Cult-Stuff

You know I had an email from Tom at Breygent with a ton of photos and information about the upcoming Dexter set, which I should have posted DAYS ago, but time rushes by to quickly sometimes.

Now a lot of these images and more can be seen over at the NSU forum but I figure it’s worth posting some hear as well because Bregent is a fantastic company with some great products. The new Dexter set is due anytime now and it is shaping up to be one of the best sets they have produced so far.

9 Autographs now, duel autograph cards, and sketch cards, they also have autographed costume cards, and case incentives.

These are some more of the images:

Head over to the NSU forum and talk about this highly anticipated set. We will be giving you an in depth product review as well when it’s out and stay tuned for information on Ghost Whisperer.

For now I will leave you with the Dexter set insert details:

29 Costume cards (27 of them are dual Costume cards and 1 Quad Costume card  and 1 eight piece costume card)

11 prop cards

9 Autograph cards

2 Metallogloss case cards

1 Case incentive for ordering 2 Cases

1 Sketch card per case

Which is a LOT of fantastic cards go for!

If you know much about non-sports cards you have probably seen the name Mark Macaluso before, if your new to the hobby however you may know who he was. In that case you should read this Wrapper article written by Kurt from MonsterWax. Off you go and read that.

Back? Good lets continue. Now that you know Mark sadly passed away in 1998 and that he had a two story warehouse filled to the brim with all manner of trading card goodness from the 60’s to the 90’s. So perhaps a natural question would be what happened to them? Well that’S complicated, some sets and odds were sold at auction, but the bulk of the cards were left as they were. Until now. Daren Epstein the CEO of Factory Entertainment is a man who has a long history within the trading card market both in the US and UK, has purchased the whole collections for an undisclosed sum. The collection includes some 75 Million cards and boxes ranging in age from the 1960’s to the late 1990’s. This includes a huge number of high end very very rare cards, which will make it to the market “at some time” in the future. If you have been looking for that elusive card it may have just become a little more attainable. More details will be posted as they become available.

Once again Harris from the Non-Sport Update Magazine will flying to the UK to attend the November Memorabilia event. If you don’t know what the NSU is then check out the links on the right of this page. The short version is: They are the number one publication for all non-sports card news and info and they offer the most detailed price guide available. If you are interested in cards you should be subscribed to this publication!  We are pleased to announce that we are providing them with some very limited edition variant promo cards. We have created two variant editions of the Sherlock Holmes and Victorian Crime P1 card specifically for NSU at this show. We have had cards foil stamped with the NSU logo in two colors. First is a red foil version, only 100 of these have been printed and they are to be issued, while supplies last, to attendees renewing or subscribing to the Non Sports Update magazine.

P1

The second variation is a Bronze foil NSU logo (90 printed) and that is to be issued in conjunction with an Ewok costume card silent auction, the details of which are still pending. Of course we will also be offering a good supply of regular P1 SHVC cards as well! (and a few surprises as well)

In edition to this we will also be offering the new Monsters Zombies and Freaks P1. This card comes in several variants, including (but not limited to) Red Foil, (less than 100) Red Glitter enhanced, (less than 75) Glow in the Dark (less than 100) and we may have one or two of the holo-shine logo promo, limited to just 26 cards.

Glitter, Red Logo, and Holoshine

The NSU table will have a selection of the MZF cards while the limited supplies last, so you should really go and see them! We will also be attending both days, walking the floor to talk with artists and hand out promotional materials so if you find us then ask for a promo card!

Normal MZF P1

As the dates come closer we will have more show exclusives and announcements. Please visit the NSU Thread and read the official announcement and discuss it.

The Pre orders for the Sherlock Holmes set are open and brisk, we have some major artists to anounce in the next few days so keep an eye open!

