Cindy Crawford II

I was pretty certain that when I made my Anna Nicole Smith Dream Girl card I was eventually going to use that design again; all it would take was the right babe in a nice black and white photo.  The time to re-up has come much sooner than later.

I've written before about my infatuation with Cindy Crawford in a previous post.  I ran across this particular image and instantly recognized it from the first Playboy magazine I ever bought.  I was 18 and it was a special edition on Cindy herself ....or it might have even been a compilation of celebrities that had graced the pages of Playboy magazine, either way I remember the purchase's circumstances very vividly.  I remember that even though I was of age to buy a nudie magazine I was still pretty red faced and embarrassed putting it on the counter.  I spotted it the day before but didn't have the guts to buy it.  This is pre-internet and I couldn't get the prospect of the glory of what was between those pages out of my head, so I went back to the party store at the corner of my street the very next day.  I waited until I was the only one in there and I sheepishly put it on the counter and tried to avoid eye contact with the shady dude behind the counter that used to keep my younger brother's change when he'd buy candy telling him "we'll call it even, boss".  He did give me my change and I hurriedly walked out holding the book with the cover pressed against my chest.  Lame, I know.  I didn't have that issue for long.  It was lost although I'd pretty sure a friend of mine that I guess didn't have the fortitude that I did to buy a copy from that store "borrowed" it without my permission never to return it - shady as hell, but hard to blame the guy.

The Monster Squad Redux

I've been messing with making cards from The Monster Squad for a little while now but never "officially" released them as one of my mini-sets.  I just get sidetracked sometimes.  There's a few movies I've made cards out of that should be a set by now but I get too excited to make new cards that I don't go and revisit those ones.

I got an extra urge to make this set when my son took an interest to the movie's VHS cover and wanted to watch it.  He literally watched it 4 times in a row.  Personally I was a little conflicted as to whether that made me an awesome dad because The Monster Squad rules or not so great because the language used by the Squad has aged like a glass a milk left in the hot summer sun.  I split the difference having a little chat about what things we were and were not allowed to repeat.  Hopefully he listens so I don't get taken aside by his teacher when picking him up from school.

After the movie marathon I decided to buckle down and get this mini-set done.  I switched it up a little bit from the original "prototype" cards I did, well they're prototypes now I guess.  Instead of the areas that are grey on the 1987-88 Fleer basketball I switched it up to a blue color drawing a little inspiration from the iconic Monster Squad movie poster.  I usually try to stick closely to the original design I'm using for the cards but I wanted these to have a little uniqueness knowing how beloved The Monster Squad is by my generation.

1979 Stickball Champ

I thought about this particular card quite some time ago but held off due to a personal technicality.  I like to create cards of different pop culture type things that Topps or the other card brands didn't make cards for back-in-the-day.  Technically Topps did have a couple of cards of Sly playing stickball with the neighborhood kids in their 1979 Rocky II card set.

I really got an itch to make this card so I reasoned with myself that Topps' card is a movie scene card and mine would be specifically a stickball card, almost like Rocky was in a stickball league or something.  That was enough convincing for me and I figured there is room for both my card and card number #3 and #4 from Topps' Rocky II set.

Most of the design for this card is pretty self explanatory.  I used the 1979 Topps baseball inspired template and the colors that went with the Phillies' player's cards that year.  I replaced the baseball illustration with that of a stickball ball and retro'd the older Topps logo with PCb. mock up.

Branon Molale

A friend of Brandon Molales happens to follow my Instagram page and he let Brandon know about the Blazer card I did of him as a part of the Dodgeball mini-set I made.  Brandon in turn reached out to me about getting a couple of copies for himself for which he was happy to autograph a couple copies for my personal collection in return.

Brandon  made a suggestion for a card of his character “Kevin Ward” the New York Jets quarterback from Mr. Deeds.  I loved it and was all over that suggestion.  Right away I knew I wanted to use a 1988 Topps football inspired design.  I’d used the League Leaders subset design for my Step Brothers and Dumb and Dumber cards but I’d yet to use the set’s base card design.  The base card really requires it to be a football card with a helmet to best make use of the design which I now had in the Kevin Ward card.

There was also an idea for a card that combines both Blazer and Kevin Ward.  Since I used the ‘88 Topps football for the Kevin Ward card I thought why not use the League Leaders template for the custom card for the two characters.

Brandon loved the cards and the inscriptions he put on my autographed copies were really kick ass.  Along with the cards Brandon also gifted me with some custom guitar picks.  That’s his passion, collecting stage used guitar picks.  I thought that was a very cool inclusion.

