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?

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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

Making ass kicking new fan art out of the older stuff plus LOGAN this weekend

For the past couple days I've been doing some experimenting in photoshop with combining elements of past fan art projects of mine to create new scenes. I got some pretty damn good results if I do say so myself the source material is all stuff I've posted here over the years but I'll provide you with links to my deviant art gallery for easier and quick references of the before mentioned source material ...
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Rom-spaceknight-Silver-Surfer-Nova-Quasar-368979222
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Spaceknights-over-San-Francisco-528693529

http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2017/02/x-men-vs-dire-wraiths-tribute-art.html
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Rom-spaceknight-and-Onyx-team-up-sketch-art-550782374
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Rom-spaceknight-Beta-Ray-Bill-team-up-sketch-art-485359416
By the way deviant art just recently was purchased by Wix which is an online do it yourself web page building site perhaps you seen their TV commercials? As I understand it it's mostly used by business owners with no web skills to build professional looking websites for their business on the cheap. Turns out Wix is an Israeli based company which I had no idea about it always makes my day to learn more about the robust business dealings between America and Israel. I'm sure deviant art will be in good hands.

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March 12 update: No you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you if you've previously visited this posting I swapped out this photo image with the finalized product. Each side panel has a mirror opposite as far as the art work goes so effectively you're actually seeing the whole thing in this one photo.

March 4th update: So first of all I just wanted to say that if you thought this movie based on the trailers was gonna be anything like the other Wolverine solo movies then you're an idiot. It most certainly was not, and I mean that in the best possible way. This was a very serious and melancholy film that at times got down right depressing. Part of that had to do with it dealing with a lot of of serious social themes such as coming to terms with growing older and the emotional challenges of caring for the elderly. Things I think more of us are dealing with these days then care to admit.
   The movie had as expected a lot good action scene which I think were the way Wolverine fight scenes should have always been portrayed all along. You don't just see him swinging his claws at someone that just falls over I mean we're talking full on dismemberment Conan The Barbarian style. We also get a lot of good trash talk humor that's anything but campy especially with Charles Xavier dropping a few "F" bombs here and there which alone is almost worth the cost of admission. At times the feel of the film was much like Steven King's Firestarter (great 80s film) with the whole little girl with super powers on the run theme in which you knew it was just not going to end on a happy final note. There are those who would say that the story line is a bit slow paced at certain points and I think there's a case to be made for that but this was a really strong character driven movie. Characters with a lot of history that we all love who are going through a crisis unlike any we've ever seen with them before you can't make that feel rushed it needed to be handled right.
   Finally, everybody in the film was great with especially powerful performances from Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart with Dafni Keen and Boyd Halbrook also handling their roles quite well. Although not the more high society sophisticated James Bond type villain as we know him from the comics I also liked how they handled the Donald Pierce character (Halbrook). He was more of a wise cracking down and dirty mercenary type but it worked pretty good for the story. Are there things I could nit pick at in the movie? Yeah sure, but nothing that serious that takes much away from what the movie has going for it. The end was kinda predictable but still managed to be fairly suspenseful and in the case of Logan himself rather ironic. If you want to discus the movie in any more detail go ahead and leave a comment, remember when you guys used to leave comments?

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April 11th Update: This fantastic comment was found under a recent Bleeding Cool article about some law suit that is or was going on between Marvel Comics and idw publishing over the legal rights for usage of the term Dire Wraiths. Personally I could give a rat's ass about the law suit since marvel hasn't done anything with the Wraiths in years that was worth a shit and don't even get me going again on idw's shitty ROM reboot.

Bill Paxton passes away at 61 so to the grim reaper I say "Fuck you asshole!"

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Unfucken believable! I literally only 30 moments ago just read the sad news about Bill Paxton having passed away during some sort of surgical procedure. Here we go again with yet another iconic actor from the sci-fi genre of the 80s passing away and we're not even done with February yet. Many people wouldn't know that his list of credits both in front and behind the camera is very extensive but I'm not going to get into a long winded posting about his fantastic career. But suffice it to say I loved Bill Paxton he's been in some great films both big and small that I've enjoyed since the mid 80s.
The land mark role that put him on the map no doubt was private Hudson from ALIENS but we actually saw Bill before that in a small part in the original classic Terminator film. Since then he's played in a number of great films like Tombstone, Apollo 13 and One False Move. He's also done some work on the small screen I remember him in particular most recently from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D when that show was actually watchable. Bill was also in another great yet little known film that's one of my favorites from his acting resume. The movie is a modern day vampire film from the late 80s called Near Dark in which Paxton plays a psychotic vampire with an entertaining and twisted sense of humor when it comes to hunting his prey.

