Why Bill Mantlo/ROM fans should remember Portland

Left click to enlarge interior mural from previous store location

It's hard to believe there are any ROM and or Bill Mantlo fans out there who don't know about Floating Worlds Comics by now but I guess there's still a few of you out there. In 2007 and 2010 Floating Worlds Comics hosted an art benefit auction to raise money and awareness for Bill along with some other related promotional events. That's the only comic shop I've ever known to have done something like that on behalf of Bill which is pretty crazy when you think of the kind of career he had. The promotional events at Floating World Comics had also resulted in an influx of ROM related fandom and newly created art work onto the internet just prior to me discovering for the first time the enduring fan base for the big silver guy which was some where in late 2008. So of course during my trip to Northern Oregon right after Thanksgiving Day Weekend I'll be sure to add a visit to Floating World Comics to my itinerary. You can see past blog postings about the Bill Mantlo benefit art auctions here . . .
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/search?q=floating+world+comics

I'll be updating this posting as soon as I get back late next week. Meanwhile, here's a couple of things you might enjoy. Written by Mantlo in the pages of HEAVY METAL magazine this is a futuristic short story about tyranny and rebellion told in an old English style of writing . . .

http://theporporbooksblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/rising-of-moon-by-bill-mantlo-writer.html

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Dec. 4 Update: Well I'm finally back from my trip and the ironic thing is when I flew out of Oakland on Teusday morning it was raining like crazy but the minute I touched down in Portland it was dry as a bone which was the case through out all of Northern Oregon for almost the entire time I was there. Needless to say I had a great time and I'd like to make some recommendations to all my fellow sci-fi comic book geek freinds who may some day happen to find themselves out in the Portland, Seaside and Astoria areas. Just a block down from Floating World Comics is this cool 80s retro video game arcade/bar called Ground Kontrol. Like I said it's also a bar so they do card you at the entrance. Only a short walk away is Billy's Galaxy which was one of the best vintage toy shops I've ever seen. Among the collection of awesome stuff there they had a couple of ROM dolls but I ended up buying this Gobot I used to have called Pathfinder. And on a side note amazingly even the small coastal town of Astoria (where Kindergarten Cop and The Goonies were filmed) had an 80s retro video game arcade called The Arc Arcade.

One last thing, I grabbed a copy of Incredible Hulk #258 (Mantlo / Buscema 1981) at Floating World Comics for some lite reading on the plane for the trip home and I discovered this house ad on the letters page. This is actually the first time I've ever seen this particular ROM promo in print although the 6" banner strip ad version I've had for a while now electonically thanks to Gary Martin Jr. although that version includes some extra art work in the left hand bottom corner. . .
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/2012/07/marvel-80s-house-ads-promos-with-rom_24.html

Fan art that's worth a second look and The Torpedo's movie debut . . sort of

Yesterday this guy over at deviant art left a comment under one of my recent submissions about how cool a Deathlock vs ROM match up would be. Although it seems like the prevailing cybernetic throw down among comic book fans would be between Deathlock and The Teen Titan's Cyborg. Anyways, that got me thinking of this sketch art that was on deviant art for a while there but as far as I can tell it seems to be gone now. Fortunately I knew another source where I could procure this art work.

I think in the past I've resisted posting this because of the unfinished nature of this work. But in spite of that you can tell whoever did this has some serious illustration skills he/she hits all the major points: figure composition, perspective, foreshorting and shadowing it's a real pity they never finished this. If I recall correctly from when this art work was still on deviant art the other fellow in this sketch is Morbius The Living Vampire. I have no idea if this art work is still any where on social media but I'm going to also give it a home here where fans can see it.

So early yesterday morning I got an enthusiastic email from my good buddy Gary Martin Jr. (perhaps you've heard of him?) that included some screen shots taken from youtube videos of scenes from a Disney movie (Big Hero 6) he had just taken his family to recently. As you can see, someone who was involved in the making of this movie seemed to be really intent on showcasing a number of lesser known Marvel characters along with The Torpedo we can also see Orca, Black Talon and Sleepwalker. Although not seen in these screen shots Gary assures us that the actual movie scene does feature several seconds of a more full body view of The Torpedo. Good ol Brock Jones, gone but not entirely forgotten it would seem.

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Nov. 16 Update: Speaking of Easter Eggs, most of you know about ROM being scene briefly in that god awful ill fated Silver Surfer cartoon (episode 5) back in the 90s right? Well thanks to the wonders of modern technology (photoshop) we can now have ourselves a ROM easter egg in a good Saturday morning cartoon from marvel . . .
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Spiderman-and-his-Amazing-Friends-with-ROM-494916285

Superskrull vs ROM and Captain Mar-vell variant homage fan art

By Nick Baldwin

Just when I think I can go on a hiatus or other wise let this blog sit idle something else comes along that warrants a posting. In this case we have something that turned up yesterday on deviant art that was actually inspired by some of my own fan art
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/ROM-and-Captain-Marvel-vs-The-Super-skrull-482864758 Rather you want to consider this some variant fan art or more of a homage it's just all around cool and one Hell of a compliment.

