Over the past week, I’ve gotten a couple of emails about an upcoming event that I thought might be of interest to a few of you, especially considering that it involves… this guy:
If any of you live in the Portland, Oregon area–or plan on being there during the first week of December–then you’re probably going to want to stop by Floating World Comics on the 6th for an art show organized by Jason Leivian that could only be called SPACENIGHT: A Tribute to Bill Mantlo.
That’s right: An entire art show dedicated to ROM, featuring work by John Buscema, Al Milgrom, Corey Lewis, and even Jeffery Brown, who I assume will be doing a picture where ROM gets sad because Starshine left him for the guy who works at the local record store or something, but still!
They’ll be selling digital prints and original art, and the best part of all is that the show’s going to serve as a fundraiser for Bill Mantlo, whose legendary career was tragically cut short by an accident while he was rollerblading in 1992. And if you’re not in the Portland area, don’t worry: Leivian plans to make all the work available in a tribute book–the profits from which will also be going to help Bill’s brother and caregiver Michael.
And to top it all off, he’s still looking for artists to contribute to the show. Given that the show opens on December 6, though, you’ll probably want to move fast on that. You can contact him for details at jason [at] floatingworldcomics [dot] com, and he’s accepting high-res art for the show of ROM and the rest of his cast as .tiff or .pdf until November 16.
Long-time ISB readers (and anyone who’s seen the script for my upcoming FlashBack Universe story) will probably recall that Mantlo is one of my all-time favorite writers, and just like David Yurkovich’s excellent Mantlo: A Life in Comics, Leivian’s art show seems like a great way to give back to a guy who gave us so much in a career marked by almost always being better than he had to be.
It was Wikipedia that told me of Mr. Mantlo’s hospitalization a few months back, Portland’s out, but I think the tribute book will fit on my bookshelf…
Oh dear God… art of Rom in the style of Incredible Change-Bots?!
I meant everything positive by that last reply. I love Incredible Change-Bots.
Mantlotainment will never die! Being in the UK, I can’t go to the event but I shall pick up the tribute book when it comes out. The Mantlo: A life in Comics was a fine magazine and well worth picking up by all readers of the ISB!
Chris, I picked an issue of ROM at the London Film & Comic Con a few months back, purely due to the overpowering influence of the ISB on my mortal mind. I’d never even heard of ROM before you started posting about him, and I have to say, the issue I got (#55) did not disappoint.
Not only are Mantlo, Buscema and Candido doing their funkiest with the Space Knight / Wraith / Limbo ménage à trois, but it’s also NOT comics code approved, leading to some of the most awesome blood-soaked, flesh-busting monster action I’ve ever seen in a toy inspired comic.
Highlights include skinned old ladies on page 2, a patient killing a blood monster with a guitar, and Starshine getting her head chewed by some tentacled pink slug before blasting its upper jaw off with her eye lasers.
Thank you Chris Sims, you have shown me the light, and that light is ROM.
You know my girlfriend, who is an art major, was always dragging me to some stupid art show where all they had was wine and cheese and a truck load of ptenseiousness.
But if I lived in Seatle I would drag her sorry butt to the Mantlo show where Spaceknights rule! Please tell us when the book comes out.
The Jeffrey Brown ROM art is up at Newsarama.
Great news on the book to come!
Richard C: and you picked one of the ugliest issue so keep digging, it can only get better!
Have you seen Jim Rugg’s Rom tribute?
http://jimrugg.livejournal.com/7275.html
By the way, there is also an Eric Powell (‘The Goon’) show in Nashville through November.
Is there a website that keeps track of such things? Exhibits featuring comics creators/characters?
Alas, like Ralph I currently abide some 4000 miles from Oregon though I would have loved to have gone. Luckily the intertubes make the purchasing of items from other countries easy, so I should be able to get a copy of the book.
Did you catch ROM in South Park last week? In the episode [“Imaginationland (Part 3 of 3)”] while the Good Imagination characters are being armed to go to war against the Bad Imagination characters, one of the characters that is given a sword is Rom. Check it out! Someone find me a screencap!
Quoth Richard C:
Said patient beind Rick Jones, even!
Neurotic Monkey, that clip is on the South Park website. I’ve seen a screencap of ROM’s appearance a couple places this week. It’s out there.
I know you are a corey lewis/sharknife fan so I thought you might want to see his picture in the Rom show: http://reyyy.livejournal.com/24502.html
Not sure if you guys knew about this already but Jason and the attendees at the Oregon fundraiser for Bill Mantlo agreed to put the art up on eBay – there’s 4 days left on the 35 auction items – just search eBay for rom spaceknight original art – some really great art for an amazing cause