Sets I Want to See: The Expendables

Sylvester Stallone
Bruce Willis
Jet Li
Dolph Lundgren
Jason Statham
Arnold Freakin' Schwarzenegger
Mickey Rourke

As far as legitimate action heroes from the past 25 years go, these guys are the who's who of cheesy guy flicks where things blow up real good. There's also Stone Cold Steve Austin, Randy Couture and Eric Roberts. All that's missing is Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme. Well, the list above are attempting to make the cheesy action flick cool again with The Expendables. The trailer debuted online today and quite honestly, I was expecting more. Note to Sylvester Stallone: we want to see you kick people, not listen to you babble constantly.

That being said, I so want a card set just for the autograph possibilities. From that list, only a couple already have autographs. Schwarzenegger appeared in Batman and Robin Widescreen from SkyBox, Terminator 3 from Comic Images and on a pseudo-cut Conan the Barbarian card that used cut-up Batman and Robin cards. Fleer  convinced Stone Cold to sign in their Wrestlemania set back in 2001. Randy Couture's currently in Upper Deck Prominent Cuts and has also signed for Donruss Americana and Topps Allen and Ginter. Finally, there's Julia Roberts' brother Eric, who was in Upper Deck Spectrum and Donruss Americana.

Tonight I had a little fun and came up with some mock-ups for a possible set. Enjoy! The Expendables is in theatres this August and I'm guessing it'll be on DVD and Blu-ray a couple weeks later.

Bob Barker's Comeback?

To continue on with their string of "celebrity" guest hosts, TV legend Bob Barker is hosting WWE Raw tonight. I sense a lot of really bad comedic sketches coming but I do hope that Barker's classic cameo from Happy Gilmore makes the cut as he knocks someone on their butt.

Now 85, Barker was the host of The Price is Right for 35 years before stepping down in 2007. The classic game show has continued on with Drew Carey taking up the duties of helping old ladies spin the big wheel and fending off their advances. But the couple of times that I've seen Carey just makes me long for Barker so I've stopped watching on my days off altogether.

Barker joins the likes of Shaquille O'Neal, Seth Green and Jeremy Piven as previous Raw guest hosts in WWE's attempts to gain more mainstream attention. So far the results have been mixed. Shaq was pretty awesome and Green wasn't too bad either. Piven, though, well he'll forever be linked with the term "Summerfest" amongst pro wrestling circles.

Here's a Price is Right custom I whipped up. I was going for a glittery 70s-looking border. It's all right but not exactly what I had in mind. As soon as I finished it I was reminded of 1991 Donruss Elite inserts.

 

Note to Topps: Consider looking into the logistics of getting a Raw guest host autograph lineup for an upcoming WWE set and get Bob Barker in there. 

Update:

I kept playing with the design after dinner and came up with a couple of "parallels":

More From The Office - Opening Credits

It's late, I have a long day tomorrow but I'm avoiding sleep. With only a week left of work until the so-called summer break, what's a little lost snoozing anyways?

I've started delving into the DVD's of the first season of The Office as I play, experiment and attempt a dream set of what I think would be a great non-sport set.

These likely won't be my final cards, but they're a start. I envision probably only three cards in the final set that cover the opening plus the header. Card backs will come eventually. I'm thinking of maintaining the folder theme, maybe add a coffee ring and use corkboard for the back's backdrop.

Anyways, here's some rough drafts for the very front end of the "set":

The set's header card, probably a checklist on the back.

TGIF - More Mock-Ups from The Office

I'm still in the planning stages of my "set" based on The Office. It's Friday, so here's a few more character cards that will make up the front end of the set.

 

  

  

 

Playing With Photoshop: The Office

If I were to go out tomorrow and start a card company, the first license I'd go after would be for The Office. The show is great and more importantly, from a strictly business perspective, there's a huge following behind it. There was a freaking convention last year, the thing normally held for the like of sci-fi movies and shows starting with Star and ending with Trek or Wars.

Doing a little procrastinating this evening, I came up with a very crude initial design (very crude):

 

  

  

If there's any Photshop masters out there who are big-time Office fans and want to collaborate, please let me know. I'm open to anything. I have a card back design in my head and envision doing a full-on set of Season One mock-ups over the summer.