Wax Packs: WALLPAPER!

Desktop wallpaper using the designs of non-sports card wrappers.
This week: Star Wars, Series 2.

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Han Solo, P.I.

Wax Packs: Batman (series 1)

Wow.
I used to own a different versions of this set when it was originally released. Topps released two series, as well as two “factory sealed” editions that included bonus cards. This review is for the standard “wax pack” set.

Batman was probably the most popular set of non-sports cards since Star Wars. It was also the swansong for the traditional pulp-style trading cards. Competition from companies like Score were putting pressure on Topps to change its production styles. Upper Deck printed its first series of baseball cards in 1989 - the same year as Batman - and it was apparent that the days of pulp card stock were almost over. Gremlins 2 and Robocop 2 continued the tradition, but they were the last of a dying breed.
Unfortunately, when the market began to follow the collectors (as opposed to the other way around) it was bad news for all involved. Cards (and comics) stopped being a cheap diversion for kids and collectors and started to become an expensive habit that many delusional people thought would make them rich.

Anyway, time has been good to the first series of Batman cards. I hadn't looked at these in years but was really impressed after finding an affordable set online. I've added about 20 full sets to my collection in recent months, and this is easily the best of them.

REVIEW:

Cover Card: (4 out of 5)
The art is a bit of old-school “cut and paste” that uses one of the famous promo shots of Batman and the Batmobile, as well as the movie’s logo. I think the iconic logo would have been a better selection, but the logo is used to better effect on the front of each card.

Design: (9 out of 10)
Amazingly simple, but crisp and clean. The typography is sharp and consistent, and the use of the “bat symbol” from the poster is a pretty neat addition to the art. The marketing of the film tended to rely on this image, which was an instantly recognizable icon.

Photography: (10 out of 10)
At 132 cards, this is a big series. Still, there are only a few cards that come off as unnecessary and repetitive. Overall the photos are great choices that show off the movie’s cinematography, costumes and production designs (which were its strongest points.)

Production: (10 out of 10)
The photos are all bright and clear. Even the spot color reverse sides are clean and easy to read. When it comes to pulp stock, this is as good as it gets.

The Other Side: (4 out of 5)
There are no puzzles in this series, but the text on the back (which offers summaries and trivia) is incredibly thorough. While most cards settle for a sentence or two, many of these cards have several paragraphs of text on them. A very tight design.

Stickers: (9 out of 10)
Simple, but hews close to Topps’ traditional sticker design. You can draw a straight line from the stickers for the company’s 1976 Star Trek sticker series to this set. Still, a lot of images are repeated from the card set, which is a common problem for any series this big.

TOTAL: 92 PERCENT (46 out of 50)

Wax Packs: Battlestar Galactica

I'm one of those rare beasts who like the original and "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. While I'll concede that the new series is better on pretty much every level, there's still a lot to love about the original, which is more Flash Gordon/Star Wars than The Shield.
I had a lot of these cards as a child. Even had some of the Wonder Bread cards, which were printed in better card stock but lacked the crisp design of the Topps series.
And what a series it is! Somehow, BSG skirted the rules of non-sport trading cards by producing a massive 132-card set, with a 22-sticker subset. That's twice as large as any single-series of Star Wars cards.
BSG burned out quickly, though, and was gone by the end of it's first year. Naturally, it took the Topps series with it, and it would be many more years before BSG returned to trading cards.
This series also includes a few cards of my first boyhood crush, Maren Jenson. By all rights, that honor should have fallen on Batgirl, but Maren just happened to be in the right place at the right time, I guess.

REVIEW:

Cover Card: (0 out of 5)
Nope. The idea of the "cover card" hadn't really caught on yet at Topps. To add insult to injury, the first card in the set features Lorne Green striking a sexy pose.

Design: (8 out of 10)
Crips and bright, though a little generic. While the "cutline" is a little dull, I love how the logo is prominently displayed on the front of each card. (Weirdly, BSG had two different logos, one that appeared on merchandise like cards and comics, and the one that was used in the title credits.) And the design allows for both verticle and horizontal positioning without disruption.

