Rocket Raccoon Hidden in a Star Wars Sketch Card?

I picked up this Topps Star Wars High Tek pencil sketch of a Clone Trooper recently:

And when looking at it, my eyes were immediately drawn to this:

 

Doesn’t that look like Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy?  Or am I just seeing things?

Incredible Hulk Sketch Card… Art by Charles Hall

Incredible Hulk sketch card by Charles Hall.  This is from the Upper Deck Marvel Beginnings Series 3 set from a few years ago.  Charles did a few cards in this “unfinished” style for this set.  I have also seen Beast and Galactus.  I also own a cool M.O.D.O.K. in this style that I may show off in a future post.  Great stuff!

Sean Phillips Marvel Masterpieces 2 (2008) Sketch Cards

Another cool Marvel Comics artist that has done sketch card work is Sean Phillips.

Sean Phillips has done a ton of comic book work over the years, but his most famous Marvel Comics work is probably Marvel Zombies which was written by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame.

Sean has also collaborated with Ed Brubaker (of Captain America fame) on a number of projects such as Sleeper, Criminal, Incognito, and Fatale.  Sean has a very distinct style, and his comic book cover art is some of the best in the business.

For the 2008 Upper Deck Marvel Masterpieces 2 set, Sean did about 50 sketch cards.  Half of them were of Spider-man (like the one pictured above from my personal colllection).  He also did about 2 dozen other Marvel comic book characters as zombies, but those were not supposed to be inserted into the set (apparently, Marvel wanted all images of zombies blocked from the set).  Quite a few of the zombie cards did end up making their way to collectors though.

I focused on collecting his Spider-man cards.  In addition to the one above, I have also picked up a few more that are pictured below (I’m always looking to pick up more!):

KaToPe Diecut Sketch Cards from Topps Star Wars Galaxy 4 (2009)

One of my favorite trading card sets of all time was Topps Star Wars Galaxy 4 that was released early in 2009.  On its surface, this was a normal Star Wars card set with standard sketch cards, base, and chase cards.

However, this set was the first to feature diecut sketch cards.  The diecut shapes for this set were in the shape of Darth Vader and Stormtrooper helmets.  The art was also not your standard sketch card art, by that I mean the art was largely by artists who up until that point had never appeared in sketch card sets.  A lot of this guys were known in the urban vinyl toy art market, and others were known for their graffiti work.

One artist that got the most attention from me was KaToPe who is a Japanese artist that is known mostly for his toy art work for Gargamel studios.  He did a lot of cool work for this set (approximately 106 cards).  I managed to nab nearly 20 of them.

My favorite is probably the Angel Bird that appears at the top of this post, but he did a lot of cool stuff.  I will post a few more of his cards that I picked up below, and I might post even more stuff from my KaToPe collection in future posts if anyone is interested.  I ended up picking up quite a few of his original art works as well as his sketch cards he did for the Star Wars Galaxy 4 set.

Here are a few other cool ones:

Incidentally, KaToPe was also set to appear in the Star Wars Galaxy 5 set, but unfortunately those cards were never inserted!  He did have a few sketch cards show up in the 2010 Art Hustle Series 1 set though.  Hopefully, KaToPe returns to doing sketch cards in the future… it has been too long!

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The other day, I posted a nine-card rainbow set I made for card #103 (Captain Phasma) of the recent Topps Star Wars: Journey to Force Awakens set.

That rainbow set came out really cool, and lead me to think of other cards in the set that I might want to attempt rainbows of.  NOTE: Keep in mind, I am excluding the 1/1 Imperial Red variations from consideration since they are waay out of my price range!

That said, I think card #110, which features a Force Awakens poster image, is probably the most collectible card in the series, and one that I think will make for a good rainbow quest.

I have managed to pick up a few so far, and I will post my progress once the nine-card set is completed.  For now, enjoy the holofoil starfield variation card that I picked up.  It is numbered 16/25, so it is the hardest printed variation (outside of the aforementioned 1/1 imperial red variation) to pick up.

I also think it is probably the coolest variation!  What do you think?

Classic Comic Book Artist Al Milgrom Sketch Cards

Al Milgrom is another classic Marvel Comics artist who recently did some great sketch cards for Upper Deck’s Marvel Fleer Retro 2015 trading card set.

I have seen five of his cards have hit eBay, and I have purchased two of them.

My favorite is probably the Incredible Hulk pictured at left.  Just a great sketch card, and it reminds me of the old comic books Milgrom did back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Other sketch cards that Milgrom did for the set (that I spotted on eBay at least) were of Quicksilver, Rocket Raccoon, and the Avengers (the last 2 were Artist proof cards).

I believe Al has been on a couple other Marvel trading card sets in the past, but this is the first time I was able to pick up any of his cards.

I also was able to pick up the below cool Captain Marvel sketch card (which is a character Milgrom drew in the 1970’s for Marvel Comics).

Star Wars Journey to Force Awakens Sketch Card Artist: Brian Reedy

 I really enjoyed the cards that Brian Reedy did for the recent Topps Journey to the Force Awakens Star Wars set that recently came out.  He did about a dozen characters in this style with 7 “prints” made of each character.

So far, I have picked up the 4 sketch cards pictured.  The Stormtrooper and Chewbacca are probably my two favorites!  I hope to pick up a few more of his Star Wars sketch cards in the weeks to come, and hopefully Brian Reedy appears in future Topps trading card sets.  I really dig his style!

You can see more of Brian’s art posted on facebook at his art page (with a friend) by searching Attack the Planet.

Topps Star Wars Journey to Force Awakens Rainbow Set

star wars journey to force awakens card 103

Classic Comic Book Artist Sal Buscema Sketch Cards

Sal Buscema is a 79 year old Marvel comic book artist known for runs on many comics such as Incredible Hulk, Rom the Spaceknight, the Avengers, the Defenders, the Spectacular Spider-man, and dozens of other high profile comic books.

He has also produced sketch cards that have appeared in multiple Marvel trading card sets.  Most recently, his sketch card art has appeared in Upper Deck’s Marvel Fleer Retro 2015 series.

I was lucky enough to pick up 2 of the cards he did for the 2015 set.

The first is of Scarlet Witch, a member of the Avengers:

I think it is amazing that even though Sal Buscema is nearly 80 years old, he still has such a clean line.

The other card I was lucky enough to pick up was the below card of Beast who is also a member of the Avengers, and occasionally the X-men.

The above two cards are actually the only two Sal Buscema sketch cards that I have seen pulled from the Upper Deck Marvel Retro 2015 set.  If you have seen any others, please let me know!

Marvel Premier Multi-panel cards

Upper Deck’s 2014 Marvel Premier trading card set was a follow-up to Upper Deck’s 2012 premium trading card set that was the first Marvel set to come out with a $200+ box price.

One premium feature Upper Deck introduced to the hobby with the Marvel Premier series was multi-panel sketch cards.

The multi-panel sketch cards came in 2-panel, 3-panel, and 4-panel variations.  Above is an example of a Sal Abbinanti 3-panel sketch card featuring Luke Cage (aka Power Man) from the 2014 series.

Another cool feature of the multi-panel is that they also contained art on the reverse side, so a collector essentially received 2 pieces in one with every multi-panel card (which were inserted one per box by Upper Deck).  Below is the back of the Sal Abbinanti 3-panel art card:

I have quite a few more Sal Abbinanti sketch cards that I plan on posting in the weeks ahead.  Stay tuned!