Golden Age Sci-Fi Comic Book Cover Playing Cards by Bobby Alexander

[Rob Wright]

Golden Age Sci-Fi Comic Book Cover Playing Cards

[Don Boyer]

I'd swear I read about this before, somewhere around here...

[PurpleIce]

I'd swear I read about this before, somewhere around here...

Maybe you were thinking about this deck? also from the same guy.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=7496.msg108098#msg108098

[Don Boyer]

I see...  That was the "horror" edition, this is the "sci-fi" edition.  Keep your eyes open for a "true crime" edition and perhaps even a "romance" edition...   You'll know they've run out of ideas when the "superhero" edition is released... 

[Fess]

Still think this would work better as a coffee table book. There is something to be said for the cool retro art stylings depicted here. On a deck of cards though, it's not for me.

[Don Boyer]

Still think this would work better as a coffee table book. There is something to be said for the cool retro art stylings depicted here. On a deck of cards though, it's not for me.

I love the idea of these images on a coffee table book, but there's a slight problem there.  These covers weren't made to a terribly high art standard to begin with, so at full resolution they look a bit cheap and crappy (though loaded with nostalgia, for some).  Imagine how that would look blown up to the size of a page in that coffee table book?  On cards, lousy art and printing of the original gets "disguised" a bit because of the reduction of size.

[HudsonDesign]

 

These covers weren't made to a terribly high art standard to begin with, so at full resolution they look a bit cheap and crappy (though loaded with nostalgia, for some).  Imagine how that would look blown up to the size of a page in that coffee table book?  On cards, lousy art and printing of the original gets "disguised" a bit because of the reduction of size.

I was going to use a heap of these as large framed art for one project but decided against it for exactly that reason.  Instead I went for old horror and scifi movie day bills as they had a similar effect and better quality image at large sizes.  Plus I get warm fuzzies from classic horror movies.

[Fess]

That crappy old dot printing has a certain charm to it that people who would want this style of art tend to enjoy. Really it depends on the sell. I still think a coffee table book is a better choice than playing cards for these. These don't really do anything for me as they are. They're just wrong for playing cards in my opinion. Maybe greeting cards though... haha. It is what it is and it's a pass for me, again.

[Don Boyer]

That crappy old dot printing has a certain charm to it that people who would want this style of art tend to enjoy. Really it depends on the sell. I still think a coffee table book is a better choice than playing cards for these. These don't really do anything for me as they are. They're just wrong for playing cards in my opinion. Maybe greeting cards though... haha. It is what it is and it's a pass for me, again.

Old farts like us remember that type of art.  It's practically non-existent today - more sophisticated printing processes are used now, and printed on paper that's not laden with acids from bleaching.  The acids literally corrode the paper itself, causing it to break down chemically - it's why graded comics from our childhood and older have to be treated in a deacidification process before they get locked up vault tight in their containers.  They also remove the (non-stainless) steel staples, as they tend to rust, replacing them with stainless steel or some other corrosion-resistant metal.

Those new printing processes, along with higher-grade paper, are why when I was a kid you could get a comic book for a quarter and today it's perhaps ten times that much or more.  I'm reasonably sure that inflation alone isn't a factor, as I don't recall the consumer price index increasing by 1,000% over the past 25 years...