Each came with unique, one-of-a-kind artwork on the front and a variety of offerings on the back from stats and biographies to full comic stories and even additional artwork. It's a shame that Lee didn't provide commentary, but that's not surprising as he is well ensconced in Marvel's "distinguished competition" these days.Ask just many creators or fans who grew up in the 90’s where they found out about Marvel characters for the first time and you’ll find one recurring answer: trading cards.īefore the days when you could look anyone up on the Internet, legions of fans got their information from the various card sets produced in the 90’s. His commentary offers insight into the hard work, skill, creativity, and resourcefulness he brought to the cards, offering a whole new level of appreciation for the artwork. Mount colored Lee's linework and often created backgrounds whole cloth to place behind Lee's figures. While Budiansky and Brevoort's commentary offers some fun trivia, Mount's explanation of what went into coloring Lee's work shines brightest.
Comic book trading cards series#
Buy the The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series on Amazonīudiansky, fellow editor Tom Brevoort, Paul Mounts, the colorist who worked on the set, and a couple of other people involved provide additional commentary on some of the cards in the book. Bob Budiansky, the Marvel editor who oversaw the card set, then provides an introduction walking fans through the set's creation, from production to release and lasting impact. Before that, the foreword by Ed Piskor, the cartoonist who created X-Men: Grand Design, sets the stage, reminding readers of what it was like to be an X-Men fan in the 1990s. The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series from Abrams ComicArts, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the cards' original release, collects every card in the set, front and back, in a single volume, allowing fans to take in the artwork featured on one side and peruse the character profiles and stats on the back. Lee's artwork here - repurposed on multiple occasions for various licensed Marvel products - is of note to collectors and fans because it's a rare instance of Lee inking his own work instead of relying on a dedicated inker like frequent collaborator Scott Williams.
The 105-card collection featured iconic X-Men characters like Wolverine and Cyclops, alongside others that have since faded into the background, such as Widget and Kylun, all drawn in Lee's signature style. Those designs were on full display in The Uncanny X-Men Series 1 trading card set released in 1992, which was the first Marvel trading card set entirely drawn by a single artist. Lee drew the record-breaking X-Men #1, and his character designs are the basis for the X-Men's looks in X-Men: The Animated Series. Jim Lee was the connective tissue between the X-Men comics, The Animated Series, and the trading cards. Plenty of young people in the 1990s spent their allowances filling up binders full of these card sets. These cards often served as singular, iconic representations of the characters, providing stunning visuals and new information about the characters to fans who weren't necessarily digging through back issue bins to uncover every moment in X-Men history. A third and often overlooked pillar of the 1990s X-Men boom is the trading card sets that featured the characters. X-Men: The Animated Series brought the weekly adventures of Marvel's merry mutants into the homes of many soon-to-be-obsessed children.
The growing family of X-Men comics was selling better than ever.
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