The Star Wars Trading Card Books

If you spent your piggy bank money on Topps’ Star Wars trading cards when you were growing up, I have some great reading material to tell you about!

Published via Abrams’ ComicArts imprint, Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series is a multi-volume collection that gathers every card from all the vintage collections. There’s also a “sister” publication dealing with Topps’ Star Wars Galaxy trading card set from the early ’90s.

When I first heard about these, I presumed them to be no more than charming little coffee table books, loaded snappy however light on substance. WRONG. Each is loaded with all types of trivia bits, covering everything from the films themselves to tales regarding how the trading card collections were developed and also implemented.

Topps Book 2Each book was an evident labor of love, yet I don’t want to underestimate their cumulative main draw: Big, attractive scans of every Star Wars trading card– and I suggest the fronts as well as the backs, with every feasible additional one from the card wrappers to the wax boxes, or even overviews of just how every one of those old “sticker-back posters” really looked when you gathered the collections.

A few of you might be thinking, “Well, they appear cool, yet I could locate pictures of the cards online.” Here’s the important things: Yes, you could find numerous fan-supplied scans of the cards, but they won’t be nearly as top quality, nor even from another location as arranged. These publications typically aren’t just “as great” as having all the original Star Wars trading card sets. You might make a pretty good disagreement that they’re even better.

The authors/curators left no stones unturned, so to claim that the books merely reprint the old Star Wars cards is actually stating too little. They certainly do that, naturally, yet there’s a genuine chronicler’s touch in play. There are numerous little tidbits that the daily fan would certainly never even think to request, as well as the very best praise I can pay the group is that they might’ve gotten away with doing a whole lot less.

Oh, and here’s a cool touch: Each of the books (yes, also the one for Star Wars Galaxy) includes a couple of real trading cards, nabbed and taped to the back cover. While appearing like the initial Topps cards, each book’s cards are both custom-made and also– to my understanding– exclusive.

Every book in the series starts with a robust commentary from Gary Gerani, the original editor of the Star Wars Topps series. There’s an old school trying to enlighten, right here. These guides not simply full of eye candy, however with a far better understanding and gratitude for what enters into making a trading card set.

Stale gum is the only thing missing from this set!

The Overlooked Character

Among the more oft overlooked figures in the collectible world is Chuck “The Pretzel” Stormtrooper. He was absolutely nothing greater than your typical teenaged stormtrooper, but he carried the ball of being amongst the very first to “appear” and also flex an elbow joint, a knee, or move to his right or left without transforming his entire body like his Stormtrooper brethren.

Troops 006Much like a particular red-nosed reindeer who damaged our hearts and opened our minds, they never enabled Chuck to sign up with any Stormtrooper online games except dodgeball. They aimed at his knees, elbow joints, waist, neck, ankle joints, as well. Yelling “Bend, bend!” each time they connected with their target. And bend he did … up until he was ultimately damaged. However not before leaving an enduring mark on the path of equal rights for future generations of “bendies” throughout the Realm! Currently back to today’s story:

See unlike our red-nosed friend and family, Chuck’s tale does not have a pleased closing. Stormtroopers are not reindeer and the Emperor was no Santa Claus. The viciousness they bring while applying Imperial Law is refined where viciousness is developed all across the universe: high school. He attempted to motivate various other “bendies,” as they called themselves, ahead out during their meetings in the corner of the lunch space. Some were inclined, however after several straight-armed troopers interrupted them by tossing large, stale pretzels at their joints up until they tensed up and limited their versatility, Chuck was on his own.

From that day on the so-called “typical” straight-arm and leg types described the bendies as “pretzels.” I made the blunder of asking why they chose to identify them afterwards salty reward from a galaxy far, far just as Chuck walked around the corner. They demonstrated its beginnings, which I discovered dreadful, but lacking Chuck’s expression points, I risked not step in, lest they curved my straight-arm body like they did to bad Chuck’s very articulated one.

Most would certainly back down, yet not Chuck. He can articulate and also please with it even as they contorted his body in ways that were surely unpleasant even for him. He searched for me. His eyes advocating assistance. If I had an expression factor in my neck, I would have hung my head in shame. Instead I simply walked away.

Let the Fun Begin…

sw5A few months ago I uncovered my Star Wars action figures from when I was a kid. The Return of the Jedi figures were mostly in really good shape as I was a “big kid” by then. Unfortunately for Luke Skywalker: X-Wing Pilot, the very same might not be said for the year 1978 when Kenner launched him and I apparently beheaded him when I was just three years old! He is by far in the roughest condition of any one of my Star Wars figures, however a couple of others were not a whole lot much better. The good news is, by the time Kenner launched the figures from Empire Strikes Back, I discovered the constraints of an action figures neck and none of them experienced accidental decapitation.

I went on the internet so I could match some loosened weapons with the correct action figure and I was rather confused. See, I assumed every person understood the very first line of action figures, cars, and play collections released by Kenner in 1978 was simply called Star Wars. So visualize my shock when these individuals describing it incorrectly as the “Vintage” line! “Just how ridiculous,” I believed to myself in my head at the quite principle that my youth playthings were now considered vintage. “I mean certainly they are a little older, however in order to be classic they would need to be at the very least …” And that is when I did the math and the realization hit me that it was greater than three decades ago given that the initial Star Wars figures hit the road. A wave of nostalgia bewildered me for a moment. After I drank it off, I continued to unpack and also match devices with figures, albeit with a touch more care. They are “vintage” nevertheless.