San Diego Comic-Con photos

I know some people who managed to make it this year to the convention and were nice enough to send these photos to me. I went to the San Diego Comic-Con back in 1998 and as awesome as it was back then it's bigger, more grandiose and way more difficult to get in these days. To the left you can see I still have the 1998 convention guide with that beautiful Alex Ross Superman cover art.

Absolutely bad ass fan art! Ant-Man and The Wasp and what I think of Steve Ditko's passing also the future of toy scalping

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Just by chance I came across what seems to be a largely undiscovered piece of fantastic ROM fan art by artist John McCrea. Damn this is bad ass and I found it on some twitter page that's full of a bunch of worthless crap consisting of lousy fan art, ROM fans trying to be cute to the point of ad nauseum and the usual uninteresting IDW ROM in name only crap. I really like this it's a bit reminiscent of Bill Sienkiewicz's style. 

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In other recent goings on today I saw Ant-Man and The Wasp which I thought was pretty good. Aside from the usual cinematic elements that make the MCU turn out hit after hit I just really dug how the movie took place in San Francisco as well as over in Berkeley which is right across The Bay. That was also part of Black Panther's charm for me with it starting and ending in Oakland which is right next to Berkeley.

Now I also did just hear about the news of Steve Ditko's passing. Knowing how much I've gone off on him over the years you might be wondering about my reaction to this news. To be honest with you I really just don't feel anything about it. And I say this being fully aware that I probably should try to look at Steve Ditko's work more in it's entirety then just simply through the narrow lens of his work on the original ROM spaceknight series. But ya know what? When you're 12 or 13 you're not really especially mindful of the names or reputations behind the comic books you like. You just know what you like or don't like when you open up an issue and flip through the pages it's that simple. And back in the mid 80s when Ditko's retro style art started to replace the more "Marvel way" dynamic art style of Sal Buscema that I had loved for years and was part of what hooked me on the original ROM series in the first place I'm afraid it just left such a bad impression on me I've never been able to really get over. Maybe that makes me a dick? I dunno but it's just how I honestly feel in the here and now.

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Going totally off topic here with this last thing I wanted to cover. I just recently broke down and bought this 1981 Datsun 280 Z Turbo by toy car manufacturer Johnny Lightening on ebay from this toy scalper. I called the seller a toy scalper because the car came in this Johnny Lightening packaging with a "Toys R Us exclusive" label on it. I contacted the seller through ebay and asked him how he had gotten a hold of it given that I'd never seen it in stores and he just straight up told me he used to wait on truck days and go right after the doors open. Man I hate that shit, and I wonder now that Toys R Us is gone how that will impact the toy collectibles market when it comes to new stuff.

Anyways, I've always liked this car especially in the blue and grey color scheme. It's so classic 80s, it even makes me sentimental about one of the earliest Transformers toys (Autobot Bluestreak) I got back in the day as a kid. The photo in the parking lot is a little over 3 years old and it's the only time I ever saw a 280 Z in person in a blue and grey color scheme paint job. It was parked at a Burger King only a couple blocks from where I live. I regret not having tried to find out who the owner was at the time I could have at least just asked em a few questions about it.

Meeting Yoda and Indiana Jones at Imagination Park in San Anselmo California

Despite having been a life long Star Wars and Indiana Jones fan I only by chance learned about this place a week ago despite it being less then an hour from me. I mean for crying out loud I'm old enough to have seen the original trilogy in theaters as well as the first 3 Indiana Jones films (didn't catch Kingdom of The Crystal Skull in theaters).

Some of the things I don't like about The San Francisco Bay Area is the cost of living and the oh so hip and cool progressive scene and I say that as someone who is not a trump supporter.

But I gotta tell ya, no matter how long you've lived around here there is always something new to discover. Especially if you're a local who thinks they've seen it all already.

Now if you didn't know about San Anselmo's Imagination Park before seeing this posting you might have some questions about it's history and I'm pretty sure most of the answers are here...
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/38615

Speaking of public art 80s action adventure and sci-fi properties I also happen to be a huge Robocop fan. Some of you may or may not be aware of the statue project in Detroit that's been going on for years now due to some set backs. Well it's finally completed and a spot for it has already been picked out at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit but the date to actually have the statue moved from the studio seems to still be up in the air. Now as it turns out I'm flying to Detroit in mid October for an unrelated matter. I would love to see it and do the whole photo selfie thing so I'm praying to the sci-fi fanboy gods that it will finally be in it's new home for all the fans to see and enjoy.

