Batman 1989 trading cards: first series (O-Pee-Chee)

Today we take a look back at one more piece of Batman 89 memorabilia: the ever-important Batman 1989 trading card set. Being a Canadian, I didn't have easy access to the Topps versions of these cards -- instead we had the O-Pee-Chee versions (which were more or less the same):

image source: mine

I have vivid memories of being obsessed with the Batman 1989 trading card set as an elementary school kid. This was the second trading card set that I'd ever obsessed over, following Topps/O-Pee-Chee's Wacky Packages. 1989's Batmania was a real thing, and it sent a lot of us kids into a frenzy trying to get our hands on anything Batman-related. To this effect, it was a lot easier to convince your parents to buy you a pack or two of Batman 1989 trading cards versus that Starlog magazine with Batman on the cover that was super-expensive by comparison.

Typically found in convenience stores at the check-out counter; these cards made for a quick impulse purchase when you had some spare change leftover from the comic books you were buying. They were actually pretty eye-catching -- yellow packs in a red box that doubled as a display stand really drew attention to the product.

(Note from Mark: I loved these too, and got the Topps version. I hated the gum. Not only did it taste like cardboard, it would get a dust film on the card it was touching. But man I loved these images. I feel like I was getting packs before the movie, so I knew a lot of the plot and images from them. I didn't mind.)

O-Pee-Chee Batman 1989 series 1 display case
image source: ebay.ca

wax packs came in two different designs
image source: ebay.ca

A pack of Batman 1989 series 1 cards cost 35 cents and contained several trading cards, a 'puzzle card' and a stick of gum. Topps had their own Batman 1989 series 1 cards, and the major difference between the two was that the Topps version had 'sticker cards' and the O-Pee-Chee version had 'puzzle cards'. We'll talk about those in a minute.

These cards were pretty low-quality, to be honest. How do you think they were able to afford to sell them for 35 cents a pack? Cheap card stock with a matte finish on the card front and a pulpy texture on the card back. Sometimes the cards would come stuck together or the stick of rock hard gum would stain the cards.  

(Note from Mark: I liked the heavy card stock. I was collecting basketball and baseball cards, and I liked how much tougher these were.)

The entire O-Pee-Chee Batman 1989 series 1 trading card set consisted of 154 cards -- the last 22 cards (#133 - 154) being puzzle cards. The first 132 cards (minus the first card shown in our opener) were movie stills from the film:

front of card #28
image source: mine

The back of the cards had yellow backgrounds and usually contained a description of the scene taking place. I'm a little surprised that these weren't bilingual since O-Pee-Chee printed from Canada and all the packaging for these card was in English and French. Probably for the best, however, since the font would have to be a lot smaller to hold both the English and French versions of the same text on the back of the card.

back of card #28
image source: mine

While getting a trading card set consisting of nothing but movie stills might be considered kind of dull today, this was very exciting back in 1989 when the internet didn't exist and you pretty much had to rely on your memory, movie clips from Entertainment Tonight or Batman 1989 memorabilia magazines to look at scenes from the film.

Any cards with pictures of the Batwing were prized among my friends and I: 

image source: mine

As were the action scenes:

image sources: mine

Or the particularly gruesome scenes:

image sources: mine

Hey look, it's Billy Dee Williams:

image source: mine

I don't think I owned this specific trading card as a kid, but if I did I would've had to have kept it hidden from my parents: 

Joker's bloody mouth
image source: mine 

(Mark: I did own this card and hid it. But I think it was because it was gross and I didn't want Joker to lose.)

Similar to the Topps set, the O-Pee-Chee set included 22 puzzle cards which were necessary to complete both 10-card puzzles (2 puzzle cards revealed the completed puzzle for anyone who wasn't sure what they were striving to complete). As previously mentioned, Topps puzzle cards were actually stickers with a puzzle piece on the back of the card, whereas O-Pee-Chee were not stickers. [I'm not sure if this was by design or a cost-saving measure on O-Pee-Chee's behalf, but after discovering this I felt a little cheated.]

