Charles Barkley

First off, I like Charles Barkley.  He's a huge personality.  I like that he speaks his mind.  I don't always agree with his views but I appreciate that he doesn't just parrot populous sound bites.  That's so rare these days with those in the public eye fearing the loss of their entertainment industry club card.  Plus, he may be one of the few people that's worse at golf than I am.

There's this infamous image of Charles Barkley thoroughly enjoying a Domino's pizza -we know it's Domino's because of the drink cup at his side.  I wanted to make a card out of this image, but I just couldn't figure out an angle for the card.  I was hoping to think of something more than the image just plugged into a random card template because, to the best of my knowledge, there weren't any pizza themed card sets in 1984.  

Then I thought of a way to make it make sense.  I'll just conceptualize a backstory for the card!  Okay, so follow along here.  Charles played college ball at 300 lbs.  The 76ers, who had the 5th overall pick in the 1984 draft, were planning on using their pick on Barkley if, as they told him, he could trim down to 285 lbs. before the draft.  Charles was able to get down to 283 lbs. and that's when his agent, Lance Luchnick, informed him that due to the league's hard salary cap back then the Sixers only had $75,000 a year to pay Barkley.  Obviously that was news to Charles as he recalls telling his agent:

“Dude, I didn’t leave college for $75,000. We have a problem.” 

So, Charles spends the next 48 hours eating as much food as possibly could to prevent Philadelphia from drafting him.  Charles managed to balloon to 302 lbs. in just two days, but the kicker was that the 76ers drafted him anyways.  *Whaa-whaaaaa*

Here's where my card concept kicks in ... 

Domino's has seen the pictures of Charles lustfully consuming their product.  When he turns pro in '84 they approach him with an lucrative endorsement deal.  Charles, still gripping over the thought of a paltry rookie contract with the Sixers, jumps at the chance to shill corporate pepperoni and cheese.  Now with Sir. Charles as the face of  "Team Domino's" the promotional marketing gears start to turn.  First up was a special collector's card offered as a purchase premium that was wildly popular and much more profitable than actually giving money off of pizza purchases!

As it turned out Philly loosened the purse strings and ended up giving Barkley a four-year, $2 million contract one month later, including a $150,000 signing bonus (that's actually true).  Barkley now has so much bank he has no need for his pizza money and stops taking Domino's calls for restaurant grand opening ribbon cutting ceremonies, leaving the trading card promotion as the only link between Barkley and the pizza chain's partnership as Barkley's lawyers were able to get him out of his Domino's contract due to an unusual loophole on the part of Domino's legal team.  The contract was not signed within 30 minutes or less making it null and void as per company policy.

Domino's was in shambles for a couple of years following "The Barkley Debacle" (as it came to be known in corporate pizza circles) until "The Noid" was concocted in 1986 allowing the Domino's franchise owners to once again hold their heads high at family gatherings and social functions.

There.  Now the card has an interesting backstory.  

Since the picture is from 1984 I went back to the '84 Topps baseball inspired well.  I've been on a bit of a roll with this design between the André the Giant card and the Revenge of the Nerds set.  In the same spirit of the André card, instead of using a headshot in the designated inset square I went with a cheesy (pun so intended) stock pizza image.  I thought that would be humorous.  

While I made up a story for the front of this card, the info on the reverse side is all true.

The Eighth Wonder Of The World

Since his passing in 1993 at the age of 46, André the Giant's legend has just continued to grow.  I truly believe André to be one of the most unique humans to ever have walked the earth.  

At the end of January Gummy Arts posted a wrestling card collage to his Instagram page.  Gummy Arts does these really fun hand drawn cartoon-like custom trading cards set to vintage card designs.  Within that collage I noticed an André the Giant card done inside of a 1977 Topps baseball style design.  The catch on that cards was it had André as a member of the Giants.  I loved that concept.  I had done something really similar for my Twins card.  I messaged Gummy Arts and asked if he would mind me using that basic idea just with putting my PCb. spin on it.  Thankfully he was totally cool with it and gave his blessing.

I wanted to incorporate the iconic 1981 S.I. photo of André's catcher's mitt of a hand absolutely dwarfing a 12 oz. can of Molson Canadian onto the card somehow.  My idea was to use it as an inset picture, so that left me down to two card designs; the 1983 and 1984 Topps.  I chose 1984 just because of it being a personal favorite.  The vertical team name text and the cropped out inset picture just give it a really unique and fun vintage look.  

1984 Topps

Revenge Of The Nerds

Revenge of the Nerds is a movie that a lot of us loved, but maybe hasn't aged so well.  There's the cultural stereotypes, the "toxic masculinity" from the bullying Alpha Betas and that problematic err-ummm love scene? between Betty and Lewis on the moonwalk.  But, my '80s kid eyes prefer not to view it as the un-P.C. cluster-bleep it would be by todays standards, but as the underdog sex-comedy it was before our childhood's became so cancellable.  