Photography: (9 out of 10)
Just short of perfect. This is a case where a card set's reach exceeds its grasp. The cards were produced using (primarily) images from the pilot episode. By trying to squeeze 132 cards from a single film, some of the images get a little repetitive. On the plus side, though, there are a few promo photos used, apparently taken on the Universal Studios lot. Outside of Star Wars, it's hard to find "behind the scenes" cards. Remember what I said about Miss Jansen?

Production: (9 out of 10)
Pretty good. Not as sharp and clear as some of the Star Wars cards, but leaps and bounds beter than the photos in the second Return of the Jedi series. There are a handful of dark, grainy photos in this set, something that could have been corrected by reducing the series to 100 cards.

The Other Side: (4 out of 5)
A puzzle, trivia and details about the cast and crew. Good stuff, but nothing groundbreaking.

Stickers: (8 out of 10)
With a set this ambitious, ,there's bound to be some re-runs. Many (all?) of these stickers reproduce photos already found on the cards. That's not such a bad thing, though. Also, the stickers are based on the designs of the Star Trek/Star Wars stickers, so there's a great sense of lineage in this set.

TOTAL: 76 PERCENT (38 out of 50)

Fred and Barney Meet the Thing

Here, for no reason, is some fairly bad video from Fred and Barney Meet the Thing, and honest-to-god Saturday morning cartoon in the 1970s. This is one of the most bizarre productions from a decade that specialized in bizarre productions (Lidsville, anyone?)

Wax Packs: WALLPAPER!

Desktop wallpaper using the designs of non-sports card wrappers.

First up: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

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Wax Packs: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

So, I've been re-discovering my love of "non-sport" trading cards in recent weeks.
As it turns out, these cards aren't worth much these days, with only a few exceptions. Many of these cards I had as a child, but haven't seen them in 20-25 years. My memories of them are still vivid — such as walking down to the local Junior Market to buy Star Wars or Jaws 2 wax packs — and it's surprising how well I still remember the small details about these cards.
What's also surprising are some of the things I didn't notice. Which brings me to my first short review for the 1978 set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind trading cards.
This is one of the few non-sport series I can think of that relies on such as dark design. Later in the year Topps would also adopt black borders into the design of the Jaws 2 series, and it works pretty well for both movies. It also makes them stand out from the blue/red color schemes that were so prevelant because, I presume, of the success of the Star Wars cards.
As a kid, I was a little weirded out by the "Starring Melinda Dillon" card in the CEOT3K series. The lighting was strange, and it was so tightly cropped that it was hard to tell exactly what was happening in it. It looked overtly sexual for some reason (I don't know why.) I came across this card, as well as the Teri Garr "actress" card when something occurred to me ... where was the Richard Dreyfuss card? I flipped quickly to the set only to find that the star of the movie appears nowhere in the entire set. There were probably legal reasons for this, but it's still damn bizarre.

REVIEW:

Cover Card: (0 out of 5)
Nope. The series kicks off with a #1 card depicting a parked fight plane from the 1940s. Yawn.

Design: (8 out of 10)
There's a lot to be said for simplicity. The front design never intereferes with the photography. In fact, the dark borders actually make the color in the cards that much more vivid.

Photography: (8 out of 10)
Overall, pretty good. The series is hampered by the absence of Richard Dreyfuss, so the movie's lead character — and participant in the film's most important scenes — come off as a little awkward. Still, the solution is kind of fun ... LOTS of photos of the "mother ship" landing from the end of the movie make for some colorful, if slightly repetitive, cards. Oh, and Steven Speilberg ever gets a card!

Production: (8 out of 10)
The photos are pretty sharp, but nothing to get excited about. Considering how inconsistent Topps' photo quality was in its nonsports cards (which might have been the fault of the movie studios and not Topps,) CEOT3K is a solid, if unspectaular, set.

The Other Side: (4 out of 5)
Story synopsis, trivia and a puzzle. Pretty much what you'd expect from Topps in the late 1970s.

Stickers: (7 out of 10)
The stickers reprint many of the "mother ship" landing cards on slick paper. While they look nice and hold up well as an independent set, the problem of repitition in the cards is even more pronounced. Still, there are some nice SFX photos here, even if the alien card looks a little scary.

TOTAL: 70 PERCENT (35 out of 50)