Here's a few card fronts of the O-Pee-Chee puzzle cards to give you an idea of what they looked like:

Joker and his thugs puzzle card
image source: mine

oooh... a Batwing puzzle card. This would've been high-value among my friends and I.
image source: mine

For comparison, here's an O-Pee-Chee puzzle card and it's counterpart Topps puzzle card (which was actually a sticker):

O-Pee-Chee puzzle card
image source: mine

Topps puzzle card
image source: ebay.ca

Astute observers will notice that the Topps sticker card has a different numbering system and has a 'PEEL' indicator in the top right corner. [The Topps card appears to be a brighter shade of red, but that's just my camera. Sorry about that.]

As kids, collecting the entire 154-card set seemed pretty unfeasible (especially since these things were flying off the shelves -- seriously, I rarely ever saw these since they sold out so quickly), but completing a 10-card puzzle? That was doable. So, for this reason, the puzzle cards were the 'chase cards' of the set, especially since they were limited to 1 per pack.

Because I know you're dying of curiosity, here's what the completed puzzles looked like:

completed 10-card 'yellow border' puzzle
image source: mine

completed 10-card 'red border' puzzle
image source: mine

Topps also released a deluxe factory-sealed Batman 1989 series 1 set that also included 11 bonus storyboard cards. As far as I can tell, these boxes weren't numbered so I really don't know how many were produced. Since these factory sealed sets were exclusive to Topps and never made it to Canada, I don't really know much about them or if the 11 bonus cards formed an additional 10-card puzzle. Here's a few pics of the sealed box if you're curious:

image source: ebay.ca

image source: ebay.ca

image source: ebay.ca

The factory set also included an insert advertising a second series of Batman 1989 trading card set that were also available as a factory-sealed set: 

image source: mine

Much like Topps, O-Pee-Chee released a second series of Batman 89 trading cards that added another 154 cards to the set and picked up the numbering where series one left off (consisting of cards #155 - 308). I had way more luck collecting the second series since a lot of my friends got 'burned out' after the first series and moved on to collecting something else.

If you want to know more about Topps, you can read our informal history of Topps non-sports trading cards from the mid seventies to the early nineties article I write years and years ago. 

Hope you enjoyed the article. If you have any comments/anecdotes you want to share, feel free to chime in below.

-Justin

1994's Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight trading cards (SKYBOX)

In today's article, we'll be looking back at Skybox's first Batman trading card set -- Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight. Released in April 1994, this 100-card trading card set focused on all the major milestones in Batman's post-Crisis comic career: everything from Batman: Year One all the way up to KnightQuest.      

magazine ad for Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight trading cards

In 1994 non-sports trading cards had become BIG business. Don't believe me? Just check old issues of Wizard Magazine and Hero Illustrated from that era -- lots and lots of ad space devoted to new trading card sets being released. Nearly every comic book company (and then some) had a trading card set being hawked to the masses. Thanks to the success of the Tim Burton Batman films, the Batman animated series on FOX, and Batman getting his back broken by Bane, interest in Batman was at all-time high. The real question was why it took Skybox so long to launch a trading card set completely devoted to Batman? Well, it was because it took THIS long for Skybox to acquire the Batman license from Topps.

This trading card set took me a LOOOONG time to complete as I rarely saw packs being sold at comic shops. According to Wizard Magazine, 13,333 cases were produced (SkyBox upped production from 12,500 at the last minute) and were all snapped up quickly by retailers. They were easy to spot with their gold foil wrapping, but very scarce to find in the wild (at the time):  

image source: ebay.ca

History of Batman

As seen in the ad above, the Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight trading card set boasted highlights from Year One to KnightQuest. Did it deliver on it's promise? Yes, it did. Was it thorough? No, it wasn't. 

In 1994, KnightQuest was just concluding and leading into KnightsEnd -- the final chapter of the KnightSaga. Actually, at the time, everything Batman-related was centered around the KnightSaga and whether Bruce Wayne would reclaim the Batman mantle or if AzBats was here to stay (I was personally hoping for the latter). To this effect, this card set mainly was divided into sub-sets that focused on storylines relevant to KnightSaga cannon. So, no mention of Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year Two, Ten Nights of the Beast, or any cross-over Batman had with the rest of the DCU, but plenty of attention on A Death in the Family, A Lonely Place of Dying, Batman: Year Three, and...of course...anything related to Azrael or Bane. The Knightfall and KnightQuest story arcs received the most attention in the set. Card #99 ended on a cliffhanger, openly questioning if Batman would confront AzBats to take back the title of Batman. At the time this card set was released, it was looking like Jean-Paul Valley as Batman was going to be the new normal. KnightsEnd only started in mid-1994, just as this trading card set hit the shelves, so no mention of that chapter.

