Indholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2025 i Non-Sport Updates

At the massive New York Comic Con held this past October, NSU writer extraordinaire Bob Hulsart and I were invited to two press panels that honored both of the current Walking Dead spinoff shows, TWD: Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol and TWD: Dead City. Interview sessions for each show were held separately, with one immediately following the other. One of the questions I asked Dead City’s Lauren Cohan (Maggie) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Negan), since they both came from straight TV shows (like CSI: NY & Cold Case for Lauren and The Good Wife for Jeffery), was it weird for them to suddenly start seeing their faces on the trading cards and action figures associated with The Walking Dead. Said Morgan, “Yeah it was weird! I mean, I had…

Conan the Barbarian of Cimmeria would face brutal enemies, evil sorcerers, giant snakes and on occasion, beautiful princesses. He would conquer most of them. He lived during the harsh Hyborian Age, following the destruction of Atlantis (the Cimmerians were descended from Atlanteans). Conan is more than just a barbarian, he exhibits honor, loyalty and a sense of humor throughout his stories. Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in 1932 for Weird Tales Magazine. Howard would write nearly two dozen short stories and begin several more about Conan before his death in 1936. While some of Howard’s work appeared in books after his death, it was in 1967 when writer L. Sprague de Camp began releasing Howard’s Conan paperback collection for Lancer Books. Eventually de Camp would enlist other writers…

The folks at Topps knew what they were doing when they designed the display boxes for the T.V. Westerns card set. Next to the figure of Gunsmoke’s Sheriff Matt Dillon (reproduced from card #4) pointing his six-gun straight at the viewer, the cardmaker listed six television westerns while promising “other top shows” in a cleverly inviting marketing move. BEST WESTERNS Did Topps made good on its promise? The old west’s favorite sidekick, Gabby Hayes, would have phrased it best with his familiar, “Yer durn tootin’!” positivity. Listed on the box cover were Gunsmoke, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Californians, and Have Gun, Will Travel with Wanted: Dead or Alive, and Wagon Train on the side panels. That’s six shows so far. But Topps wasn’t through. Also in the set are…

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS SEASON 2 Seems like the Final Frontier is not so final when it comes to TV shows, movies and trading cards. Coming in late March/early April is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Trading Cards from Rittenhouse Archives. As both an Original Series prequel and a Discovery spinoff, Paramount+’s SNW details the voyages of the good ship Enterprise six years before the Captain Kirk era. The show, while exploring a number of new characters, also utilizes some TOS regulars, such as Spock, Nurse Christine Chapel, Montgomery Scott, and Nyota Uhura. Christopher Pike, who met a less-than-desirable fate in the Original Series, stars here as the starship’s steadfast captain. Even James T. Kirk appears as a recurring guest in his pre-captain days. Rittenhouse has tons…

WHAT’S LISTED Products listed in the Price Guide typically: ■ Are produced by licensed manufacturers■ Are widely available■ Have market activity on single items HOW IT'S LISTED The sort order of the checklists are somewhat unique. All sets are listed 1) alphabetically then 2) chronologically. However, some exceptions have been made to further accommodate the reader. For instance, when it comes to recurring series, television seasons or film franchises and their sequels, all checklists will be grouped together in the same block. For example, if a reader was looking for sets devoted to James Bond or Harry Potter, they would find all sets devoted to these franchises in the same block. They would be listed chronologically while still adhering to the alphabetization of the entire section. WHAT THE COLUMNS MEAN…

We are living in a time of corporate consolidation. Bigger companies swallow up smaller companies. Competitors merge into business juggernauts. The players get bigger as the playing field gets smaller. Non-sport trading cards are not immune to this. For decades some of the biggest names in the hobby have been merged or acquired out of existence. For an audience of kids in the days before the internet, this meant some beloved brands just disappeared from stores. Some licensed trading cards jumped to other brands. Most of the time, original creations were orphaned, never to be heard from again. The history of mergers and acquisitions in non-sport cards goes back at least eight decades. Here are a few of the more notable examples. BOWMAN BOWS TO PRESSURE Bowman was one of…

During the 1960s a television was just about in every home and by the mid-sixties the advent of color television shows was creating a visual Americans had not seen before. Trading card companies followed suit and produced some of the most eye appealing point of purchase displays the hobby has ever seen. Feast your eyes on these iconic counter displays that still resonate today through syndication and the lasting significance of ’60s pop culture. 10. GILLIGAN’S ISLAND (TOPPS, 1965) One of the most beloved sitcoms of the decade, Gilligan’s Island had a three-year run on CBS. The display box containing 24 packs features Gilligan looking appropriately disheveled and sporting his signature bucket hat. Backed by a simple but effective bluesky background with scattered clouds, the box graphics capture the essence…

JUST RELEASED • Currency Series 4 (Cardsmiths)• CZPlus Dark Nights: Metal (Cryptozoic Entertainment)• A Christmas Story Marquee Trading Cards (Cryptozoic Entertainment)• Dragonball Z Super 2 CYBERCEL (FiGPiN)• Sailor Moon CYBERCEL (FiGPiN)• Sonic 2 (FiGPiN)• The 1800s (Historic Autographs)• Founding Fathers (Historic Autographs)• Elvis Presley Icons Collection (Leaf)• Marilyn Monroe Icons Collection (Leaf)• Historical and Heroic Dogs Series 1 (Long Dog Cards)• 2024 Leaf History Book: Pop Culture Edition Ch. 1 (Leaf)• Lost in Space, the Initial Adventures (Monsterwax)• Game of Thrones: Legends of the Realm (Rittenhouse Archives)• Star Trek Discovery Season 5 (Rittenhouse Archives)• Cheers Premiere Edition (Rittenhouse Archives)• Smokey Bear (Saturday Morning Cards)• Tigger (Saturday Morning Cards)• Valentines Day Exclusives (Saturday Morning Cards)• Street Fighter Vol. 1: Guile vs. Zangief (Saturday Morning Cards)• Funny Fiends: The Fiendening (Sidekick)• Nosferatu…

The Topps Star Wars Living Set is over with its 500 carefully crafted cards leaving fans happily perched on the high ground and yet yearning for more. NSU takes a look back at the long-running set as this March marks one year since its last card rolled off the presses. A NEW, NEW HOPE Fresh off their 2018 success with the launch of a baseball Living Set product, the folks at Topps decided to expand the living concept to Star Wars, according to Topps Brand Manager Francis Miceli. Renowned artist Kris Penix signed on for the project in early 2019 and card #1 featuring Darth Vader was released on June 3rd. Card #2 showcased Return of the Jedi’s Nien Nunb and from there the set was off to the pod…

From 1996 to 1998, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) led the Monday Night ratings war for 83 consecutive weeks. David Gross’ first art job was designing temporary tattoos for WCW. He had always been a massive Wacky Packages and GPK collector as a kid and stumbled into employment with Topps in 2004. David currently resides in Collingswood, NJ with his family and says he feels very fortunate that his childhood obsession turned into his adult career obsession. Non-Sport Update: What was the first trading card set you worked on? David Gross: My first card was the bonus sticker Asteroids (parodying Altoids) for Wacky Packages in 2004. I had been a huge Wacky Packages collector at the time and had dabbled in making a few of my own Wackys in Photoshop. I…

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