The art for both of these cards was provided by the ever talented Robert Hack, you can find more of his work on his site: http://www.roberthackstudios.com/

We can now reveal more details about this upcoming set:

Sherlock Holmes and Victorian Crime is a card set of the absolute highest quality and will be the first of several  sets released by Cult-Stuff in the coming months. We think our first set should be something extra special so we are stuffing it full of interesting extras. We have given near complete freedom to some of the most talented sketch artists in the business who in turn have produced some truly remarkable cards.  While the set is aimed at Sherlock Holmes it is not limited to the great detective and his rich cast of characters, so you can expect more than a few surprises. The artists involved have brought vibrant talent and great imagination to the set making these cards a must have for any collector.

The micro set is made up of eighteen limited basic cards, a nine card “Canvas” set (which as the name implies is printed directly onto a thick high quality canvas) mini parallel chase cards in several variations, and of course at least one sketch card per pack!

Each pack will retail at £16.99 (roughly $26.00) and includes free world wide shipping. Wholesale pricing is available so contact us for details.

We say at least one sketch because you will on occasions find more than one, we have a policy, no multi-card images are separated, so if the images spread onto two cards or nine, you will find them all in the same pack, or in some rare cases a redemption will be issued if they do not fit safely into one pack.

We also have a new Sherlock Holmes promo card for this set, P1, which will come in several variations. The image shows the front of the card with art by the ever talented Robert Hack, who also produced a good deal of the base card art.

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You should expect to find in each pack:

At least 6 Basic Cards

1 or more Sketch Cards

1-2 Chase cards

Many packs will contain more than this, with some surprise additions to the set, including redemption’s for uncut sheets and other bonus items. A few rare packs will include ALL the chase and base cards and extra sketches. Series 1 is limited to just 850 numbered packs world wide and will be released in two stages. The first packs are set to ship in November and will be available for preorder this week. The first 200 packs ordered will also come with a bonus card.

This image above shows one of the parallel cards and it’s full size counterpart.

The list of artists working on this set is small but extremely impressive. We have been fortunate to have some of the most talented illustrators in the industry working on this set, and the list below is just a sample of the talented folks drawing for us on this release so more names will follow! :

Carolyn Edwards
Robert Hack
Jayson Kretzer
Mark Dos Santos
Beck Kramer
Laura Inglis
Ted Dastick
Jon Riggle
Mark Slater
Kristin Allen
Leah Mangue
~More Soon~

We will be publishing the full list of all artists involved with the set AND the number of cards each artist has completed. Scans of all the cards will also be available on the site in the future. We are absolutely committed to transparency when it comes to artist lists, and card numbers, this information makes collecting the cards much easier. The first packs will be available for Pre Order very shortly so check this link for more information.

X Factor Wrapper Mock-Up

Factory Entertainment releasing a 198 Trading Card Collection on the 27^th September to coincide with the Judges Houses week*.

The series will be sold exclusively through Tesco’s stores, (yes even the small local ones) and will contain a 100 card basic set with imagery from the auditions, boot camp and featuring all the finalists, as well as two foil chase card sets of 48 cards, featuring all the winners and stars from the previous series of the show. (These will be randomly inserted but the ratio is not known at this time)

Randomly included in the collection are seeded Golden Ticket winners cards, with prizes ranging to a holiday in Los Angeles, Ipod’s and tickets to the live tour in 2011. Again no ratio is available on these golden ticket cards at the moment.

The X-Factor Trading Card Collection will retail at £0.99 (about $1.52) for a 6 Card Pack  and a Starter Collectors Box with 60 Cards + 3 Exclusive cards will also be available for £6.99.

X Factor Box Mock-Up

On top of all this Factory Entertainment have revealed that they are also producing 12 promotional (Promo) cards which will be nearly imposable to obtain. These cards are being made for the final 12 contestants to use as they see fit, so good luck finding those! As aver when they come out we will split some and complete a full review. While this set may not be of interest to many typical card collectors it will certainly be bringing in droves of new fans, and clearly many new Tesco shoppers.

*(I don’t even know what that means.)

Wow ok it’s been more than a month and little has changed on the front page, I have a ton of stuff to talk about and products to highlight I have just been very busy with our own products. You might have noticed some new links at the top of the page these are upcoming sets and you can expect several of those to be updated this week with a lot more information. You an see the sketch blanks for War of the Worlds and a ton of Sherlock Holmes information is about to come out. Check back this week.