I adored this set. I really felt that they delivered on their promise of covering everything important leading up to what was going on in the Batman mythos at the time. The cards had very apt, well-written summaries on the back and some even showed the covers of important comic books (so you can spot them on sight in back issue bins). Even more importantly, the artists who illustrated the front-facing card art were listed on the back, which took the guesswork out of trying to figure out who drew what -- this goes a long way when writing one of these reviews [ha!]. The quality of the card stock was thick and UV coated, so you knew you weren't getting the cheap cards here.

back of card #31

Original art

So, what kind of original art was being featured in this set? If it was anything like Dave Dorman's painted Batman (as seen in the ad), we were in for a real treat. Probably even surpassing the Marvel Masterpieces trading card set, which had raised the bar on how impressive a non-sports trading card could look. Well, while it wasn't an all-Dorman set, we did get some really impressive artistic teams on these cards.  

Mike Mignola, who had drawn the fan-favorite Gotham By Gaslight 1989 one-shot, contributed three cards to the 'Nemesis' sub-set. Not all of the villains appearing in this sub-set appeared in the KnightSaga. Here was his Ra's Al Ghul:

Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano and P. Pigott collaborated on all of the cards in the A Death in the Family sub-section, which was was fitting since Aparo was the original penciller for the story arc that ran from Batman #426 to #429 (1988). Knightfall often referenced Batman's relationship with Jason Todd, so this storyline was pivotal to understanding why Batman was acting so crazy/protective of Tim Drake in the events leading up Knightfall.

 

Matt Wagner, who illustrated 1992's Faces story arc in Legends of the Dark Knight as well as a few Detective Comics covers, also provided painted art for a few Bat-villain cards. Here's his Mud Pack:

Rick Burchett, probably best known for inking 1992's Batman Adventures ongoing series (based on Batman The Animated Series), pencilled and inked the first eighteen cards dealing with Batman's early origins (Batman: Year One, Shaman, The Killing Joke, The Cult and Batman: Venom):

Tom Grummet, who was drawing the new Robin ongoing series that debuted in 1993, contributed card art for all nine cards in the 'Dynamic Duo' sub-set. This sub-set was all about Batman's history with his former sidekicks:

Brian Stelfreeze, who was producing some of the most stunning Shadow of the Bat painted covers at the time, graced this set with a few bat-villain cards:

I don't think John Bolton had done any work on Batman prior to 1995's Batman: Man-Bat, but I'm glad he contributed art to a few cards in this set: 

Jim Balent (penciller) and Scott Hanna (inker) provided art for all nine 'KnightQuest' cards. Balent was the primary penciller for 1993's Catwoman ongoing series and Hanna had a long stint inking over Graham Nolan's pencils in Detective Comics in 1992. KnightQuest immediately followed KnightFall and was divided into two storylines: one about Jean-Paul Valley's trials and tribulations taking over the role of Batman, and Bruce Wayne's (somewhat dull) search for Robin's missing father. Thankfully, the few KnightQuest cards in this set focused on the former rather than the latter because they knew what the fans wanted. 

Appropriately enough, Hanna also provided the inks for all of Nolan's pencils in the 18-card 'KnightFall' sub-set. Knightfall consisted of 19 chapters (and that's not including the prelude issues setting the event up), and this sub-set managed to capture all of the relevant story points. Nicely done:

Phil Jimenez, who was best known as the New Titans penciller at the time, pencilled all the cards from the 'A Lonely Place of Dying' sub-set (presumably because George Perez was unavailable). These cards were inked by Peter Gross (who was mainly an inker for Dr. Fate): 

..and yes, there were a few Dave Dorman cards in the set. One of which was his impressive painted rendition of Nightwing:

Other prolific DC artists who contributed original art to this set included Barry Kitson (Azrael ongoing series), Kyle Baker (inker for The Shadow), and Eduardo Barreto (inker for Vengeance of Bane one-shot). The different artistic styles from the wide array of contributors made for a great effect and kept the card set visually interesting. Everyone here was at the top of their game (and probably paid quite handsomely by Skybox, too). 