And the cool new fan art just keeps on coming! This one by a Brazilian artist turned up on deviant art this very morning check out the full image
http://victorhugo.deviantart.com/gallery/#/art/ROM-the-Space-Knight-493069320?_sid=41595fad

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Nov. 8 Update: I found myself with a surprising amount of free time on my hands today so I decided to take a jaunt up to the radical left wing shit hole (where soda now costs more then pretty much any where on the fucken planet) known as Berkeley. There's a comic shop up there I wanted to look around at and they happened to have had an October copy of BACK ISSUE! Just read the Micronauts article last night it had a couple of cool extra stuff too as you can see above but it was basically an expanded version of the Micronauts chapter of the Bill Mantlo: A Life Time In Comics tribute magazine.

Nov. 9 Update: Ever since I first published this posting it seems like something else keeps turning up one way or another so here's yet another update. Another fellow over at Deviant Art took it upon himself to color this already. For those of you who don't have an account with Deviant Art just get one already it's free and it only takes a few minutes to set up. You can see the original full size art work here . . .
http://smackos101.deviantart.com/art/Super-Skrull-vs-Mar-Vell-and-ROM-493462919

Nov. 10 Update: It just seemed to be raining ROM fan art over at deviant art last week here's another one I recently discovered it's definitely worth having a look at . . .
http://csuhsux.deviantart.com/art/Rom-The-Space-Knight-493498486

The Nova vs the Dire Wraiths Halloween e-comic special is here! Also, Marvel published what?

Did you know that I just realized that Marvel Two-In-One 99 was written by Bill Mantlo? Given how the issue kicks off with this fantastic splash page I thought I'd open up this posting with this 80s nostalgia given that Halloween is tomorrow.

But onto with what this posting is really about I wanted to make sure anybody who stumbles across this blog knows about the Halloween e-comic special on deviant art that is now up. The guys who put this thing together really went balls on this project to bring something really cool to ROM and Nova fans out there so go check it out and let them know what you thought of it . . .
http://novaprime.deviantart.com/gallery/51674944/HALLOWEEN

Ok actually I've got one more thing to post that came later today courtesy of Gary Martin Jr. who found this on twitter. Apparently it's a page from the Marvel 75 Years Celebration one shot. I actually thought this was pretty cool even though it touches a nerve. I just don't get it. Clearly Marvel knows about the ROM fan base out there and they currently have merchandising deals with Hasbro who they obviously know own the rights to ROM. So why can't these two companies just work something out!!!? Other licensed properties present on this page include The Micronauts, Godzilla, Shogun Warriors and huh . . . NFL Pro.

FAN ART FURY!

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I know most of you have seen this stuff already but I've met some nice people on deviant art in recent weeks and along with some of the stuff I've done recently I'm gonna give their work a bit more brag space by posting it here which I think this blog is still a good resource for once in a while now that I think about it. The ROM vs Thanos was a 20 minute sketch art piece and the other one below it was done by a nice lady up in Canada who found my recent work and got nostalgic enough to do some ROM fan art of her own.

Nice, this one just turned up yesterday (Oct. 19) on DA . . .

Ok I gotta add this also to the posting even though now it's Oct. 24. We've seen a lot of Torpedo customs over the years but this is the first packaged one I believe. According to Gary Martin Jr. this sold on ebay for only a measly 50 bucks! The altered packaging comes from Hasbro's Avengers action figure line which pisses me off to know that the two companies currently have a number merchandising deals but all ROM fans get is some stupid heromugg.

I don't want this to vanish from the net after it sells on ebay

So as the posting title suggests I'm just throwing this custom Heroclix figurine up here because this is a really nice crafted work of art (especially when you consider how small it must be!) that should remain some where on the internet because quite frankly once it sells on ebay I don't know what will happen to the image in the long run. An articulate action figure would have been ideal to commemorate 35 years of ROM but I wish hasbro had at least done a small figurine like this just like those PVC ones you see in those plastic blister packages in stores sometimes.

I guess I might as well throw this new fan art up here too while I'm at it which I posted on deviant art a few days ago. ROM spaceknight 65, how much more awesome that epic issue would have been had it been penciled by ANY artist other then steve ditko working for Marvel at the time.

ROM spaceknight issue #22 commemorative fan art ( I really miss the 80s! )

I finally got around to  getting done the fan art that's been foremost in my collection of ideas for the past couple months.

Number 22 (1981) was the first ROM issue I ever had and in effect it started a chain reaction of fandom with me from the early 80s to today. So it seems this commemorative fan art is a good foot note to end things here. Yeah that's right, in my never ending quest to curb my time on the internet and lead a more productive life in the real world (mainly for more sleep and exercise in my schedule) I've decided to suspend writing any more of these time consuming postings indefinitely. It's no big deal I'll still be sharing all cool ROM related things with those of you I correspond with through other means outside of this blog such as on deviant art and by email, but I still don't do farcebook.

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But let me leave you with some of the cool stuff I saw last weekend while I was in Alameda for an afternoon. By the way that's the same city I ran into that guy who had the cool Nova t-shirt earlier this summer. Anyways, first up I took a photo of this cool new Star Wars window display at Toy Safari which as you can see carry's among other things vintage sci-fi and comic book based toys from the 80s.

I bet you forgot about this one : )

Only a couple retail spaces down was this new place called High Scores Arcade which is a video game arcade that features exclusively old school games from  . . . . yep you guessed it the 80s! You can get a look at the inside of the place here  http://www.highscoresarcade.com/games.html