Mars Attacks: The Revenge Sketch Cards

LOL...Yes, I realize that's probably the least appealing blog post title ever. But it's accurate. I've had these scans hanging around my scan folder for awhile and figured this was as good a time as any to post them. 

In 2017 Topps did a follow-up to their crowd-sourced Mars Attacks Occupation set. This one, MA Revenge, came as a boxed set with a couple of promised 'hits'. Of course I nabbed one.

I haven't posted anything from it. I really need to pull it out of the box and scan a few because it's pretty sweet. But since these were handy I'll do it backwards..here are some sketch cards I've picked up since the original box arrived.

The 'full size (2x3)' cards are all identical on the reverse. This is the back of the one shown up top. The artist is Dennis Gortakowski whose Facebook page shows that he's done a bunch of work on various Topps projects.

This next one is pretty similar. the artist is Wilson Ramos. No, not THAT Wilson Ramos.

This one is different and it's kind of fun. By Eric Kowalick who has done work on other MA series as well as on a bunch of Star Wars card releases.

This last one I picked up because it's obviously different than the run-of-the-mill sketch cards. They were called 'shape sketches' or something. Mine is done by Rich Molinelli. Like the others he's a veteran of the sketch card scene having done plenty of work on any number of SciFi franchises. He's more active on Facebook than his actual website.

Well that's a quick look at some pieces of the MA: The Revenge sketch set. I'll get some of the other pieces scanned and posted.

Here's a sketch card....of Billy Pierce

I haven't added much to my Pierce collection lately. In general the items I lack are very rare/costly, or in the case of a couple of eBay items, things that get relisted endlessly and not worth the asking price.

I stumbled across this sketch card in one of my eBay searches and threw in a minimal bid. I was the only bidder and took it for $4.99. I have a couple of sketch card 'prints' but this is the only 'original' art card I have of Pierce. Or of any baseball player actually.

I have another BP item on it's way and it should arrive in a few days. The thing I'm waiting for is a White Sox season ticket from the June 23 game versus the Athletics. The Sox really went out of their way to put out some nice tickets for their season ticket holders this year. I obtained an Opening Day program that has a poster insert of all the tickets but I'd love a real one. Billy's ticket looks like this:

Here is a shot of some others:

Great stuff...particularly in an era of digital and generic tickets.

Closing In On A Full Page

There was an odd twist to this Batman sketch card arriving in my mailbox. It began when I found a listing for a custom sketch card on eBay. The artist, Nick Hernandez, offers to do a card for you for $12. He had a bunch of his work in the photo in the listing and I really liked what I saw. Here is the picture:

I ordered a card and sent a note as requested asking him to draw a Batman card similar tot he one in the picture with a different background. As promised he drew the card and sent it quickly and sent a note that he had mailed it. I waited almost a week and I got a second note from him saying that he had checked and that USPS Tracking showed the package being held at a postal facility in west Houston and had it marked as 'indefinite delay'. Sure enough he was right.

Neither Nick nor I had ever encountered something like this before. He immediately offered to re-do the card and send it if I wasn't willing to wait. But I have faith in the USPS so I figured I could wait a couple more days. Finally after the package sitting in limbo for another five days I checked and saw it was out for delivery. It came that afternoon.

I'd say it was worth the wait. This one brings me to six of nine and a total of $51 spent towards my mythical $75 budget. I'll have to average $8 a card from here on out to hit my goal.

As for the 'delay', well my brother-in-law, a long time postal worker said it could have been a problem with the label or a postal inspector randomly pulling it for a closer look. I dunno but I'm glad it showed. I'd have hated to miss out on this one.

Batman Sketch Cards

Like a lot of things about the hobby sketch cards were new to me when I came back to collecting a few years ago. In fact I was clueless about them until the Kickstarter Mars Attacks re-boot that came out in 2015. I had no idea that such things existed. Or if I did they hadn't really registered with me.

But the Mars Attacks Occupation set advertised them and when I got mine as part of my 'buy-in' I thought they were a fun addition. I ended up filling one binder page with them. It was interesting to see the different approaches the various artists took.