Insert Cards

The chase cards in this set consisted of 5 spectra-etch 'painted portrait' cards (1 in 18 packs), and the highly-coveted Batman SkyDisc hologram card that only appeared once in every 240 packs.

The spectra-etch chase cards were named, aptly enough, the 'Portraits of the Batman' sub-set. Original art for these cards were provided by John Bolton, Dave Dorman, Phil Winslade, Brian Stelfreeze and Mark Chiarello (Batman/Houdini: The Devil's Workshop). These cards had a reflective sheen on them not unlike the foil-covered "collector's edition" comic books of the time. While the entire five card sub-set was nice enough, the only card I really coveted was the Jean-Paul Valley as Batman card illustrated by Brain Stelfreeze, which I managed to eventually obtain in a trade that weighed heavily in favor of the person I was trading with. Ah well, I still own it today and occasionally take a few moments to admire it:

The Batman SkyDisc hologram card was something I had never actually seen in person, but always wanted to own since I love holograms. Apparently, if you lay the card down flat on a surface and shone a light on it, Batman appeared to rise from the card. By walking around the card you see a complete 360-degree figure. This was next level Star Trek stuff. It was explained that this effect was achieved by filming a Batman statue from every possible angle. 

Re-sellers sold these cards starting at $75 USD and upwards, which was quite out of range for my thirteen year-old self. Several years ago I had the chance to purchase this card for a decent price, but balked out at the last minute after I realized how much tracked shipping would cost me. Maybe someday.

Promo Cards

Since it was SkyBox's first Batman set EVER, one would assume that they'd be aggressively trying to market this -- and you'd be right. Various promo cards/products were distributed through various magazines and events.

Comics Buyer's Guide promo card:

 

As we went through the base set you might've realized something was noticeably absent: no trading cards featuring Kelley Jones original art. Jones, who had illustrated almost ALL of the Knightfall covers, seemed like a pretty obvious choice for original card art in this set. Sadly, this one lone promo card offered via Comic Buyer's Guide magazine was all that we got. As of this writing, I'm not sure if it was a mail-in or simply included in the magazine, but I'm assuming it was the latter. 

Dealers exclusive promo card:

This was just a re-hash of card #1, but with the card set's logo and byline on the front. Oh yeah, and it was sent to dealers. Like the aforementioned promo card above, the back of the card just listed all of the cool features about this new trading card set and made a passing mention about the first-ever Spectra-Etch display boxes that will be individually numbered.  

Georgia Dome promo card:

This was a Superbowl XXVIII giveaway at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on January 30, 1994. These promo cards were limited to a print run of 50,000. No clue who the artist was.

Camden Yards promo card:

This was a promo card given away at Camden Yards in Baltimore, presumably during a Baltimore Orioles baseball game. Similar to the aforementioned promo card distributed at the Superbowl, I don't know why SkyBox decided to giveaway Batman promo cards at a baseball game. SkyBox was well-known for their sports cards, so this may have been an attempt at a cross-promotion? If I were to draw a Venn diagram, how many professional baseball fans were also Batman fans? Or sports card collectors also non-sports cards collectors, for that matter? Also limited to a print run of 50,000, I have no clue who the artist on this card is.

     

Oversized SkyDisc in CD case:

image sources: ebay.ca

This was a curious promo item, and they were limited to 10,000. It was the SkyDisc Batman hologram (the same from the ultra rare chase card), but it was the extra-large version and came in a CD case [remember those?]. I don't know who got them or how. Either way, color me impressed. I would've loved one of these.

