Astronomicon 8 Review

 

After my my 10 year old son's soccer game today, he and I hustled on over to the Astronomicon.  With me were three of my customer cards I was looking to add ink to.  I went 2-for-3.

The first autograph I got was Jamie Pressly on a card from my Joe Dirt set.  This in itself was exciting because it was my first card form that set I've been able to get autographed. The interaction was pretty business like.  I handed the card over and she asked if I wanted it personalized to which I politely declined.  She signed, we exchanged thank yous and she extended her hand.  The thing most of note was her grip.  She must work out.  Very happy with that auto.  Placement is good and everything.  

Next was Cerina Vincent.  I made one of my horror autograph cards from Cabin Fever which she starred in.  She really like the card, taking a picture of it with her phone.  She asked if I brought an extra, which I did.  I gave her the extra to keep and in exchange she was nice enough to let me pick something extra from her table.  I chose a Cabin Fever poster which she autographed with a quote from the movie.  She also talked up my son a bit and complimented him to me.  She suggested we check out a Disney show called In the Middle that she's in.  Neither of us had heard of it, but if I see it on I'll give it a watch because she was very kind.

I also wanted to meet Tommy Chong.  Up In Smoke is easily a top 10 movie for me and Chong is a legend.  Unfortunately we didn't see him until we decided to leave.  He must have been doing photo ops or something.  He already had a long line that had formed, so we skipped this time.  Hopefully I'll get another shot to meet him in the future.

Joe Dirt

Joe Dirt is one of those late '90s / early '00s comedies that I didn't realize how much I liked.  Also, I never remember taking note of what a good message the movie has --while being cloaked in lowbrow humor.

If you've read this blog in the past you might remember that my affinity for trading card design, for the most part, comes to a halt in the early '90s.  Joe Dirt came out in 2001 and I have no idea what trading cards looked like by then.  I know they were shinier with foil stamping, but that's about all I know.  So I had to choose a vintage-inspired design that I thought would be a good fit for the movie. 

In looking at the movie's poster I noticed the Joe Dirt type logo has something of an orange gradient fade coloring which made me think of the 1988 Topps football design with its gradient color fades that coordinated with the different NFL teams.  I chose to color the frame the same as that movie poster font logo.  I did that for the 6 character cards in the mini-set and then made 3 "Classic Scene" cards with a blue gradient fade coloring to set them apart as a subset.

1988 Topps football

The card backs are inspired by the '88 Topps football card backs, but not a 1:1 match.  I freestyled a bit to pack as much into the back of these cards as possible. 



I also did an additional David Spade card as a bonus card to the set.