Things that need not exist.

With the best will in the world, surely there is no need for these to exist:


Saved By The Bell: The College Years collectable trading cards. Obviously I got these from my sister, who's becoming like the trading card nexus of the western world. She generally throws a few packs in with every present she sends and this time this is what I got. I love the smell when you open a pack of trading cards, that weird laminate and plastic smell is really nostalgic for me. But this time the childish joy was tempered with a whole lot of "What the fuck is this shit?"


Imagine in the early nineties, the guys down at Pacific Trading Cards putting these together, typing out the script with scant regard for punchline or relevance, putting all the character names in inverted commas for no apparent reason, rapidly losing the will to live.


Man, Screech. Creepy.

Terrorist Attack - America Fights Back

Even though she's coming to stay in less than a month, my sister still found time to send me a Christmas present that arrived yesterday! Frankly, it's awesome to receive presents out of the blue and this was even more awesome considering it included tongue corroding sour sweets (oh man, I love sours) and these little beauties that I've been coveting for a long time:


1987 vintage, anti-terrorist, gun-toting, propoganda trading cards. Fuck yeah. Predating the "War on Terror" by about 14 years these cards will fucking put you straight about the threats America faced in 1987. I put in about two and half seconds research on google to find this awesome article which gives you some background to the set and how it was probably some sort of reference to the famous Mars Attacks cards that brought us that fantastic Tim Burton movie that I now suddenly really want to see again. Each card reads like a thirty second encyclopedia on terror narrated by Sherrif John Bunnell.

Here then - lest you grow complacent - are a few choice cards, front and back so that you can enjoy the pretty awesome paintings, and tremble at the prescient truth-saying. Click to embiggen of course. First up... THATCHER:


Next... MANSON:


And finally... Will It Ever End?


Answer: NO.

Famous Comic Book Creators!

My sister has become quite the formidable dealer in old trading cards, and recently she sourced a box of these beauties, and knowing that I'm a big comic book geek she sent me a sample pack:


That's right back in 1992 comics were such big news that they merited a trading card collection - not for the characters, but for the sub-Adonis-like (to put it charitably) guys who wrote and drew them. I reckon this was around the time that vintage Amazing Fantasy #15's and first appearance of the Punisher were going for silly money, so comics were probably in the news a lot. Still it might be thought a little absurd that you could get little pin-up photos of these gents:


Why isn't Tom Yeates wearing a shirt? Didn't they wear shirts to draw comics in the 70s? Jesus. Anyway, it might seem weird, but I think these are wonderful, especially because I got some pretty cool people and big names in my little pack. John Romita! You can thank him for a lot of Spider-man's popularity. Paul Chadwick! Everyone loves his thoughtful indie book Concrete. Well, except me, I read the first volume and it was kinda sucky. And looking good against a particularly titillating red:


Movie star Havey Pekar, creator of American Splendor! That's a keeper my friend! Not for trades or swaps!

Anyway the backs have a summary biography and such helpful stats as date of birth, place of birth, current home (creeeepy), which art school they attended, which hand they write with, and which hand they draw with! However for some of the guys who are artists but don't write at all, their writing entry is left blank so it looks like they never learned to write.

Oh, did I say that these guys were less than godlike? I stand corrected - hello Marc Silvestri, superstar penciller of the X-Men:

Ladies, FYI: "Talented Marc is one of the tallest artists in comics, measuring in at six foot, six inches." Think about it. He's probably loaded too.

You should be able to buy these pretty soon from one of Bunny's stores, but I think she's changing things over right now. Check it out at her blog: Bunny.