Yvonne Romain

I saw that Yvonne Romain signed through the mail so I wanted to make a card from The Curse of the

Werewolf to have signed.  I thought briefly about using a 1961 Topps baseball inspired design which is the year that movie was released.  That particular design is kind of plain and I wanted to try something a bit different, more like a modern autograph card. 

I had a design in mind from a Star Trek card I had happened upon, but I never saved the image.  I went back on eBay to try to find it but I just couldn't seem to find it again so I recreated the basic look from memory.  I'm not claiming to be a trading card Rain Man, but I was pretty pleased when I ironically found a card from the set again a couple of days after designing mine.  If you're curious it's a Star Trek 50th Anniversary card made by Rittenhouse Archives.

This next card is an image I found while looking for pictures for the Curse of the Werewolf card.  I wanted to also make a card from it.  I messed around with editing the image a bit until I got something that I thought looked pretty cool.

You Douchebags Bring Your A-Game?

When I got the idea for this card I said "this is gonna kill", and laughed a bit to myself; I'm assuming the way a comedian might when he/she gets an epiphany for some new material.  The thought of this card is hilarious to me.

I'm a fan of Ben Stiller's put upon type of characters.  The kind of guy he plays in movies like Meet the Parents, The Heartbreak Kid, and the movie that inspired this card; Along Came Polly.  Just so it's clear I'm a fan of pretty much every one of Ben's characters, it's just the good intentioned tough luck ones I feel I can really relate to.

Let's be honest, Ben was great per usual but Philip Seymour Hoffman's "Sandy Lyle" character hijacked this movie.  The guy was a brilliant actor in any genre. He slays in every single scene he's in.  The basketball scene may be the funniest but even that's hard to say because he was just that good.

This is a newer movie, at least by my card's standards, so I picked my 1980-81 Topps basketball inspired design.  It would of been hilarious in any template in my opinion but the 3-paneled design was perfect for what I wanted to do.  Because of the Bird/Magic rookie it's an iconic set and the ability to use the three pictures makes it really fun to work with.

Batman 1989

Normally I do not make cards for something that already has a card set.  That's kind of the whole premise behind Phantom Cardboard, giving something a trading card that I wished would have had one.  Topps has an awesome Batman card set that we all collected back-in-the-day.  In 1989 there was not a single thing bigger than the Batman movie.  The hype surrounding it was insane.  Because of that the 1989 Batman movie has had a huge and lasting impression on me.  There's been a number of well done Batman movies released since then but, for me, there's one Batman... Michael Keaton.  And, one Joker... Jack Nicholson.

The reason I decided to do the two-card set is a very small one really, I wanted an excuse to use the Joker Gang logo on a card.  There was an avalanche of rad Batman merchandise that came out that year.  There were some legendary t-shirts and anyone who was a kid back then seems to remember the one(s) they had.  One of my favorite shirts I ever owned was the red Joker Gang logo t-shirt.  I wore that shirt until the dryer faded the screen print beyond recognition.  I loved that shirt.  I need to eventually find another at *hopefully* a reasonable price.  The Joker is a villain no doubt, but he's one of those "cool villains".

These two card also gave me a chance to again use the 1989 Fleer baseball inspired design that I had so much fun with for the Major League card set I did.  Unlike Topps in 1989, the '89 Fleer required a logo which is what I wanted for that bullseye Joker Gang emblem, not to mention the 1989 Batman logo.  Plus I found a couple of promo pics of Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson that worked out great.  So, while there is that nostalgic Batman movie card set that Topps got two series out of, these are more like Batman and Joker baseball cards.

In a happy little coincidence these two cards coincide the 1989 Tim Burton directed movie turning 30 this coming June and also the Batman character itself celebrating it's 80th anniversary just four days ago.

'88 Finals Game 6

I've mentioned a few times that while the majority of my cards are done with designs inspired by older baseball card sets I'm a basketball guy at heart.  It's just that baseball cards are more nostalgic to me personally as they were more readily available than basketball cards were.  My hero growing up was Isiah Thomas.  My first born son is named Isiah.  It's that serious.

If I could go back in time and change things in the card collecting hobby one would definitely be Topps' hiatus from basketball basketball cards from 1982-83 through 1991-92.  If they hadn't there could have possibly been a card commemorating Isiah Thomas' heroic efforts in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals when he scored 25 points in the game's third quarter on an ankle that would have probably seen many of today's stars airlifted right out of the arena.  It was one of the greatest things in sports I've ever witnessed.

This card is of course modeled after the 1988 Topps baseball Record Breakers subset.  For whatever reason I just love doing record breaker cards.  The photo used is actually one from that particular game.

Sig. Showcase: Happy April Fool's