Jose Canseco Would Be Proud

I've always maintained that my cards are both entertainment and a creative outlet for myself, and that even if no one else dug them I'd still be goofing around with them for myself.  The fact that there's also a little audience of collectors that are into the same stuff as I am is something that is not lost on me for one second.  It's particularly exciting for me when occasionally a subject of my cards gives me an attaboy. That was the case when the legendary Gerald Okamura saw my Big Trouble in Little China cards on Instagram. 

I'm honored to say Mr. Okamura really got a kick out of the Big Trouble set.  He's a really, REALLY cool guy, and he has a really big soft spot for those in the fan community still carrying a torch for Big Trouble.  

Big Trouble is such a visual treat of a movie, so it was really fun making a custom card set for it.  If the movie was handled by the studio correctly in 1986 I believe it would have had an official card release.  Luckily, for me anyways, they dropped the ball on marketing this film.  

I wanted to be as inclusive as I could with this card set and it ended making the set massive by PCb. standards.  The card set ended up being 38 cards.  I decided to split the cards into Series 1 and 2 in an effort not to overwhelm fans of the movie.  

The first message from Mr. Okamura was him inquiring about his cards in the set.  I was eager to send him the image of the card/cards featuring him in the set.  To my surprise (and embarrassment) I didn't have anything of his Wing Kong "Golden Six Shooters" character, nor any Wing Kong cards for that matter.  Now, I don't normally go back to a card set and add to or improve on it.  There's a couple reasons for that.  The first reason is that my cards have been ever evolving since I started doing this in 2015.  I look at them as time capsules to where I was artistically at that point in time.  So, the Big Trouble set  was the best of me in June of 2019.  If I were making the set today each card would have its own unique card back like my cards do now.  The second reason is that I don't think it would be fair to anyone who has added these cards to their personal collection to have me, in theory, "improve" on something and they still have the 1.0 version and anyone who purchases it after gets the 2.0.  But, even with that reasoning I just couldn't let this glaring omission stand.

I wanted to gift Mr. Okamura with a complete set that included a card with his character.  I got a cool Wing Kong image that includes Mr. Okamura and another henchman favorite, Al Leong. I kept everything the same so this card could slide in nicely to the Series 1 set. 

Photo courtesy of Gerald Okamura

When talking to Mr. Okamura about the cards I mentioned to him that they're designed to take after the 1986 Donruss baseball cards to coincide with the release year of the movie.  Just kind of explaining why the cards look the way they do.  Without missing a beat Mr. Okamura replied "Jose Canseco would be proud".  That blew me away.  I guess I just didn't expect him to comeback with that card knowledge.  For anyone that didn't grow up trading card obsessed, the 1986 Donruss set is most notable for the extremely sought after short-printed Jose Canseco rookie card that saw the future 40/40 man rocking what can most accurately be described as a "dirt 'stache".  I was so tickled by Mr. Okamura's compliment that I asked him to autograph my personal copy of the card with that inscription, which he so graciously obliged.  That card will never leave my collection.  I might even request to be buried with it ;)

Now, I honestly don't think many read my blog posts.  Not that that's a bad thing.  I just do a little write up with new cards to give a little insight to my thoughts when deciding how the cards will look.  But, in the event that you're reading this and you've added Series 1 to your collection, don't worry, I've got you covered and your card is on the way.  If you've picked up Series 1 and 2 then you've got the new card and the special Gerald Okamura auto card coming your way.  Thirdly, if you've got Series 1 already and add Series 2 at any point the Gerald Okamura card will be included.

Big Trouble In Little China

I’ve been wanting to do a Big Trouble in Little China set for quite some time now but I kept putting it off and putting it off.  The reason why is that I knew it would be time consuming.  I knew it would just be a couple of cards because I wanted to do the movie cardboard justice.  I try to make to make the best cards possible not only for my personal satisfaction in a job well done but anyone who may be a fan of the card’s subject.  All of my cards take time to make, but this set a little longer due to the size.   Big Trouble may not have been a box office smash -- grossing about half of what it took to make the movie -- but it’s garnered as big of a cult following as most any 80’s cult classic, especially after being released on VHS in 1996.  I added three new complete revolutions on my tape’s spools while making this set just so I could get down more of what I would call fan-accurate details.

Big Trouble would have been ripe for a card set.  There’s all of it’s colorful characters and scenes that just plain look great as cards.  Director John Carpenter has gone onto say that Twentieth Century Fox never got behind the movie not really knowing what they had with Big Trouble in Little China.  I think a card set could have gone a long way to help capture the imagination of kids who would have bugged their parents to take them to see the movie.

