In honor of the Sport and Gaming Collectible Industry Summit that all the cool kids are discussing on Twitter, I dug up some old school cards from way back when the industry gave a crap about marketing to kids. Here's some cards given away with...
chocolate
breakfast cereal
granola bars
fake cheese squares
All junk food items that kids tend to like. Here's some more giveaways in products geared towards kids:
ice cream
cheese sticks
snack cakes
slurpees
fast food
pizza
meat snacks
more snack cakes
bland yellow mustard
even more snack cakes
Man, that's a lotta junk food. Might be a good thing cards aren't being included in that anymore. The last time I remember seeing cards in any product was when Sunkist included a card in a bag of oranges that promptly bent the thing all to hell. So now that the Industry is trying to figure out how to get the kids who got hooked on cards through some of these giveaways to spend more money on cards as an adult, I wonder what they have in mind to hook those guys' kids? Maybe they can sneak baseball cards into packs of Pokemon and Squinkies...
I know for a fact you bastards were all boozin it up all night even if the closest you've ever been to being Irish is eating a Reuben sandwich. You feel like crap now dontcha? Hair of the Dog just bit ya in the ass, didn't it? Well watch this bit of stupidity, it might make you feel better.
At the very least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you're not stupid enough to video yourself while smashed to the gills in an attempt to honor your ancestors and put it on the internet.
Oh and here's an obligatory Mets card since there wasn't one in the video:
Just a brief reminder to myself of what I've sent and what need to get out of my house. You can safely ignore this post unless you've been waiting for a package from me for three years.
6/14/12 - Tom, Eric, Bill, Jeremy and Bad Wax Box
5/??/12 mailed something, but I forgot to notate it
5/10/12 - Nathan, Paul and Richard mailed
5/01/12 - Jon and Sarah mailed
4/02/12 - David and James mailed
3/26/12 - Jeff and Sam mailed
3/20/12 - Scott and Marck mailed
3/15/12 - Paul mailed
3/09/12 - Slangon, Edgar and Matty Heartbreak mailed
Need to get it together:
Andruw K. - need sketch
Max M. - need sketch
Tom O. - cards, has enough sketches
Rod R. - need sketch &cards
Captain C. - need sketch
gcrl - sketch & cards
Mark A. - sketch
James A. - sketch
Maine Mariner - sketch
Eric N. - need sketch
Sarah - Painting
Gritz - sketch & cards
Matt F. - Sketch
I read the introduction (28 pages!) and that pre-chapter by itself is more interesting than a lot of other books I've read. If anyone wants a copy and can't find it at your local Dollar Tree let me know and I'll see if I can pick you up a copy. Or just go to Jim's website and get your own personalized copy.
If I'm lucky, I'll have Paul's package in the mail by the time this posts. If not, it'll go out in the mail with a couple other packages tomorrow. If I'm truly unfortunate, I'll fall asleep on my commute today and get smashed to oblivion on the interstate. I'm going to be heavily leaning on coffee today, which truth be told is a major factor on why I didn't get any sleep last night. Oh yah. Mets.
Get comfortable folks, it's gonna be a while before we move out of Flushing.
Nothin got mailed, nothin got packaged, but I have all the cards together for Scott, Marck and Captain and a sketch card finished for Paul. It's time to pay the price for sleeping in on Saturday though...
I'm over 3 months behind on the sketch cards and I'm drawing like a fiend right now so I should probably get a postin'. A major theme in my pony-drawing portfolio is turning unsuspecting hapless schmoes into ponies again their will.
The Collective Troll got ponified back in September. I'm not sure at the moment but if he wasn't the first to get transmogrified by me into a man-horse he was dang close. Why would I do such a nefarious thing? I just think the "X is now pony. What do?" meme is friggin' hilarious. Seriously, I'm laughing at it right now and it's making it hard to tpye. Marck isn't the only Mark to become Pony.
Mark over at Stats on the Back also got a blast from the Pony Ray. I basically did a piss take on his blog header (an actual 1973 Topps cartoon) and turned him into a bubble blowing workhorse. Poor guy has a foal to feed and I've gone and made him a pony. Oh well, gotta expect disaster to hit when you're a Met fan. As usual, I did a little preliminary sketch to try to figure things out:
Glasses on ponies ain't easy. Their eyes are half of their dang head which makes things awkward. After doing this, I did it again on the actual card and ended up erasing way too much. This is important later. For some reason I'm obsessed with doing Sharpie Art on these glossy decoy cards people send me but I never quite like how it comes out. I'm not comfortable with my lines yet, I guess. Here's the black and white version:
Lettering is shaky as usual, I smudged up the bubble and the Sharpie decided it didn't want to cooperate on the bottom border and I had to dig up the Marks-a-Lot to get the bkack I wanted but the pony turned out pretty ok in my opinion. Even the glasses! I decided I wanted to color it with the '73 back ink colors but I wasn't entirely sure what color to use. After rummaging through my kids' marker box I found some candidates and did a test on a security decoy card:
I ended up using the color on the top right. The only problem is the color didn't really want to go down evenly so I ended up doing a couple of passes to try to smooth it out. Even then, drops of color globbed together whenever I picked up the marker so I tried to push them towards a border. This is why there's a dark spot at the tip of the hoof. Even worse, the parts where I erased had enough of the gloss removed so the ink soaked in through to the paper underneath when I took a second pass. This is why Pony Mark looks like he has acne on his chin. I couldn't figure out what the heck to put on the back so I found an old sports page in the basement and got some Mod Podge and...