This is a set I've had the back burner for a long time now.  If you're new to the site I started making custom cards in hopes of sending them off in the mail for autographs 6 or so years ago.  I had made 5 or 6 cards from this movie with no intention of making a mini-set out of it.  Those were just the cards I thought I might stand a halfway decent chance of getting autographs on.  There's a lot of cards from my earlier days that I'd like to expand to a set.  Picture and industrial sized stove with back burners as far as the eye can see, something like that.

I finally decided to buckle down and put this baby to bed.  The cards I had made previously were tightened up since I've got new operating standards that I didn't have then.  I just needed to fill in the blanks character-wise and then design a card back to what ended up being a 14 card mini-set.

For the Lamda's (and one Omega Mu) I used a card front inspired by the  1984 Topps baseball design, a personal favorite of mine.  For the Beta/Pi faction I went with a design inspired by the 1984 Topps football design, which to me just makes perfect sense as the Betas were the football jocks at Adams College.

The cards all got the same card back design to give the set more continuity since the card fronts varied between the heroes and antagonists.  The back design is derivative mostly to '84 Topps baseball set but with some liberties taken to give them the right amount of nerd flare.  

I had a lot of fun packing the card backs with info.  Each card has a "Transcript" section which basically serves as a listing of some of the character's prominent characteristics. Each character also has a quote attributed to them and their frat/sorority affiliation.  There's a "Nerd Factoid" on each just because I'm into that DYK? kind of shit.  The card back finishes off with quiz question so you can test your RotN fanhood.

A number of the sets I've made recently somewhat storyboard a movie so I like to keep those cards together and not offer them with the PCb. card shop's "You Pick Single" option.  This one (all though I would prefer collector's get the entire 14 card set) because they're all character cards and I get that there's some that just might want certain characters, so I'm leaving it open to the Y.P.S. option.  But, as an incentive, I've created a bonus card *only* available with the purchase of the complete set.  

Not that I wanted to highlight the sorta rapey love scene, but it's just that the card makes tons of sense.  What I mean is Lewis was wearing some sort of Storm Trooper/gorilla/Darth Vader hybrid costume and the 1977 Star Wars set is so iconic, and not to mention how the Star Wars franchise is known for their almost cult-like nerd fanboy following.  It just all comes together too perfectly not to make the card.  And hey, *spoiler alert* Lewis and Betty end up married in the sequels so it's sort of  the beginning of a meant-to-be nearly consensual love story!

Karate Kid Halloween

It's been awhile since I've done a Karate Kid card, so I was kind of jones'n. I've also been thinking all year about doing some limited Halloween themed cards.  The problem with that is that I procrastinated thinking month-by-month that "ahh, I've got plenty of time".  Well, here we are in October.  Oh, well.  Maybe next year.

The Halloween dance scene is a favorite of mine and many Karate Kid fans alike.  Johnny and the Cobra Kai's skeleton costumes are a pretty bad ass look and you've got the clever shower costume engineered by Mr. Miyagi at the last moment.  The part where Johnny and the Cobra Kai catch up to Daniel is really important as it brings Mr. Miyagi into the conflict.

This card is based on the 1984 Topps baseball set with some obvious liberties taken to achieve a more Halloweenish look.  

1984 Topps

The timing of this card is pretty good as well with the trailer for the third season of Cobra Kai have just been released that will surely keep all of us fans buzzing until January when it finally comes out.

This card is a special limited release.  I've dialed the print run back to 31 from the normal 50 and it will be retired at midnight on October 31st.

Three For The Office

I was a little bummed that I couldn't have added Stanley "Secret Weapon" Hudson to my "Scanton Hoops" mini-set.  The orientation of the image just wouldn't work with the 1980-81 Topps basketball layout.  I still wanted to make a card for Stanley so I decided to put it into a 1989-90 Fleer basketball inspired template.  I chose that particular  basketball design because I liked the idea of putting "Secret Weapon" under the border curl.

While I was making this card a couple other fun trading card ideas for The Office came to mind.  I'm surprised it took me this long to make a "Prison Mike" card.  That one skit is probably my favorite of the entire series.  I've certainly watched those four-and-a-half minutes more than any other scene. For this card I went to maybe my favorite template to use, the 1984 Topps baseball inspired design.  I love the vertical lettering and the inset head shot in the corner.  Classic stuff.  Making this card, for whatever reason, also gave me an inspiration to make an Andy Bernard card.  He went to Cornell ya know, ever heard of it?  I chose again to use the same 1984 design as with the "Prison Mike" card.