In addition, there was a binder available for this trading card set, but I don't know if it was a mail-away exclusive or if it included any special promo items:

image source: ebay.com

  

Summary

I loved this trading card set. It was perfect and couldn't have been released at a better time. A few months after this set was released, comic readers would start getting burned out by the (seemingly) never-ending KnightSaga and then DC would launch it's big Zero Hour reboot event providing DC fans with something new to have a vested interest in. However, for about a year and some change, the fate of Batman's legacy was the main event and held our attention rapturously. Jean-Paul Valley as Batman was a new, violent Batman who took no prisoners and didn't care about collateral damage or killing villains. It was a total paradigm shift from Bruce Wayne's "save the innocent bystanders first, and never kill unless you have to" values. In a way, Jean-Paul Valley's attitude was reflective of the world around him: dealing with violent crime with the intent of eliminating the original cause rather than trying to rehabilitate it. Bane was also a different time of villain: he was ultra-strong and smart (typically Bat-villains were either strong and dumb or smart and weak), which was also reflective of the new types of villains the world was dealing with in the 90s. Great memories flipping through these cards -- makes me want to re-read my Knightfall omnibus.

To me, the main selling point was being able to catch up on my Batman lore -- the internet didn't really exist back then and my Batman comic book collection was sporadic with lots of missing story arcs. Rumor has it that SkyBox was planning on releasing ANOTHER Batman trading card set, The Archive Collection Series, but the company couldn't secure the rights to various Batman licenses in time for a September 1994 release. Apparently, it was going to be released in two 160-card sets and would've covered every single thing you probably would've liked to have known about Batman (this included the movies, the cartoons, toys, gadgets and comic books). Alas, it was not meant to be. SkyBox did, however, release a fully-painted Batman: Master Series trading card set in 1996, which I hope to review in a future article.

-Justin    

DC Vertigo: The Sandman trading card set from SkyBox (1994)

With daily updates of a Sandman series coming to Netflix, it seems very appropriate to write an article about The Sandman trading card set Skybox released in 1994 -- back when just about EVERYTHING comic-related was getting it's own trading card set. The Sandman was first published by DC comics in January 1989... so there's your 'DC in the 80s' connection.

 

Comic book ad for Skybox's The Sandman Trading Cards. 1994

I don't know why DC/Vertigo/Skybox decided to release a trading card set based on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic book series, considering they were most likely targeting a different audience with these cards. I DO know that The Sandman was already much revered at this point and it was nigh impossible to find early issues of this series for cheap. I was late to the party and only found out about the series after it was too expensive to buy the early issues. Who was reading The Sandman? Not your average comic book fan. Actually, I'm pretty sure that collectors who read Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and X-Men on the regular stayed miles away from the series. I like to imagine the typical Sandman reader being a college-aged goth, dressed head-to-toe in black, with a big collection of Anne Rice books and Siouxsie Sioux LPs. In actuality, I think it was just anyone who liked engrossing, well-written and beautifully illustrated stories.

Originally slated for a December 1993 release but pushed back to February 1994, Skybox did something a little different with this trading card set -- these cards were released as a premium, oversized card set (each card measuring 2.5" x 4.5") -- which meant that you had to buy special, irregular-sized cardholders and plastic sheets to properly protect them. Argh, what a pain. This format of oversized cards would come to by known as widevision. What was the reason for the 3 month delay? According to Wizard Magazine, Neil Gaiman autographed 2,000 cards that were randomly inserted into packs. [A later issue of Wizard then corrected that statement and explained that Skybox delayed the set because they didn't want to release it into an already overcrowded non-sports card market. Wizard also revealed that Gaiman had only signed 500 cards, and that they would be given away free to retailers who order a case of Sandman cards via Diamond Comics Distributors.] 

In all honesty, this is a trading card set I glazed over the first time it came around. I felt it was something that would only appeal to people who were already familiar with the comic book series. In 1994 I was still very invested in the comic speculator bubble, and probably spending my money on Valiant and Image comics. If I was buying trading cards, it was most likely X-Men or Batman or whatever the 'hot' thing at the moment was.

I can't confirm if this was the FIRST widevision trading card set Skybox produced. During this same year, Skybox released a few widevision trading card sets (i.e., Star Trek: Generations, The Lion King, Superman: Man of Steel Platinum series), and then Topps appeared to have followed suit by releasing Star Wars widevision trading cards. I'm going by memory here, and I might be wrong -- if anyone who worked at Topps during that era wants to correct me in the comments section, I'd welcome it.