As most of you know we've lost a few celebrities this year so far I've posted about (Miguel Ferrer, Gordon Henley, Richard Hatch and now Bill Paxton). It's ironic that it would be a couple weeks ago that I would happen to spot this clip art in an issue of Battlestar Galactica. I say that because of the Star Wars reference in it (good for you if you can find it) and given that it was an actor from both Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica who passed away this month.

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.

X-Men vs The Dire Wraiths tribute art

This is a commission art piece done by artist Peter Nguyen based on X-Men issue #188 which was the climatic ending of a 5 issue story arc (184,185, 186, 187, 188 all by John Romita Jr. and Chris Claremont) covering the assassination attempt on Forge by the dire wraiths. Ofcourse that broader story line of Forge's involvement in the Wraith War would continue in the pages of ROM. No ROM spaceknight collection is truly complete with out these important X-Men tie-in issues.

Just noticed this in the latest Incredible Hulk trade paper back (Future Imperfect) just published last month. The TPB includes the Rick Jones wedding issue and I was happy to see the panels with ROM were not left out but that didn't come as much of a surprise given that ROM was not in his cyborg armor. Although even that may have been an over site given that Marvel these days isn't even willing to have ROM in any new stories as even human and being referred to in some other way then the name "ROM". And I would know because I've suggested it to them only to have that idea flatly rejected back in 2011 and again 2012. But Marvel definitely made an over site in the back pages featuring reprinted clip art in black and white which has a panel with some skrulls impersonating superheroes that Rick Jones has been a side kick to over the years. Quick, somebody go tell Hasbro (just kidding like they'd care). Well Gary (a very dedicated ROM curator), even though you already have all the individual ROM related Hulk issues it looks like you're gonna have to open up your wallet yet again and add this TPB to your collection.

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February 14th Update: Started this sketch in the morning and finished it after I got home from work tonight. Just found my self in the mood to draw Storm today.

A fond farewell to Richard Hatch

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It's looking like 2017 might be another shit year for more of the actors from some of my favorite childhood sci-fi genre movies and and TV shows passing away. This afternoon I just got the sad news about Richard Hatch (age 71) passing away as a result of pancreatic cancer (just like Patrick Swayze RIP). Most of you ofcourse know him as Apollo from the original Battlestar Galactica which I loved back in the day and for many years continued to watch as reruns. Hatch would also go on to play a semi-regular character on the SyFi channel Battlestar Galactica reboot in the mid and late 2000s.

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I actually had the privilege of meeting Richard Hatch a little over a year and a half ago at the BIG Wow Comic Fest in San Jose CA. where he was at a table promoting Star Trek Axanar. Axanar is a very well done independent production for youtube that chronicles the original war between The Federation and The Klingon Empire in which Hatch played a high ranking Klingon commander obsessed with defeating The Federation. Hatch's acting career included a lot more then what I've mentioned in this posting ofcourse for example did you also know he replaced Michael Douglas's character on the 70s TV show The Streets of San Francisco? 

Exactly one month ago in a posting I featured an old photo of part of my toy collection back in 1981 that among other things included a few Battlestar Galactica figures. So I guess this seems like a good time to showcase the one toy I have these days from Battlestar Galactica. This was something of a rare find it was one of those toys that never seemed to appear in regular retail stores you just always saw the other ships you really didn't want that much and then one day you see it at a comic shop or at a convention going for twice or three times what it retailed for. Well anyways I saw just one at  a Walmart back in 2007 and snatched it up with out second thought.

ROM, Panthro and Snake Eyes . . . nuff said

Damn, is it just me or did January seem to come and go in the blink of an eye!? I have the feeling 2017 is gonna fly by like 2016 did. Anyways, it would be pretty hard to have ROM, Panthro and Snake Eyes together and it somehow sucking. And all the better if you throw in other characters I like who are licensed properties from the 80s and cool DC characters. Anyways, that's all I've got to say about that and here's a link to where I found this . . .
http://www.scrollboss.illmosis.net/blog/?p=1753

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I also wanted to use this posting today to feature the art work of an artist you've probably never heard of before. As you can see in terms of style and theme it's a complete departure from how I opened this posting. He's a fellow by the name of Paul Sloan and he's done a number of these apocalyptic ice age fantasy art piece featuring famous cities like Seattle (which I visited late last year as some of you may recall) and San Francisco.

Getting back to the superhero genre fan art here's something new from my good friend and fellow ROM fan from the island of Crete (Greece). I've featured his work here before and have even been inspired by his stuff in regards to my own fan art. He recently did this sweet piece with Storm from The X-Men. But to see the full body view in her Savage Land costume variant you need to go to the link
http://nikoskap.deviantart.com/art/Savage-Land-Ororo-659747348