I had a nice surprise over the weekend when a parcel arrived from the good people at SideKick Media (the folks who made the most excellent Suckadelic). Inside much to my pleasure was a sample promo box of the new Art Hustle product.

This is essentially the same as a normal box however rather than 36 packs it has 8 and none of the sketch and autos, which is a very cool idea. As you can see the boxes are very impressive to look at at and they have really gone to town on the packaging. These are the real wax packs of yesteryear.

They look feel and even smell just like old wax used to. Each pack also includes a stick of gum, produced by Topps for the real vintage effect. The cards are of course printed on the retro cardboard stock that is so rare now but was the norm before Upper Deck entered the card market in the early 90’s. They look and feel vintage which is a great contradiction when you consider how modern the subject matter is. My first impression of these cards has been overwhelmingly that I need to get more of them.

The set s composed of 162 basic cards and they are all about different artists and the varying styles they use. This eclectic blend of of modern art placed on a vintage card stock creates an interesting and contradictory experience, you have this brand new product that feels like it is so much older. The base cards are vivid and capture your attention immediately, they have images of the artists themselves and also selections of the work they have produced. The artists and the work shown in the set  is impressively diverse, but the different styles add to the overall appeal of the set. The 8 packs brought out 53 different base cards so nearly 1/3 of the set which really isn’t bad going at all, but collation shouldn’t be a problem with these anyway because each of the limited edition boxes has assembled by hand to make sure that every box contains the right number of inserts and at least on basic set. You should really have a look at the interview and photos they have in an article up on the NSU site, it’s very impressive and provides a lot of insight into the way these cards have been manufactured.

The back of the box

These boxes as I mentioned are very limited, with only 300 produced in all and retailing at $126.00 a box. That’s almost twice the “normal” price for a box of mass produced TV or Film tie in cards, however this is higher brow stuff, intended for an adult market, and those with an appreciation of art not just cards. They also have a LOT of incentive cards in a box, each box boasts 2 sketch/art cards, and 10 autograph/tag cards. That puts the price in a much better perspective.  The set has 75 contributors and the web site really sums up what

Open Box

the whole thing is about:

The Art Hustle is a set of artist and art-based trading cards produced by The Cardhacks and manufactured in the USA by SideKick Media. The set is very much a collaborative effort with artists, and exhibits an international group working in multiple disciplines, including street art, toy art, kaiju, sketch, illustration, painting, aerosol art, poster art, collage, digital art, sculpture, photography and more.

The cards are bold and clearly this is a foundation on which it is hoped future sets can follow. Having seen the results first hand I think it would be extremely unfortunate if we didn’t see a second series of the Art Hustle. These cards are some of the most innovation and interesting to come out in a long time. In an industry dominated by popular entertainment (read film and television) these cards provide a window into something much more intriguing. You cant buy the DVD, these cards could be the only opportunity you get to see some of the art they display. It’s a new set as opposed to the next formulaic Cash Cow of the Clones sets the industry has become used to. .  In short this is a great looking set of cards, it has loads of quality inserts, and breaths new creativity into what can at times be a stagnant hobby.

Art Hustle Promos

If you have a real interest in cards or art then head out and grab some of these before they sell out, you absolutely will not be  disappointed. You can find them for sale here

Oh and they also sent this additional promo card along, to make sure we all have something else to look forward to later in the year.

OK buckle up because this is a weird one. If you know your card history as many of you do then you know what Odd Rods are, if you don’t then this is the short sweet non Scott Baio version. (that will become clearer later) back in 1969 Donruss wanted a set of cards that had monsters driving cars, they hired B.K Taylor to draw them and and the great Odd Rods set was born. These stickers/cards were a hit and several sets came out during the 1970’s.