A sealed pack of The Sandman Trading Cards looked like this. They contained six cards per pack and retailed between $1.75 to $2.25 USD. 
Photo source: ebay.

This base set consisted of 90 UV-coated oversized cards, and the inserts were 7 gold foil cards and 1 very very rare 3-D stereo hologram card. You could also purchase a binder that included a promo card:

The Sandman Trading Cards binder. Photo source: ebay

  

Promo card

The 90 card base set is divided into two subsets. The first subset contains 50 cards showcasing cover art from the first 50 issues of The Sandman. Dave McKean's art played a very important part in defining the look of The Sandman -- his covers for this series were often surreal and abstract (usually collages comprised of photographs, paint and ink) with subjects that were out-of-focus and sinister-looking. Upon first glance, his covers made you realize that this won't be a superhero story with muscle-bound characters fighting to save the world, this will be something artistic (and possibly haunting) that will probably involve a lot of reading. I love this subset. This might be the closest we'll ever get to a Dave McKean trading card set.

A few McKean cards:

...and the reverse of the first 50 cards had a summary of the issue:

The second subset consists of 39 characters that appear in the series. Each card was illustrated by the original artist -- so that's 39 cards of original art. Mike Kaluta, Matt Wagner, Colleen Doran, Kevin Nolan, Jill Thompson, Malcolm Jones III, Mike Allred, Denys Cowan, Craig Hamilton, John Totleben, Michael Zulli and a few more I'm forgetting to name -- but pretty much everyone who worked on the first 50 issues of The Sandman have a hand in this. For some reason, Sergio Aragones (Groo, MAD magazine) even illustrated a card:

As far as character selection goes, they pretty much cover all the important players from Master of Dreams, Dream Country, A Season of Mists, A Game of You, Distant Mirrors, Convergences and Brief Lives. This set was released just as The Kindly Ones story arc was kicking off, but I was pleasantly surprised to see they were included as 'the Three Witches'. They even managed to slip in a few mainstream DCU characters that appeared in some of the major storylines:

The back of these cards contained a brief explanation of the character and the role they played in the series (probably written by Neil himself). I love that the artists are listed on the reverse of the card. Too many times have I played the 'guess who illustrated this trading card' game only to end up with no clue if I'm right or not. This is my biggest issue with this set: a small black typeface on a pink and grey camo background. I don't think it bothered me so much twenty years ago, but now I have to either strain, or hold the card really close to my face to read it:

One would presume that the most important/memorable characters from The Sandman would be included in the base set. You'd be wrong -- they were the chase cards. The chase set consisted of all seven members (including Morpheus) of the Endless. These cards are beautiful and were distributed at a ratio of 1 in every 18 packs. Each card was original art with gold foil borders. Artists included Dave McKean, Kent Williams, Jill Thompson and Bill Sienkewicz.

Which leads us to the 3-D Stereo Hologram card, found in 1 of every 180 packs. I'm a sucker for 3-D and hologram cards, and I've never seen this in person. Thanks to a kind soul on e-bay for posting this pic so I could see what I was missing:

Yup. It's Morpheus, but this image does do this hologram card justice. If you ever get the chance to see one of these in real life, take the chance. So worth it.

To raise awareness about the release of this trading card set, various promo cards were inserted into issues of Cards Illustrated magazine. Three promo cards were included in a pack, and three different packs were released (so, that's 9 promo cards in total). All of the promos re-used card art from the base set, but the reverse of the cards sang the praises of this new set rather than give issue/character summaries.  

I seem to recall two 'misprint' error cards die-hard collectors were searching for to complete their collections. The back of the card looked as it should, but the front of the card had another character card's reverse text printed on the front. Once upon a time, these cards were worth quite a bit. Now? I doubt it.

How did this card set do? According to Wizard Magazine (Wizard #35, August 1994) it sold extremely well. Retailers underestimated how well this set would do an underordered, driving the demand and rarity up. 

---

To summarize: The Sandman is a fantastic series that I tend to dig out of storage every few years and read from beginning to end. These cards bring back a lot of great memories and I really dig looking at those Dave McKean covers. As previously stated, the small font with colors that blend into the background on the character cards is a bit of a turn-off -- but it's something I can live with since I spend most of my time admiring the card art on the front anyways.