Night Of The Creeps

I started on this set and then paused thinking I had plenty of time to finish it up and put it out before the month was out.  Then, before you know it, it was down to the wire if I wanted to get it out in the month of October because here we are on the last day of the month.  It's pretty cool that it's a horror set on Halloween though, right?

Night of the Creeps is ripe for a custom card set.  Zombies, in my opinion, always make for a cool visual.  Plus, you've got aliens, flamethrowers, a boy-gets-girl story and the combination of Tom Atkinson and Dick Miller.  A little of everything.  That was the intention I guess. This was Fred Dekker's first movie and I read where his thinking was that there was no guarantee that he'd ever get another movie so he threw in everything he loved about movies growing up.  But, the movie doesn't feel incongruent because of that, he and Shane Black did a great job of writing it so that all the pieces fit together.  

When I was thinking about doing this movie as a card set I was all set of the 1986 Donruss inspired design.  That one always seems to be a crowd pleaser and I thought it would work well.  But when I was looking at the poster art for the movie that I like to use for my card set's title card I noticed how the zombie figure breaking through the door glass reminded me, shape-wise, of a template I used for another 1986 movie, my Link set.  The story behind the design is that I couldn't see the Link set going into a design that was originally used as a sports card design so I threw together a hybrid of the 1979 Topps Incredible Hulk set and their '84 Gremlins set.  It's essentially the same design in two different colorways and a Gizmo inset on the Gremlins cards.  I chose the light blue color from the Night of the Creeps movie title screen logo.

I didn't have a set number of cards the set was going to be.  I just sort of let the images I found online be the guide.  Depending on the quality/quantity of images I found it would either be the best scenes, which I knew had to include some of the cool special effects, or I might even be able to somewhat storyboard the movie with the cards.  It turned out the latter with the set totaling 21 cards.  That was really the scenario I was pulling for even if it meant more work.

The back design is a play off of the card front design, just like the Link set.  I threw in a couple fun elements to jazz it up a bit and make it distinctly Night of the Creeps.  The backs feature and cast title card, a quote card back, a trivia quiz card back, 4 character profile card backs and 15 movie fact card backs.

Since this is a larger set I wanted to include something extra for any fans that wanted to add it to their collection.  So, I came up with a "Zombie Bradster" pin that pulled from the card design.  This is a 1.25" round acrylic pin back pin that comes on a card set matching card back.  Truth be told after the set was completed I felt like I missed the boat on a janitor Miner "screaming like banshees!" card, so I made up for it, even if there is a pin hole in the middle of his face.

The Monster Squad Redux

I've been messing with making cards from The Monster Squad for a little while now but never "officially" released them as one of my mini-sets.  I just get sidetracked sometimes.  There's a few movies I've made cards out of that should be a set by now but I get too excited to make new cards that I don't go and revisit those ones.

I got an extra urge to make this set when my son took an interest to the movie's VHS cover and wanted to watch it.  He literally watched it 4 times in a row.  Personally I was a little conflicted as to whether that made me an awesome dad because The Monster Squad rules or not so great because the language used by the Squad has aged like a glass a milk left in the hot summer sun.  I split the difference having a little chat about what things we were and were not allowed to repeat.  Hopefully he listens so I don't get taken aside by his teacher when picking him up from school.

After the movie marathon I decided to buckle down and get this mini-set done.  I switched it up a little bit from the original "prototype" cards I did, well they're prototypes now I guess.  Instead of the areas that are grey on the 1987-88 Fleer basketball I switched it up to a blue color drawing a little inspiration from the iconic Monster Squad movie poster.  I usually try to stick closely to the original design I'm using for the cards but I wanted these to have a little uniqueness knowing how beloved The Monster Squad is by my generation.

The Monster Squad

I don't take a lot of custom requests.  It's not because I'm a dick or lazy, it's because I do these cards in my spare time (most of my spare time actually) and if I'm going to devote the time it takes me from concept to physical card it needs to be something I have an interest in as well so I can do the project justice and feel good about the end product.  With that being said, when I had a request for some Monster Squad cards I didn't hesitate much to get right on it.  Plus, in exchange I got some pretty cool VHS tapes -- you see, I'm a geek for that bulky dead media.

1987-88 Fleer basketball

I had actually thought of doing some Monster Squad cards for quite awhile.  Any self-respecting '80s kid is a fan of The Monster Squad.  The problem was I like to keep my cards year specific and I just didn't think the wood-grained 1987 Topps baseball cards would fit.  Enter the 1987-88 Fleer basketball design.  It's a simple enough design and could work with most subjects.  It was a win-win.  I got to add another basketball card template to the mix and also create a pretty bitchin' card.

I kept the stripes the light grey and matched the font as best I could.  I stretched "Monster Squad" across the whole card instead on trying to keep it right aligned, and dressed it in the original movie poster font colors.

In the lower right corner is where Fleer listed the player's position. Only the Sean got text there being given credit as the "leader" of The Monster Squad.

I've made three cards in this set thus far and all three went in the mail right away hopefully to be returned autographed.

Tom Woodruff, Jr.  who played the Creature from the Black Lagoon-esque Gillman was a quick turn around, and he's got a great looking signature.

one down, two to go.

Extra: also check out these sweet Monster Squad customs done by Branded in the 80s!