Sketch Cards On Cardboard

Halloween is finally here and that means it is time for my scary custom cards to make their debut. This year the theme is Shadow Nightmares and I created sketch cards using shadows and a single background color only. I made six cards in this style and I made three other cards in different styles.

As you can see, this year's cards are based on some of the scariest horror films of the modern era. Going down the list they are:

Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street.

Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 

Damien Thorn from The Omen

Jason Voorhees from Friday The 13th

Jack Torrance from The Shining

Norman Bates from Psycho

Here is what the backs look like. Each character is listed and the movie name appears on the marquee at the bottom.

Additionally I did a Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth and a Jack-O-Lantern based on Freddy Krueger.

With the Jack-O-Lantern I played with glow-in-the-dark paint so the background glows. It didn't scan very well but it is bright yellow and glows nicely. Once I felt comfortable with the paint I decided to make one more movie character card using glow-in-the-dark paint.

The final card of the evening is the last sketch card I did and is one of my favorites, Dr. Jack Griffin, otherwise known as the Invisible Man and he glows.

Glowing in darkness

Glowing under a black light

It Is All Hallow's Eve Eve

Tomorrow is Halloween, that means it is time for my custom scary cards. Three years ago it was a Ghost Adventures theme, two years ago it was Bela Lugosi and last year it was Boris Karloff's turn but this year I went a different way. The theme this year is Shadow Nightmares On Cardboard and the cards are physical.

A Final Call To Help Support An Artist

I am making a post tonight to let everyone know that Mike James’ Indiegogo campaign is coming to a close and if anyone was interested in supporting an artist produce his own trading card set you can take a look at his campaign page for Welcome to the Show trading cards.

 

Mike has self-funded this set and anyone who makes a donation will earn various perks which include packs, autographs, parallel cards and sketch cards. I have made a donation (two pack perk) and if you are interested here is the link to the Welcome To The Show Trading Cards campaign.

The Embiid Train Has Begun Loading On Platform 9

 It has been two years of waiting but the Philadelphia 76ers fans have finally seen Joel Embiid hit the court. His debut stat line was 20 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks in 22 minutes of play in a loss against the ex-Sonics.

 

Is it time to buy up his rookie cards and autographs? It does seem like there have been an awful lot of sales of his cards over the last few days with some of them going for more than they probably should have but once some collectors jump on that train they go full force in hopes of funding their retirement totally forgetting that there are 81 more games left in the season and let’s be honest, he has had two surgeries on his feet and he does play for the 76ers who have turned losing in to a lifestyle.  

They See Me Rolling

Growing up I remember skating with friends, me with my ugly ass old school wood long board and they with their new, light-weight skateboards with tricked out decks, trucks and wheels and the boards loaded up with bad-ass stickers from guys like Tony Alva and companies like Santa Cruz. We would watch videos of Tony Hawk, who was just a few years older than us, and try to replicate everything he did usually ending up more humorous than awesome.

 

I have grown up and no longer skate, but my son has carried on the tradition, but that doesn’t mean that I have forgotten those days. I have had a short list of Tony Hawk cards that I have been watching, mainly relics, and when this 2004 Donruss card showed up I had to have it. I may have paid a little more than I should have but this card rarely shows up any more so I am good with paying what I did.

Holding Out Hope!

Two weeks ago someone within the NBA, an unnamed source, let it slip that once the upcoming NBA collective bargaining agreement is completed that the NBA would begin to look at possible locations for expansion and that during the discussion of expansion it came up that the #1 location on the table is Seattle. The source even went on to say that “An hour after Seattle approves their arena, they’d have an offer in hand” in regards of an expansion team.

 

Chris Hansen, a hedge fund manager, has been trying to work deals with the City of Seattle, King County and Washington State to get an arena built that would bring an NBA team back to the Emerald City as well as a possible NHL team. Hansen has said before that his intention is to make any new arena an NBA/NHL ready arena.

When the rumor came out about the possible Seattle expansion Hansen went in to overdrive to get something together but to no avail the City Council voted 5-4 against an arena being paid for using a bond measure. Not to be dissuaded Chris went to look at other options and yesterday announced that he will privately fund the arena. In his Memorandum of Understanding to the city and NBA is that he will use private funds from a group of investors to fund the $200 million to build an arena with the agreement that the city vacate a section of city owned property near Safeco Field (Mariners) and CenturyLink Field (Seahawks) for the arena and that the NBA will commit to a team for the city by November 2017. Additionally, he has offered private money to upgrade the local streets in anticipation of higher traffic connected to the Sonics games.