Robocop vs ROM now in color. Here it is from before...
https://www.deviantart.com/csuhsux/art/Robocop-vs-ROM-spaceknight-314679716

Funny ass Hostess Pies Marvel 80s house ad spoof with ROM and Starshine

See link below to view the rest of the full page ad

I've seen this sort of thing before and it's never been very funny. However, this one had me cracking up quite a bit it's not just funny but it's a real labor of love in both terms of photoshop work and creative concept. Well done to who ever did this. I'm only posting part of the spoof house ad you can see the rest of it (it's a full page) over at where I found it in the first place. . .
http://calvinscanadiancaveofcool.blogspot.com/2018/06/from-rom-collection.html

In honor of Father's Day this weekend I wanted to share this awesome card which features some really bad ass classic Marvel 80s (late 70s also I think) Spider-Man art work. This is actually a birthday which I got for my father earlier this week but I imagine it could double as a Father's Day card as well.

Speaking of all things ROM, Spider-Man and Marvel 80s. If you're reading this posting Preston Asceveda I'd be curious to know if you're ever planning on finishing this piece I liked where you were going with this concept.

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Once in a while I hope onto farcebook using my wife's account. And on rare occasion I even actually find something of interest. This is a portion of another work in progress fan art piece that features ROM and Spider-Man with a whole lot of other Marvel superheroes. Can't say for sure who did it but if the artist or someone who knows who it is wants to make them selves known here by all means be my guest.

Looks like that sketch also includes Luke Cage. And speaking of which, season 2 will be here in exactly 1 week and I am so stoked for it especially when it comes to seeing Misty Knight in action with her bionic arm.

ROM spaceknight issue 32 spotted in the making of Black Panther feature

So this past Memorial Day weekend I was watching a special behind the scenes making of Black Panther. Unfortunately this smart phone snap shot of the tv screen was the best I could do with capturing the moment where a copy of ROM 32 is briefly spotted as Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is reminiscing about his experience growing up in Oakland and seeking out comics that featured black super heroes. Ya know it was kinda cool to see a contemporary TV program that had a ROM issue in it even though it's appearance was purely coincidental.

In other news of this past weekend I saw Solo a Star Wars Story in Alameda which is a city that sits on an island right next to Oakland. I didn't think too much of the movie but the theater it's self is always fun to go to for a number of reasons including the cool promotional props they usually have there.

May 31st Update: Apparently these new spaceknights Heroclix figurines are the latest buzz among ROM fans. For some reason they looked really fake to me at the website they were first found on it's as if they were just some sort of fan produced digital art or something. So for the sake of verification I went to ebay and sure enough I found them so it appears they are quite real.

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Ya know I gotta ask. Do people ever buy these type of gaming figurines or ships/vehicle sets like from Star Wars and Star Trek (I have a couple) to actually play the games or to just have the pieces to play with or for display purposes? I don't know one person who actually plays these games in fact.

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June 4th Update: Saw this Thanos issue at a comic shop yesterday in Oakland and I knew right away what 80s classic cover art it was paying homage to.

My non long winded Avengers Infinity War review

https://robomonkey147.deviantart.com/

Gonna open up this posting with this newly discovered classic ROM (IDW you still suck!) and Ms. Marvel (or Captain Marvel if you prefer) team up fan art piece and as you can see I also included some ROM vs Thanos themed fan art by the same artist who goes by the handle robomonkey on deviant art.

April 28th Update: Just got back in from seeing it and I have only one word . . .apocalyptic. With an even bigger and grander ensemble cast then Civil War and even more gut wrenching tragedy then Logan Avengers Infinity War will be the fastest two hours and forty minutes of your life. Not to mention the wait for the end credits scene. An end credits scene which is quite ironic for me considering the head line fan art I found for this posting only about a week ago. To be honest with you, what few complaints I do have are hardly worth mentioning. Mostly a few little logic gaps and a couple things that could have been explained a bit better and so on.
The writers did a good job of striking a nice balance of screen time with all the characters and I also liked how the story line broke up all the various characters into different settings in order to create new interactions and even personality conflicts to explore. A lot of themes were also explored as well that tested our heroes. We saw some of the unlikeliest characters coping with issues of fear, sacrifice, self confidence and even the challenges of coping with really shitty stuff that's inevitable. Aside from all that and despite this being a very dark film we still got a lot of the humorous banter we've all come to enjoy and expect from the MCU.

