 26th Update:
HAPPY BIRYHDAY SAL!
https://www.deviantart.com/csuhsux/art/Happy-Birthday-Sal-Buscema-ROM-cover-concept-782841722

Jan 31st Update: Just happened to see this vintage Star Tours bumper sticker today. This really brings back some great memories from the early 90s when I first went on the Star Tours ride.

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.

A tribute to the classic

I didn't think I was gonna do any fan art for the longest time. But this week something just came over me I don't know if it's nostalgia or this chill work week I'm having so far or a combination there of. Just started sketching something last night with some of my free time and it started coming out pretty good. Earlier tonight I colored it and viola....my image montage of the classic ROM series is complete.  P.S. Fuck IDW Publishing

Gordon Henley as rebel X-Wing pilot Red Leader

I feel like I should give another recently passed away actor a little shout out here who isn't a house hold name but never the less has managed to cement their place in sci-fi history. Gordon "Drewe" Henley earlier this month died at age 75 from chocking on some food he was eating. Something of a tragic freak accident I would say especially coming on the heels of Carrie Fisher's death. For those of you who saw Rogue 1 you may have noticed him in the film appear in a couple of scenes exactly as he was back in 1977 when he led the rebel squadron that attacked and destroyed the Empire's first Death Star.
Unlike with The Grand Moff Tarkin and Princes Leia there was no well done CGI going on with Red Leader. That's because the producers of Rogue 1 actually inserted cut scenes from the Death Star battle from A New Hope into the ending space battle in Rogue 1. I absolutely loved that it made Rogue 1 feel that much more like classic vintage Star Wars and it was also great in terms of continuity. I can only hope that Henley was able to see Rogue 1 before his accident. Think about it, watching cut footage of yourself intended for a movie back in 1977 being used for a movie in 2016 I mean seriously how cool is that!? It should also be noted the same thing was done with the actor from A New Hope that played the rebel pilot with the call sign Gold Leader.

Left click to enlarge

January 28 update: My sketch card collection so far as of today.

The most under rated Marvel artist Ron Frenz

Let me just talk a little bit about THOR 383 first because it's really an excellent tie-in to the original Secret Wars 12 issue series. In the Secret Wars story line at one point The Enchantress temporarily magically transports herself and THOR off The Beyonder's Battleworld only to return there right in the middle of Dr. Doom's army of super villains. Not only in THOR 383 do we find out where they went for a while but we also get to see a recap of the entire fight between THOR and Doom's forces played out (as seen in Secret Wars 4) with new art work by Ron Frenz.

As you can see the art work kicks ass I mean seriously this is Sal Buscema level quality and that's pretty high praise coming from me as you all know. This is exactly what is meant when you hear about comic book art being done "The Marvel Way". It's very strange how Frenz doesn't have more notoriety in the industry like I said a really under rated artist.

It's rather sad that many of the same people who would practically drop to their knees upon hearing the name of a certain other artist who's work was out dated and woefully inadequate back in the 80s would probably be all but clueless about Ron Frenz and his fantastic work. That's just wrong.

Commission art by Ron Frenz

The ROM legacy Heroclix collection

Left click to enlarge

I've loved dioramas ever since I was a kid, and this one comes to us by Gary Martin Jr.who did a fine job on it. The top left silver figurine is Ikon with some gold color variants that are supposed to be some kind of standard spaceknight soldiers in the Heroclix universe. Along the bottom to the left we have Forge from The X-Men which I'm sure most of you ROM fans remember as having had a pivotal role as an ally to ROM in the final days of the Wraith War both in the pages of The X-Men as well as in ROM spaceknight. Moving to the right we've also got Turbo from The New Warriors although for nostalgia's sake I wish they had made that figure outfitted with the original Torpedo costume as opposed to the updated version as seen in the 2nd New Warriors series.
Moving on to the right we've got the bad guys starting with a standard female dire wraith along with the dire wraith queen Volx. Notice how Volx is made of the exact same mold but done in green. Last up in the top right corner we've got the worst of the worst when it comes to ROM's enemies. Arguably the best sculpt of the bunch that there is Hybrid. Spawned of a dire wraith father and human mother Hybrid was a mutant of sorts possessed of vast powers both mental and physical.

It also so happens that this past weekend I was at the latest San Jose Super Toy comic and collectibles show. I really like this con I've been to it a few times now over the past couple of years it's not as big as most other cons but it's not bad at all and for a measly $10 admission fee (plenty of free parking nearby to) you get quite a lot of bang for your buck as the saying goes. It was kinda cool to see a dealer decorate one of his comic boxes with ROM 18. Also, Sam Jones from the awesomely cheesy 1980 Flash Gordon movie and more recently from the Ted movies was there.

1989 Oakland CA Wonder Con convention program

October 7 Update: First off I wanted to say I'm disappointed to not see some words of appreciation for that ROM legacy Heroclix diorama which no doubt was a real labor of love for Gary. Ok moving on, here's a little retrospective when it comes to the local convention scene. I just found this in an old 1989 Oakland Wonder Con convention program I still had. Ofcourse I've sung the praises of Akin & Garvey's work on ROM numerous times here over the years but I hadn't realized until today that they had also done inks on the Micronauts (Vol. 2) as well. I don't know about the first ever Wonder Con in 87 but I know they were also guests at the one in 88. Looking back I wish I had made a point to see them while I was there but unfortunately back in the late 80s I was in a different head space. The names behind the comics I loved to read and collect were not that big of a deal to me as hard as that me be to believe in the here and now.

Spaceknight in Seattle

Been meaning to add another sketch card to my collection for a while now but just hadn't been feeling very artistically inspired lately. But with my most recent trip to Seattle I got an idea based on all the souvenir and gift shops with all the Seattle this and Seattle that merchandise but keep in mind I say that with Seattle still being my all time favorite U.S. city. Too bad it's almost as expensive to live there these days as it is in San Francisco. Anyways, that's nothing that ROM would have to worry about so here you have it a silver spaceknight in The Emerald City. Unfortunately, ROM never made it up to Seattle or to The Pacific Northwest in general during his original series but it sure would have been cool. That would have been so awesome seeing ROM use his neutralizer to banish a dire wraith posing as a Starbucks coffee employee. Not too far from reality actually when you think about it given Starbuck's already fairly successful plan for world domination.

Left click to enlarge

Classic Marvel 80s ROM sketch cards collect em all!