The Understudy

Some of my favorite cards have come by way of suggestion.  Here's two such examples.

I was asked to do cards of George and Jerry from the Sixth Season episode of Seinfeld entitled "The Understudy" (1995).  Like most episodes of Seinfeld the episode is funny as hell and has a sports theme which is a bonus for me.

I was given carte blanche as to what design to use.  Any time I'm given half a reason to use the 1984 Topps baseball inspired design I go for it; it's one of my very favorites.  It's such a fun design to use with the two pictures and the vertical team name.  I also love custom cards of fictional sports teams.

George "The Animal" Steele

I saw this picture posted on Instagram by one of the old school wrestling pages I follow on there. Obviously I had to make a card out of it.

I'm not a fan of wrestling these days, but boy was I ever as a kid. Everyone loved George "The Animal" Steele. Steele (real name Jim Myers) was a true character, something, in my opinion, that professional wrestling sorely lacks these days. Myers was also a high school phys. ed teacher and football coach here in Michigan, which was a non-kayfabe factoid that all us kids seemed to know somehow.

I wasn't sure what year this photo was taken so I just went with a favorite, the 1984 Topps baseball inspired design. It's a good pick for this card because of the use of two images plus it's the last year the Detroit Tigers won the World Series.

Stuck On You

Once again the Farrelly Brothers have given me great custom card material. I watched Stuck On You maybe six months ago. It's a goofy but heart warming movie about conjoined twins who have different aspirations which of course can lend to some funny situations. It's one I would call "an easy watch".

The other week it just dawned on me that there were some sports scenes in Stuck On You, sort of the way you're trying to remember something but can't and then it just pops in your head out of no where the next day. I literally got a smile on my face thinking about a single card for conjoined twins. It's a custom card two'fer!

Stuck On You was released in 2003. Hard to believe that was 15 years ago, but not quite old enough to match it to a card design of the same year. So, it was another case of designers choice.

First was the high school baseball card. I chose a 1984 Topps baseball inspired design. I thought it would be funny to widen the head shot box to be able to get both twins in there. Since Bob and Walt are from Martha's Vineyard I decided to use the Red Sox color scheme from the '84 Topps. (Martha's Vineyard is a island in Massachusetts for the geography fans).

For the hockey card I went with a design I've not yet use up to this point, the 1981 Topps hockey design. The main thing I was looking for was a card design that had a large enough area to fit "Quikee Burger", and although I had to stack it, the '81 design allowed for that. For the same reason as stated with the baseball card, I went with the Bruins color scheme for this card.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

Another character I thought of right away when I thought about movie - in this case tv - characters that used baseball bats Negan with his trusty "Lucille" from The Walking Dead.

Personally I'm just lukewarm on The Walking Dead. It seems to draw me in with an exciting episode and then there'll be 2 to 3 episodes in a row where it's a bit of a snooze fest. I really liked the Negan character when he was introduced. I think Jeffrey Dean Morgan is super charismatic. But, after a while the he seemed to be doing a parody of the character with all his various mannerisms. And that's my little Walking Dead rant.

The Walking Dead of course is a modern show. So for the card I was just chose what design I thought would be the funnest to use. I chose the 1984 Topps baseball inspired design. I like all the Topps designs that call for a main photo and then the smaller head shot, no pun intended. The '84 takes a little more time with having to crop out the head picture but the end result is always a great vintage look. I also wanted a design that would prominently feature the team name so I could have fun with "Saviors" as the team name. I also wanted a design that featured a player position on the front of the card so I could add the "DH" designation for the same dark humor reason as with the Al Capone card in the last post.

I'm pretty sure this is the only Walking Dead card I'm going to do. I just thought it would be fun to make a Negan baseball card. I'm not really wanting to make a Walking Dead set, those already exist. Plus, the show has been running for so many years and features a lot of different characters and I wouldn't be able to trust myself to keep the number of cards under control.

Night Of The Comet

I started messing with the design of the 1984 Topps baseball set.  Then I started checking out the movies that were released in '84 to start plugging into the template.  I was pleased to be reminded that Night of the Comet, a movie I remember fondly being in HBO's rotation in the '80s, was a 1984 release.

This is one of those movies that has a strong cult following.  Actually with the popularity of The Walking Dead I'm surprised that this post-apocalyptic zombie B-flick hasn't had a big resurgence in popularity.  Or maybe it has and I'm just not up on things?  Either way, I thought it'd make for a cool card.

I chose the main heroine Regina "Reggie" Belmont who was played by Catherine Mary Stewart.  You have to admit she's looking pretty bad ass toting the Uzi.  In place of the smaller head shot in the bottom left I went with a pretty recognizable element from the original movie post.

For the comparison