04 June 2012

Rom #25 Cover Re-imagined by Al Milgrom


Max Thorne, who sent me the Rom shelf art a couple posts ago, also provided the scan for this week's entry, which he commissioned from none other than Al Milgrom.  Milgrom was the penciller and/or inker of many Rom covers between #1 and #50.  One of those was Rom #25, featuring Rom vs. Terminator, who'd been converted into a Rom doppelganger.

Copyright 1981 Marvel Comics
I'll go ahead and let Max explain why and how he commissioned the piece below.
My dream was to get a recreation of Rom #25 with Rom and Terminator on it.  [Issue] 25 was a fantastic issue, one of the first that I bought (costing a then huge NZ$1.03), and I still have that one today.  As Al Milgrom was the original illustrator I approached his agent to carry out the commission.  After some less than gratifying correspondence with the agent, the artwork finally came through, with the ROM lettering thrown in.  (Apparently lettering is an extra that the artists are very reluctant to do, and I can understand this having tried to do some myself.)

It just so happens that Rom #25 was also the first new issue I bought off the newsstand.  One day I'm going to commission Fred Hembeck to do a cover re-creation of it, but with a mouth added to each Rom so you can tell which one's the good guy.  Will he choose the same Rom as Milgrom?  Who knows!