At the time I began looking around at other sketch cards but I found that unless you are a fan of whatever pop culture phenomenon is featured the interest isn't there. I grew up reading some comics. Batman, Superman, Archie, and a few war-based comics like Sgt. Rock, etc. But comics were not an obsession like they were with a lot of my friends.

But I was a Batman fan. And I still am. Someone had a few inexpensive sketch cards on their blog a few weeks back and I got to thinking that maybe I should try to find a few sketch cards of the Dark Knight.

I low bid on these two and picked them each up for about the price of a '17 Topps hanger pack. Maybe I'll try to fill a page with low cost Batman cards.

Ellyn Acord is the artist of the one at the top. D B Ellis drew the one below. Two different interpretations of Batman. Both very nice. Neither artist has much of a net presence to speak of although I found an abandoned blog that Ellis maintained many years ago.

I have a few bids in on a couple of others. As I typed this I came up with a plan: fill a page with Batman sketch cards with a total budget of $75. I'm at $12.50 at this point. Game on.

Billy Pierce Print card

This is the second Billy Pierce card done by Edward Vela that I've picked up. The first was an 'unlimited' print card with BP in a portrait pose. As I mentioned in that post I really like this guy's work.

I've always felt good 'sports art' is hard to come by and when I find someone whose work is enjoyable I'll pick up things I can afford. Vela does all sorts of stuff and releases all kinds of cards but his baseball work is what I like the most.

This one was numbered to 9 as are most of what he puts on eBay. It cost $8 with free postage which is 2 bucks more than I paid for my 'jumbo' Archives packs which yielded me nothing much to speak of.

Mars Attacks Occupation Sketch Cards

I've picked up a handful of sketch cards from the Mars Attacks Occupation set. They are as varied as the prices I've been seeing on eBay. Some are put up as B-I-N at under $20. Other are up for bid with starting prices at $200. The limited and unusual production behind these have sellers and buyers thrown for a loop.

I'm not going to add many more unless a cheap (but cool) one falls into my lap. I have a couple of bids out on some with low starting bids. Odds are I won't win them but it's worth a shot. Sometimes eBay bidders surprise me.

For these that I already own I'll link the artists' names to a site with their stuff.

This first one (above) was done by Pablo Diaz. It's my favorites of the ones I have from the secondary market. Not much to add about the individual pieces. I really don't know much about comics and the artists that work on them. I've found that the stuff from couple of the MA artists are pretty highly sought after.

This next one is done by Luke Parker. It's a whole different take on the Martians. Seeing how the different artists approach these is kind of interesting.

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Matt Frank did the next one. I have no idea if the Dinosaurs Attack sketches are any scarcer than the Mars Attacks sketches. I also don't know if any of the artists worked on both. I could find out I suppose if I was interested.

Another Dinosaurs Attack sketch. This is from Marck Labas and doing a bit of research answered my previous question. Labas did sketches for both 'sides of the aisle' for this Kickstarter project. His work is kind of scattered online but he has it on his Facebook page. I'm not sure everyone can access that page, I don't know the ins and outs of FB.

These were all relatively inexpensive. My goal is to fill one binder page with these sketch cards. The Topps Kickstarter team was kind enough to make their subsets nine, eighteen and twenty seven cards in number. It all makes for a very tidy binder!

Mars Attacks Occupation

Early last summer I got word that Topps was going to produce a new Mars Attacks set. They were going to do it via a unique avenue to them, as a Kickstarter campaign and it was to be titled Mars Attacks Occupation. That would fall in line with their last re-boot of the MA franchise, MA Invasion from  2012 which was done in a traditional retail fashion. Having been an enthusiastic Mars Attacks fan since the iconic 1962 offering I jumped right on board. They sought $50,000 in pledges and received almost four times that from 525 backers, including me.

