Frankenhooker

This 50 card set is the custom set I referenced as a "passion project" back in this post.  I began tinkering on this set at the end of June.  A combination of things; it being a 50 card set and a couple of printing setbacks, stretched this one out for months.  There was no rush because I make these for fun.  I didn't give myself a deadline, so the proximity to Halloween is a ghoulish coincidence.

At 50 cards (52 if you count the promo card and special "Dream Ghoul" card) this is the largest card set I've done.  I learned a lot, most specifically that I'll never do a set this large again. It's just too much for my one-man Mickey Mouse operation.

This set came to be thanks to my son and his repeated viewings of the Blu-ray, which eventually I had to hide.  I can't recall if I've mentioned it on other blog posts -probably not, I try to keep it about the cards- but, my son is on the spectrum.  He's non-verbal, so movies are a form of communication and bonding for he and I.  The only issue is that when he likes a movie he can't just watch it once, or even two or three times.  It's back-to-back-to-back for days or weeks or sometimes months.  He's done the same thing with Cliff Hanger, Total Recall, The Running Man, Return of the Living Dead Part 3, Suspiria,  among other movies.  He gravitates towards the intense action scenes.  

I decided to make a set from Frankenhooker because the more times I watched this quirky movie, the more I fell in love with it.  I've always been fond of the film, but I really started to deeply appreciate the performances, the aesthetic and story.  It's crazy to me that the idea for the movie was originally an on-the-spot ad lib by director Frank Henenlotter after another of his more thought-out movie concepts was shot down by his would-be producer.  

Another pseudo-factor in liking Frankenhooker is that it's an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  It seems everyone has their favorite Marvel and DC characters (Incredible Hulk and Plastic-Man, respectively) but I'd also be interested to know other's favorite Universal Monster character.  Mine has always been Frankenstein.  

Horror movies (or horror comedies in this movie's case) are my favorite to make sets from.  I just really like the special effects visuals.  Monsters are just fun to create a vintage inspired custom cards out of.  That's also how this set ended up being 50 cards.  By the 87th -give or take- viewing I loved so much about the movie that I wanted to include as much of it as I possibly could.  I wanted the card set to follow the sequence of the movie and present nicely that way in a binder.

I considered a few different card sets looks from 1990, but I felt that a template inspired by the 1990 Topps baseball design would work out best to give these cards a look unique to the movie but still recognizable as a classic Topps design.  Plus, the '90 Topps frames was purple after all... "I'm looking for a tall purple girl.  She's got a black forearm and fresh stitches".  I also wanted a design that would lend well to using captions as is the case with non-sports card sets.  That might have been my favorite part, coming up with the double entendre puns.

The same approach was taken for the card backs.  I wanted them to resemble the '90 Topps with some Frankenhooker flair.  I watched the movie scene-by-scene pausing to get exact quotes for use on the card backs.  There's a few scenes that did not have dialog so those 4 (I believe) cards have movie trivia questions on them.  I also wanted to give each card a fun fact because I personally place great importance on that type of shit of zero consequence, rather than figure out how things like stocks or mortgages work.  It's not enough to like a movie.  I need to be able to annoy others with "did you know?" type information that they couldn't really care less about. 

Pretzels GOOOD

The set ended up being 48 cards, which with being that close to 50 didn't sit quite right with me.  So, I made two checklists which is ironic because I'm not planning on parting specific cards from the rest, so if you have the checklists, you have the rest of the set.  But, it gave me an excuse to use a couple cool behind-the-scenes shots that otherwise didn't have sequential story context.  Which begs the question of why didn't I just just cap the set with a couple of behind-the-scenes cards instead of checklists?  That is a pretty good question actually.  I don't know.  It's just what I did.  Consider it just a homage to set collecting where the checklist let you know which cards you needed to complete a set, like back in 1990.

The Dream "Ghoul" card is a play on the Dream Girl cards I do, which of course are a play on the Dream Team subset from the 1991 Score baseball set.  In the time it has taken to produce this set I've plugged upwards of 20 or more images into the Dream Girl template.  Patty Mullen was such a babe and a brilliant choice to play Elizabeth as she had a great look (1988 Penthouse Pet of the Year) and had the comedic chops to soften a character that is essentially a prostitute monstrosity. 