 

The offer now goes to the Seattle City Council for another vote and then obviously the waiting game for the NBA to make a decision on expansion.  

 

This is amazing news for Seattle fans and if things do work out I would expect the NHL to turn to Seattle with an expansion team. With the NHL’s expansion in Las Vegas the NHL will be at 31 teams in 2017 with an unbalanced Western Conference. Adding a team in Seattle for 2018 or 2019 would even out the conferences and with a move of the Las Vegas franchise from Pacific Division to Central Division a Seattle franchise could slide right in to the Pacific Division giving each Division 8 teams.

Just imagine, a rebirth of both the Seattle Supersonics and Seattle Metropolitans.

The Future Of Teddy Bridgewater In Question

There was a point that Teddy Bridgewater was the future of the Minnesota Vikings franchise and based on his first two season he was progressing. Taking in consideration his youth, athletic ability and game managing skills and Viking fans had a lot to cheer about but all that changed when he destroyed his knee during practice this past August. The Vikings made a trade for Sam Bradford, and behind a solid line Bradford is flourishing and the Vikes are an unexpected 5-1 and leading the NFC North.

 

It has now been a little over two months since Bridgewater’s injury and rumor out of NFL insiders is that he is lucky to be walking and will most likely never play another game again. It is sad to see a young talent like Bridgewater done after two seasons because of a complete freak practice injury. It is a sign that no matter how young or talented someone can be their career can be over in a moment. His cards are still selling pretty well showing that there are collectors who still have faith that he will return to the field.

I do not own the 2014 Topps Supreme Bridgewater card above, I pulled the image from eBay.

Well Played

Saturday night at the home opener for the Toledo Walleye artist Joe Everson not only sang the anthem but he also supplied an inspirational work of art.

OK, Maybe Not The Best Trend

I am just going to toss this out there, but this is a tradition I might be able to get behind. In years past occasionally the World Series Champions would wear some sort of jersey the following season reminding everyone about the fact.

 

Here are the 1906 New York Giants in their finest after beating the A’s in the 1905 World Series.

 

Here are the 1921 Cleveland Indians in their grammatically errored jersey after beating the Brooklyn Robins in the 1920 World Series. Imagine how the trend can be gloriously brought back from the dead if the 2016 version of the Cleveland Indians can beat the 2016 version of the Brooklyn Robins/Dodgers.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1920 W516-1-2 Larry Doyle Strip Card

 

I came across the most interesting card for this month’s VCoM edition. I believe the card comes from a 1920 W516-1-2 strip cards sheet. This specific set includes 30 cards and these cards are the reverse negative image of the 1920 W516-1 strip cards.

 

Larry Doyle spent most of his 13-year career with the New York Giants, with a two-year stint with the Cubs in-between. He went to three straight World Series (losing all three) in 1911, 1912 and 1913 but he did win the 1912 NL MVP and he was the 1915 NL Batting Champ. He ended up retiring the year before the Giants went on to win two straight World Series titles but those are the breaks.

 

Back to the card. It is a mystery of sorts but it cost about $5 shipped and I am willing to take a chance on it. It appears to be a 1920 W516-1-2 because it is a reverse image and is missing the additional information of the 1920 W516-1 cards. The card is the proper size, roughly the size of a tobacco era card and thickness. Because the cards were sold in strips at candy stores they are usually trimmed but this one was not only trimmed but somebody removed the background and 3 borders leaving just Larry Doyle’s smiling face. To add to the excessive trimming, the card has been altered too. The lips were colored in red with crayon, at least I think it is crayon, and the hat was marked with vertical strips of the Giants home uniform.

Sure, I Know Earl The Hacker

 

I have hit my max of political talk even though I will probably watch the final debate tonight but I will do one political post before the election.

 

To explain the card, during the first debate in September there was a discussion between Trump and Clinton about who hacked the Democratic National Committee and released emails about Clinton’s campaign in which Trump responded that it could have been anyone from the Russians, Chinese or it could have been a person sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds. Not to miss out on a great opportunity Topps jumped on their design google machines and came up with this cool GPK card and like the fool that I am I bought the card, I am fine with that though, and seems fitting that it was delivered from Topps today in time for the debate.

Who You Gonna Call? Part II

Earlier this summer I picked up a couple of Slimmer cards from the awesome 2016 Cryptozoic Ghostbusters release. There are plenty of cards that I still want to get from the set, namely the various slime cards, autographs and sketch/cel cards depicting Ecto-1. I did scratch one card off of that list, a slime card.