When it comes to Thanos (and his crew), DC could have borrowed a page from Marvel's play book when it comes to developing villains on the big screen who have been around for many years in the pages of comic books but are not house hold names yet. I really fear for the DC cinematic universe at this point I just feeling like the rapid successions of hits from Marvel is practically steam rolling whatever they can come up with. But getting back to Infinity War, it leaves you with a lot of questions and in general a lot to process because of all the shit that goes on for that nearly 3 hour running time if you include the end credits scene. I suppose that can be a good thing or bad thing depending how you might want to look at it. It really sucks to think of how long we might have to wait (hopefully no more then a year) for the sequel because I want to see it now . . .dammit.

After I got out of the theater and turned my phone back on I had this photo waiting for me that a friend sent me while he was at an event at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara. Would have been cool if he had actually been able to talk to the owner about this van.

And speaking of signature vans from the 80s here's the the one the A-Team drove around in. I took this photo almost two years ago while passing through a random neighborhood in San Francisco. I love it when a plan comes together.

I'm not a gamer or into the whole Halo thing so I must have passed by this toy with out ever noticing what it's called probably over a dozen times in the past year. But by random happenstance a few days ago it finally caught my eye.

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Here's a little something from my past I feel like sharing today. This little place in San Leandro used to be the first comic shop I ever went to. It opened in 1980 but it wasn't until 82 or 83 that my dad first started taking me there and it was at this shop where I had my first opportunity to start finding the ROM back issues I needed. I even remember seeing issue #1 boarded and bagged up on the wall going for $5 which was a lot of money at the time for a kid who was around 10 or 11 especially with the cover price of comics being only 65 cents back then. By the late 80s and through out the 90s it wasn't that uncommon to find ROM #1 in a dollar box but today the asking price for a copy even in fair condition seems to start at around $25.

Finally! An animated series from marvel that doesn't suck. The Black Panther

I'm only 2 episodes into this 6 episode Black Panther series and I'm already convinced that this is the first good animated series from Marvel Comics in over 20 years! What makes it so good exactly? I'm glad you asked. First of all, it's well written. And not just because it's boarder line R rated with shit like booby traps that impale people and villains seeing prostitutes. It's funny with out being campy, touches on social issues like religion and race in a very fearless way and is heavily steeped in history and international politics in something of a James Bond kinda fashion. It takes everything that was good about The Black Panther movie and expands on it but at the same time it feels a little more like the Black Panther you grew up with in the Marvel Comics universe. I usually expect this type of sophistication in animated features from DC so it was nice to see it in Marvel for a change.

Did I mention all the appearances by other characters in the Marvel Universe? Even within the first few episodes you'll see over a half dozen of those. Here's Captain America while on a covert mission in Wakanda having something of a misunderstanding with Black Panther during WW II.

So far, I really can't say enough good things about this animated series and it's got me even more stoked for Avengers Infinity War later this month. Who doesn't love Storm right? And you'll get to see several other X-Men to.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back with my Black Panther binge watching today on Youtube. I'm trying to get through the rest of the episodes (just 3 more to go) before I have to go to bed it's Monday tomorrow and we all know what that means.

So here we are a few hours later and I managed to finish watching all 6 episodes and even our sweet little 12 year old corgi beagle mix (Chevy) enjoyed it. So much so that we managed to get her to hold still just long enough to get this adorable photo. So in closing folks this was some really good stuff and little did I know this series goes back to 2011.



Episodes 1 - 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry8e5ldzLDQ&t=667s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTw6pfKayg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWr5oIRueTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF2OWH7vghQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Q721QWX2w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBm2-TPxIuY&t=2s

Also yesterday, I saw this on the news and it had me cracking up so I recorded it with my iphone and posted it on youtube.