Rom: Spaceknight was an improbable comics success: Based on a toy series that consisted of one figure (Rom), the comics series debuted in 1979 and lasted an unlikely 75 issues, featuring art from such luminaries as P. Craig Russell and Steve Ditko (previously, previously and previously). The series was written by Marvel Comics mainstay Bill Mantlo, who retired from comics and became a public defender (the legal kind), only to suffer a tragic accident in the mid-1990s that left him in need of constant medical attention. A 2007 benefit for the writer -- Spacenight: A Tribute to Bill Mantlo -- will be followed by Spacenight 2, an auction of original Rom-related artwork that can be viewed here.
posted by kittens for breakfast on Sep 19, 2009 - 32 comments

Fire up your NES emulator and get ready to ROCK, chiptune-style. 4 whole songs! It's D-Pad Hero. [more inside]
posted by tehloki on Feb 2, 2009 - 14 comments

Mother 3 fan translation completed. Earthbound (known as Mother 2 in Japan) is one of the most highly regarded RPGs for the Super Nintendo. The game suffered disappointing sales in America, but has since gained the status of a cult classic. A sequel, Mother 3, was released for the Game Boy Advance, but it has never been officially translated into English. After a long development, a fan translation patch has just been released. Trailer. [more inside]
posted by painquale on Oct 17, 2008 - 44 comments

A most legendary find. Alex Handy likes to collect old video games. A few weeks at ago at a flea market, he bought what he thought were some old ColecoVision EPROMs for $2 each, got them home, and realized that some of them could contain the never published Cabbage Patch Kids Atari 2600 game. If the data on the chips had survived, it would be an unprecedented discovery. A friend helped him dump the ROMs, which you can download for free from Alex. Identifying the other games was an adventure in itself. [more inside]
posted by bugmuncher on May 5, 2008 - 37 comments

ROM CHECK FAIL is a goofy little PC game, in the classic 1980's arcade/home console genre of ... err ... Use the space bar to fire your blaster. Or sword. (Or jump.) Use the arrow keys to control your ... guy as if you were playing ... that ... classic game. Eliminate all the enemy, well, things in the expected way, and go on to the next maze/planet/cave/highway. Look, just play it, OK? It's fun!
posted by CrunchyFrog on Mar 25, 2008 - 16 comments

"There is not a bomb by the entrance of the museum" was the telephone message delivered to a museum employee at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum Wednesday evening. This, along with the posting of a video on YouTube entitled The fake bombing at the ROM, Toronto, 28.11.07 led to the cancellation of a gala AIDS fundraiser at the Museum and a massive police investigation. Today, Ontario College of Art and Design student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson claimed responsibility for the "art project".
posted by rocket88 on Nov 30, 2007 - 98 comments

Images of the Rom: the Rrom of Romania from an award-winning book by Yves Leresche; The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe by Raulf Bauerdick; David Dare-Parker's Roma - Gypsies of Romania (the second image in the set won "Best Feature Photograph" in the Walkley Awards); the Chergari Gypsies in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria (by Stacia Spragg - background here); and Itinerant Gypsies in Romania by Valeriu Campan. See also the photo-article, Challenging Segregation of Roma schoolchildren in eastern Hungary by Jason Orton (article continues at far right), and an eviction series by Ph.D. student Cosima Rughinis: the Rom in Pata Rat (dump site), Cluj-Napoca, Piatra Neamt, and Targu Mures, Romania. For some context on the last, view some text snapshots (under "issues of Roma Rights") of the situation from the European Roma Rights Center.
posted by taz on Dec 10, 2003 - 18 comments

The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe. A photographic exhibition. More photos :- The Dream (photographs of Bulgarian gypsies); the gypsies of Romania; the gypsies of Andalusia; urban gypsies in London; gypsies of Pata-Rat, Transylvania. Katarzyna Pollok is a Roma gypsy artist (site partly in German).
posted by plep on Aug 14, 2003 - 11 comments