Stats on the back, naturally. The Mets even won! That should take the sting of abruptly switching species away for a bit. (who am I kidding, everyone wants to be a pony) Oh, and Tom, it was about 11 hours before I posted a Met Pony, so the Under is a winner. What's the over/under of when someone posts the date of this box score?
On my desk is about a dozen random piles of stuff that I need to package and mail out. There's also a half dozen sketch cards/various art pieces that need to be completed and sent and another half dozen ideas in my head that need to get crystallized onto paper. By my accounting, these people are waiting for stuff from me:
Sean L.
Edgar G.
Scott C.
James R.
Andruw K.
Max M.
Matt F.
Tom O.
Paul B.
Jeremy S.
Jeff C.
Rod R.
Paul E.
Marck B.
Brian Rozah- Rosaghy Rzzaggah Captain Canuck
The Dimwit
Phungo
There's probably some more if I double check my e-mail. I gotta get offa my ass and outta my funk and get shit done. Therefore I decree:
UNTIL I GET ALL THESE PACKAGES COMPLETED AND MAILED I SHALL POST NOTHING BUT METS ON THIS BLOG.
I know, it's a terrible thing, but it has to be done.
I gotta get that politics post off the top of my blog. Here's an aborted post from 2009 with a bunch of images. I think I was going to compare a pack of 2009 Topps206 to one from 2002, but never got around to it. I think we can all agree that 2002 was the winner here, Jimmie Foxx not withstanding.
I really wish I could tell you the blog is about to get back to normal, but I gotta admit I'm still a freaking mess right now.
Do you want this to happen? Do you want this to NOT happen? Do you have an opinion at all and happen to be a citizen of the United States over 18 years of age registered to vote and not residing in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Maine Arizona, Michigan, Wyoming or Washington?
THEN GO OUT AND VOTE YOU SLACKASSES!!!
There are primaries going on all over the goddamn place and the Republicans have absolutely no friggin' clue who the hell they want as their nominee and even if you don't give a crap about who becomes President your congressional representatives are most likely in a primary race and the way they've been reaming us all up the azz without the decency to even give us a little reacharound just as a common courtesy don't you want to vote that lousy motherscratcher out of office as soon as possible? HERE'S YOUR CHANCE. Here's when ya vote! Utah's a bunch of slackers! Go vote, stupid! or even go vote stupid! Here's my choice for our next ruthless fascist dictator President:
The Mostly Honorable Vermin Supreme!
Free PONIES and all I have to do is brush my teeth every day under penalty of DEATH!
Dude, seriously, ponies. FREE ONES. As part of a Mandatory Federal Pony ID program. Plus he can turn people gay with magical sprinkle dust. How can you ask for a better candidate?
Oh wait, he's a Democrat. I'm voting in the Republican Primary because that's the only party we have anymore in my district. I wonder if Herman Cain will give me a pony...?
UPDATE: Herman Cain wasn't even on the ballot!
Oh well, ended up voting for Gary Johnson since there's a decent chance I'll end up voting for him in the general anyway as the Libertarian candidate. What? I've never voted for an incumbent President in my life, why start now? Besides, I live in GEORGIA. The only way Barack Obama is winning this state is if he leads the Dawgs to the BCS Title.
Oh yeah one other thing on the ballot: Sunday liquor sales.
Here's the last of the '65s mainly because it's the last card in the set.
Al is mostly known for giving up Hank Aaron's 715th home run today, but he was a pretty solid pitcher for the Yankees and Dodgers. Check out the strikeout line on his '64 stats below, those 217 strikeouts led the league. He would go on to be an All-star in 1967 and win 20 games for the Dodgers in 1971.
But I'm still having a major mental block writing about baseball cards so here's Big Al Downing (no relation) playing Mr. Jones live in 2004.
Took three months, but I finally got the thing in my graphite-stained hands...
Looks like I'm gonna be doing some reading this weekend. Found it at Bookmiser up in Roswell when I stopped by just to pick up this book:
I went to this bookstore in December looking for Fear and Loathing, couldn't find it, but found this book instead. I had just read Still Life With Woodpecker and was interested in it so I flipped open to a random page. It happened to be this page:
Literally the first word I saw was....
I have a problem. A SERIOUS PROBLEM. The only reason I didn't buy it right then and there is because I had no cash, couldn't find a second book and didn't want to use a credit card for a two dollar purchase. But the forsaken ponies haunted me and I had to stop by again today when I had the chance. And waddya know, there was Mr. Thompson waiting for me. Good thing too, I've been pathetic about reading lately. I got one chapter into that Moe Berg Book before it was time to return it to the library. To be fair, it was a good chapter.
(am I ever going to post another baseball card on this dang blog??!?!)
So on September 1st I decided to draw something every day. Somehow I've managed to keep it up. Here's the first sketch I did that day, Casey Stengel. Here's what I drew last night instead of all those sketch cards I owe people.
Looking forward to seeing what I draw this September 1st.
The only way this could be better is if Deadpool was brushing Pinkie Pie instead of Rarity. Of course it has been suggested that Deadpool is actually Pinkie Pie in disguise (or perhaps vice versa) so that might not even be a possibility. Here's the artist Peter Nguyen's DA page if you'e interested.
I also kinda sorta want one of these. Maybe I should skip work on June 29th and head down I-75.