Now Donruss like Odd Rods is no more, the company folded years ago, taking many of the old sets with it, accept apparently that’s not the case, you see a Limited Company by the name of DZ Hart has claimed ownership of the trademark and rights to the Odd Rods brand which they say they acquired as recently as 2006. DZ is a difficult company to get in touch with and they so far have not responded to our emails. What I can tell you about them is that they have virtually no public identity on-line with that company name, aside from the facebook page I linked to above, but the folks behind it (David and Zola Hart) are the owners and operators of Tart Optical and the now closed yet almost but not quite wittily named Four Your Eyes Optical boutique in LA. This is a company that sells tricked out and pimped up second hand sorry “Vintage” style glasses frames to the stars, and err.. anyone else with money. They did sell a pair to Johnny Depp though back in 2004 so ummm that’s nice.

They have moved onto Odd Rods and employ this marketing firm which has spent some money on promoting brand image and trying (a little to hard in my view) claw money from potential investors. They even have yes you got it Scott Baio to do a promotional video for the brand…  yes thats right Chachi loves money Odd Rods…. (while disliking the  unemployed and first lady). Now my understanding is that Scott is available for two fingers of KitKat and return bus fair but hey you know.. it’s still better than… I don’t know I guess getting your mom to do the voice over… then again I don’t know your mom so I might be wrong. You can really see the love he has for the topic if you watch the video…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cwmGxWBRjI

I like it best when he talks about “Your Revenue + Odd Rods” I had my wallet out at that point… Anyway they say it’s a property that they own and they have the Odd Rods Domain as well. But the ownership it seems is a matter of some dispute and this is where it gets MORE complicated. B.K Taylor says the exclusive intellectual property rights are his. Now he did draw all of them some 40 years ago, so you know creators rights do spring to mind.  He instructed his lawyer to contacted some potential investors that were going to do business with DZ Hart and the Odd Rods brand (they wanted to make animated online adverts) and let them know his side of things. These investors in turn got in touch with DZ Hart (as you would) to find out what’s going on. B.K Taylor maintains that he owns the Odd Rods as he created all the art for them, DZ Hart disputes B.K has or ever had exclusive rights to the brand. Enter the lawyers.

To make things more confusing it seems DZ Hart had apparently previously HAD an arrangement with B.K Taylor (again remember he created all of the first Odd Rods). They say B.K Taylor was going to provide artwork and act as a consultant on future projects involving the brand. According to DZ Hart no work had been done by Jan 2009 so the agreement was cancelled as it was never acted upon, with all rights then reverting to DZ Hart Ltd. At the same time however they say that if any rights are held by B.K then they are in the public domain because he abandoned said rights… this sounds a lot like “I want have the cake but if it’s yours I’m going to eat it anyway“…  DZ Hart have taken this to court in California seeking Declaratory Judgement to offer relief from any proposed litigation B.K may attempt to take. This is a peremptory measure seeking the clarification via the courts as to the ownership of the Intellectual Property rights surrounding the Odd Rods. DK Hart in layman’s terms wants the court to say several things:

DK Hart want the court to say:

B.K Taylor does not have exclusive rights to the Odd Rods property

B.K Taylor can not attempt to enforce any disputed rights issues on DZ Hart or it’s business partners

DZ Hart and any or all of it’s business partners are free to commercialize (i.e profit from) not only the Odd Rods but also any derivations, and or future versions of them with no interference from B.K Taylor (or his lawyer if we are being pedantic which clearly we are.)

DZ would also like costs and damages.

Clearly B.K Taylor would like none of that to happen.

The motion they filed with the court was on the 17th of June and it gives B.K Taylor 21 days from his receipt of the documents to respond to them.  That should be sometime next week so stay tuned, and we will cover his response as fully as we can.

More reading on this: IP Trademark Site

Thread on NSU

Comment:

It looks a lot like BK Taylor and David and Zola Hart had an agreement that fell apart and now B.K Taylor, the guy who created all of these cards in the first place is landed in a situation of fighting for any rights to his creations.  It’s a bizarre situation over a very old card set, but it would be great to see some new B.K Taylor art on a set.

I have been unable to find contact details for B.K Taylor if anyone has those we would love to talk to him.