I also made a promo card for the hell of it.  In the early '90s I remember promo cards really coming into vouge, especially with non-sport card sets.  I totally marked out to those oddball type of cards.  They were the epitome of rare and special to me.  You couldn't get them in packs.  Sometimes they were dealer exclusives or sometimes they'd be a magazine premium.  Either way, I was in awe of them, so I thought it'd be cool to recreate that with this set. 

Happy Birthday, Michael Ironside

Happy 71st birthday to the prolific character actor, Michael Ironside.  

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Sig. Showcase: Danny McBride

Eastbound and Down is easily one of the funniest shows I've ever watched and that's in largest part due to Danny McBride.  He's just a naturally funny guy.  The show's writing and how Danny delivered the Kenny Powers character as a ridiculous man-child was masterful.  The character does and says some messed up things, but it's hard to dislike him being that he's the type of person that never had to deal with maturation and accountability due to his ability to throw a baseball "faster than f*ck". 

Not that long ago I had about ten or so signed cards that I had doubles of certified and encased by Beckett to be able to offer them to collectors.  The double of the card pictured by far and away garnered the most activity.  This one though stays in my personal collection forever. 

Home Alone

Typically I do not make cards with timing in mind.  I just kind of make what I feel like, when I feel like and if it matches up with a season or anniversary it's probably just luck.  With that being said I knew I wanted to make a Home Alone set to release around the holidays for quite awhile now.  The problem was I procrastinated until almost too late.  Well, I jut got this one in under the wire.

Matching the year of the movie's release I did these in the style of the 1990 Topps baseball set.  I thought about a red or green border to make it more Christmasy but went with blue as it reminded me of the movie poster for Home Alone.

1990 Topps baseball

I found that there's tons of little Home Alone factoids so I packed the backs of these cards with those did ya knows.  Theses are more most info rich PCb. card backs to date.

Have Cap, Will Custom

Tiffani Theissen and Barry Gibb don't have anything in common (to the best of my knowledge) outside of the fact that I recently seen a photo of each of them wearing a hat of a professional baseball team.  That's about all it takes for me to want to make a card.

I didn't have a year of significance for either picture so I used two templates that I just thought would compliment the picture.  Tiffani Theissen White Sox with the 1990 Topps baseball inspired design and Barry Gibb Indians with the 1981 Topps.

Eli Roth Is Legend

I'm always incredibly appreciative when any of the subjects of my custom cards take time out of their busy schedules to autograph and send back my cards through the mail. I'm completely blown away when they take the additional time to include a little note with the cards. Not only did actor/director/writer/producer Eli Roth sign my custom Donny Donowitz card but his note floored me.

As you can see from his note he's no stranger to vintage cardboard! Not only did he know the design I used but suggested a corresponding year design for another Donowitz card. What?! If you're familiar with my cards that's normally the goal but I went with the 1990 design for fun because I'm not all that familiar with designs that go back that far. Looks like I'v got some work to do...

Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Taratino is a great filmmaker. The guy makes movies that are pretty much instant classics. Inglorious Basterds is certainly not an exception having been nominated for eight Academy Awards. Like most movies of his that I’ve seen I was instantly drawn in the first time I watched it, and I’ve re-watched it several times since. I like that Inglorious Basterds is set during WWII but still has a stylish modern feel to it. I can’t say enough  about the casting and I dig all the all of the moments of dark humor that perfectly balance the wartime subject matter.

I started this set as just a one carder. I was thinking of characters that used baseball bats but not for the purpose of playing baseball, two of which (Al Capone and Negan) I posted about recently. Another that quickly came to mind was Sgt. Donny Donowitz aka “The Bear Jew”. I was so happy with that card I immediately knew I was going to make his Basterds teammates.

Since Inglorious Basterds is a newer film I gave myself carte blanche when it came to the design. For one reason or another I thought a 1990 Topps baseball inspired design would work out well, and I wasn’t disappointed with the results. There were a couple other members of the Basterds that were present during the first Nazi massacre scene, but that was about it and they didn't have any significant lines or moments otherwise so I didn’t make cards of them, but the rest of team is accounted for.