 

There are six different slime cards from basic up to Class 7 Ectoplasmic Discharge. Mine is one of the Standard Ectoplasmic Discharge (S1), which is the basic green card, but there is different colored slime like pink, white and I think a black. Now that I have the card in hand I thought the slime inside the slide was supposed to be some sort of liquid or gel but mine isn’t fluid at all. I am not sure if this is normal or I got one that dried up, not that will stop me from buying other slime cards for the right price.

Help Support An Artist

Tonight I want to talk about a fellow artist who I have talked about before here, Mike James. A couple of years ago I had done an interview with him and he donated a John Wall sketch card so I could give it away on my blog.

 

Now he is working on his first independent set, something close to his heart, called “Welcome to the Show”. I did not know this but Mike was a sideshow performer for years and that is what the theme of his set is built upon. To reach his goal of releasing the set he has set up a campaign using Indiegogo to bring the set to reality.

 

I have backed the campaign (I did the two pack perk) and while I do not have a personal connection to Mike James I do love his work and completely support him on this endeavor and I am posting this in hopes that others feel the same way about supporting him.

 

If you are interested in supporting him take a look at his Indiegogo campaign page.

The Art Gallery: 2010 Chicagoland Collector's Expo Batman

This month’s Art Gallery display comes from comic book artist Russell Lissau. The Batman sketch card is from the 10^th Anniversary Chicagoland Expo in 2010 where Lissau was there as a guest artist.

 

Lissau has worked on a number comic books and is currently attached to the indie publisher Pop! Goes The Icon out of Las Vegas where he works on the Omega Comics Presents anthology and the new series Old Wounds. Some of his past work includes Batman Allies, Origins, Shrek and Strawberry Shortcake.

 

This card was created using a blank card, the info piece is a separate insert so the sketch card has a blank back. I love that Batman is in stealth mode where you only see his eyes instilling fear in to the criminal. The card was initially set at $4.95 but the seller dropped it to $0.99 and I jumped on the opportunity. The seller also had a very cool Al Capone sketch card by Jay Shimko but someone outbid me in the last second by a stinking $0.25.

What I Did At Space Camp

I used to be a set builder but a couple of years ago I stopped. I still work on the occasional subset or insert but it is rare and I still do have a couple of sets that I began but that is even rarer. But if it is a set that I am interested in I will put some focus on building it, but with less urgency.

One of those sets is 2002 Futera Red Dwarf. I love this show and can watch it over and over again. For a show that is basically just four characters hurdling through space it is quite humorous. The base set is only 64 cards plus a Chrome subset and three base inserts plus some very rare memorabilia cards and autographs. There are also small sets (Most are 4-6 cards) that were included with each season’s DVD release though these are not part of the base set.

 

I am currently 12 cards short of completing the base set (8, 13, 20, 29, 30, 36, 45, 52, 57, 59, 62, 63). On the positive side I do have one memorabilia card from the set plus two autographs of the cast that were released in other products.

The Chrome insert is a 32-card checklist that is made up of a variety of cards including the ships, characters and monsters from the series. I only have a couple of these.

The other three inserts are Chole Annett Photoshoot, she was named on of FHM's Top 100 sexiest women of 2002 so yea, I guess that makes total sense to create an entire insert set based on her when she only appeared in 15 episodes.

There is the Sylain Despretz Artwork 6-card set. Despretz is an artist who worked a bit on the show in various capacities.

The next set is SMEG, which is used in place of swear words. The 6 cards in this insert set really seem to be random.

 The set does have autographs and relics but they really were pretty limited. I only have one memorabilia card from the set, one of the more common relics, Holly's Poloneck. To explain a bit, Holly is short for Hologram, the ships control computer.  This relic is from the Norman Lovett Holly though there were two different regular Hollys and then there is Queeg, an alternate version of Holly.

I do not have any autographs from the set but I do have autographs from two of the characters. The first is Hattie Hayridge who played the second version of Holly. This card is from a promotional set that also included a couple of very bad ass Jeremy Bulloch autographs (First and Second) that I would love to some day add to my Star Wars collection.

 

Anyway, back to Red Dwarf. This is the silver ink version of Hattie's autograph, there is a gold ink version too.

The other autograph is Chris Barrie who played Arnold Rimmer, one of the main characters. This card is from the Tomb Raider sets where he played Hillary. I would love to have one of his Red Dwarf autographs I found it easier to pay a couple bucks delivered for his Tomb Raider card versus $200+ for a Red Dwarf autograph.

 



 

 

To build on yesterday's post, I am bummed because I was the set expert and spent a number of hours updating the Red Dwarf set on Zistle earlier this summer.