I knew I would be doing more of a storyboard type set than just a principal characters set with Big Trouble.  There’s so many great scenes in the movie that I wanted to include but I kind of had to take what the internet would give me, which fortunately was the majority of what I wanted to include.

This set ended up being 38 cards that is split evenly into a Series 1 and 2, but it could have easily been double had I come across more images.

When I thought about how I wanted the set to look there really was only one template I seriously considered, the 1986 Donruss design.  I was so pleased with how the design complimented my Wraith and Thrashin’ sets that it really was an easy decision to use it once more, just this time in an all too fitting jade green colored border.

This set features a couple of firsts for a Phantom Cardboard set.  For the first time I finished a set off with a checklist.  The second first is a 6-card puzzle back of the Lo Pan’s catacomb monster.  The puzzle is complete with three cards from the first series and three from the second.

Update: See - Jose Canseco Would Be Proud

Thrashin' Drops In

If you’ve never seen it, Thrashin’ is ninety-two minutes of 80’s awesomeness.  I think if I was teaching a course on 80’s cinema it would be on the required watching list.

For my money Thrashin’ is the Citizen Kane of skateboarding movies.  But, I guess a movie that has a similar story as my all-time favorite movie, The Karate Kid, would create some bias in my eyes.  Corey Webster (Josh Brolin) is the new kid in town who quickly finds himself the annoyance of a rival gang and the only way to settle things is a big competition for Southern California skate scene supremacy.  There's also that idea of a class struggle, although in this movie the protagonist is on the Valley end of things.  Mix that with shades of Romeo and Juliet with Corey’s love interest Chrissy (Pamela Gidley) being the younger sister of Hook (Robert Rusler), the leader of the punker skater faction “Daggers”, sworn enemy of the Corey and his “Ramp Locals” buddies.  If you're a fan of fine 80’s cheese this flick is Havarti. Mmmmm.

If that little write up isn’t enough to make you shell out the bucks to get your very own VHS copy then maybe this line will seal the deal:

Chrissy: "Well, what do you thrash?"
Corey: "What do ya got?"

1986 Donruss

And if your STILL not convinced there's lots of rad skate scenes and cameos by the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers,  pro skaters Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, and Eddie Reategui.  Plus, it was the film debut of Lost Boys' vampire Brooke McCarter.

Alright, now for the card mini-set.  This was the second time I used the 1986 Donruss baseball inspired design, the first was with my set for The Wraith (also with Sherilyn Fenn).  Although this time I took a couple of gnarly creative liberties. I changed the color of the frame to pink.  It's a color that's used in the movie's logo plus it's a predominant color of the 80's fashions worn in Thrashin'.

On the veritcally oriented cards I moved the Thrashin' logo to the upper left of the card.  I just thought it looked better.  On the horizontal cards I put it back in the lower left of the image where the team logo would be for the '86 Donruss.  I also added a 1986 Donruss-esque Phantom Cardboard logo which I thought fits nicely with the overall design.

The Wraith

I got a message a direct message from an Instagram friend, @creature1031, asking me if I had done cards from The Wraith (1986) yet. I told him that not only had I not done any, but I've never even heard of the movie, to which he recommended I go on Netflix and check it out.  So, I did just that.

Within the first couple of minutes of watching The Wraith I knew that "yes" I was going to make some cards.  Then, I started to feel embarrassed for myself having not known of this movie until now.  I even contemplated turning in my '80s kid card but figured I could atone by making some cool trading cards.

1986 Donruss

This movie is so cool. You've got a cast that features names like Charlie Sheen, Randy Quaid, and Clint Howard.  You've got a soundtrack with names like Mötley Crüe, Robert Palmer, Billy Idol, and Ozzy Ozbourne.  Add a smoking hot Sherilyn Fenn, a totally '80s-fied story and some really cool cars to get a movie that I literally love and have watched 4 times since -- some of it was for "trading card research", so save the complete loser accusations, even if it might be the case ... maybe.

For the template it was an easy choice, a 1986 Donruss inspired design. There's no way to build this choice up other than to say that it fits perfectly. In my opinion it fits better with these cards than it does the baseball cards. I could even imagine a similar design on the trim on the inside of the Turbo Interceptor.

I found making cards for this set like potato chips.  This is my largest set to date.  The only reason I stopped at 17 was lack of images to use.