I signed on with an $80 level pledge and for that I was to get a hobby box which promised the base set and a limited amount of inserts. As an 'add-on' I ordered a binder. As time went on the Topps KS team posted updates on their progress with the set. They did a nice job of keeping us informed. There were delays for sure. The originally promised goal of a late 2015 delivery went by the boards but what they posted made the backers (or at least me) both anxious for the finished product and grateful that they took their time.

It seemed like other every update brought word of a new aspect to the set and what we had originally signed on for was going to be exceeded, and by a lot. A couple of weeks ago the set was finished and shipping began. I got my package last week and it went way beyond what I expected. 

The first surprise came when I opened the large cardboard box my shipment came in. Topps had included a signed/numbered 11x14 print of the #1 card artwork. I have since looked back and saw that they announced this bonus along the way but I had missed it so finding it with my shipment was cool. I took a picture of it because it's too big to scan. 

The hobby box yielded a complete base set, some dupes and a bunch of great chase/insert cards. The card at the top and the one below are from the base cards.

Here are a few from various subsets within the base set of 81 cards. 

There are two parallel sets a foil version of the 81 base cards and the Heritage set which consists of the first 45 base cards done in the style of the original '62 Mars Attacks set. This is by far my favorite. I received about 9 of these in my hobby box and have been able to add 17 more via eBay. With the limited number produced it's going to be tough to finish this parallel set off but it's something I'm going to slowly chip away at.

Here are the base and Heritage versions of card #41:

Among the bonus subsets there are two woodcut insert sets of four cards each. They were done on an old-fashion platen press and are much nicer in hand than the scan shows. They are printed on a sturdy, almost canvas-like stock and the printing is unlike any other cards I have. They have a gimmicky aspect in that the Dinosaurs Attack have dino relics ground up in the ink.....

  

..and the Mars Attacks group have ground up Mars meteor in them. I don't care about any of that, they are just very cool items. Given the price of the ones available on eBay I won't be chasing any more of these any time soon.

Kind of neat to see how these things were produced. This is from the KS project blog...

A sketch card was promised in my box and this is the one I received. It was done by Miran Kim.

This is the back and you can see that her sig got smeared.

She did 20 sketch cards for the project which she posted on her site. Here they all are:

If that was all I got I'd of been pretty happy. The base cards are terrific, the Heritage version is very cool and the inserts/chase cards were too. But Topps added in more goodies.

I received a printing plate, the black plate of card #8.

Topps reproduced the original 1962 set as metal cards and included them as bonus items. Here is mine:

Mars Attacks Superstars is one of the nine card subsets. Sort of a mashup of MA and sports cards. These are (mostly) done in the style of classic Topps baseball cards. Interesting, but not my favorite part of the set.

I received an oversize 'game card', sort of a box topper. I have no clue as to what it's about but I like the artwork.

Another late add-on was a pack of promo cards. This is my favorite, a promo from a non-sport card show. 

More promo cards included:

There are a few from tie-ins to comics that were produced....

Wacky Packs take-offs. I was never a big fan of Wacky Packs but they included the entire nine card subset.

The backs are puzzle pieces:

Here is another one with the foil version I received as well:

A clever subset is the 'Then and Now' one which compared artwork from the '62 set and this Kickstarter one:

These next two are not sketch cards but rather part of a subset that smapled the various artists that contributed their work:

One aspect of the set is the crossover with the Judge dredd franchise, something I had no clue about. The sketch cards and such that come from the MA?JD mashup seem to be very popular but I'm not much interested except for some of the great artwork I've seen.

This sketch card is my first pickup from the secondary market. The eBay prices for cards/art/chase cards out of the set are all over the board. I see sketch cards going for $19 and others for $299. The same holds true for the various chase cards and subsets. There is a binder variation that was listed twice the first day after the stuff was shipped. One was available for $40, the other for $200. Crazy.

All in all it's a great product and that seems to be the consensus of opinion based on those backers who have posted on the FB group and the KS blog. Looking back I wish I had ponied up and pledged at a higher level but maybe it's a good thing that I didn't I'm currently bidding on a bunch of stuff from the set on eBay and I'm using the money I was saving for my upcoming Chicago trip. Oh well, we all have priorities.