New Mars Attacks Card Set Coming In October!

Topps has announced today that we can expect a new Mars Attacks card series in October.  The 63-card set will be called Mars Attacks Invasion and will be a "story based" set and include several insert sets with further details about those to follow as we get closer to the release date.  Artists attached to the project include the following...along with some links to samples of their work:

Earl Norem -- samples of his work with He-Man.
Joe Jusko -- samples from his personal website.
Ed Repka -- samples of his great album artwork including many many Megadeath covers.
Glen Orbik -- he drew the cover to the Stephen King's baseball novella Blockage Billy.
Gregory Staples -- he has drawn many comics including Judge Dredd.

I think I'm on pretty firm ground that I wrote more than any other blog on last year's Mars Attacks Heritage set and you can expect that same level of coverage for this set.  Be sure to check back soon for more Mars Attacks related posts as we get closer to Invasion's release.

This new set news has also given me an excuse to post the last original Mars Attacks card that I picked up before taking off to Eastern Europe in September.  It is card #51 and shows humans kicking some Martian butt on the Mars surface.

Getting Meta With 1988 Pacific Baseball Legends

Before heading to Ukraine I recorded myself opening a bunch of packs I had on hand and saved them to post over the year that I would be away from easy access to trading cards.  I found that I had made two videos for packs of 1988 Pacific Baseball Legends about five months apart and in those videos I said mainly the same thing for each pack.  So I've spliced the two videos together and I hope you enjoy me getting a little meta with some packs from 1988.

My Obama 2012 Pin Collection

A little while ago I shared a sample of my [not baseball card related] patch collection.  Along with patches, I also collect pins with a majority of them being political pins which goes nicely with my political card collection.  Although I'm about as liberal as Republicans think Barack Obama is, I'm an equal opportunity pin collector with the respect to presidential or congressional campaign pins.  I think Michelle Bachmann is certifiably insane but there I was at the Minnesota State Fair braving the Republican Party tent to try to get one of her pins.

For Christmas my father gave me this unassuming box.

Which was filled with all the campaign pins that the Obama/Biden campaign issued during the 2012 election.  

If you donated money at a certain level you were able to receive all of the pins designs that were used in the campaign.  This included both the common pins that you often see and some harder to find ones that were specialized to specific demographic groups...such as "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders For Obama," "Nurses For Obama," and voters who speak Hebrew.

Along with that special interest group which make up slightly more than half of the population.  

They also had two variations of the Latino buttons with Spanish signo de admiración.

Here are a few more buttons from the box that I enjoy starting with this one as a screw you to the birthers.  

This one was the standard pin of the 2012 Obama logo. 

And of course The Bidenator gets his own pin too!

If Biden gets one Bo gets one too!

And here are three that are just general "Vote Obama" type.  I really like the italics font used in this first one.  

2012-2013 Panini Champions League Stickers Pack #1

Here is the first pack 2012-2013 Panini Champions League Stickers a.k.a. the only cards/stickers I've found in Ukraine.  These were a little less than a dollar a pack and you get five stickers per pack.  Here's what I pulled:

My first sticker is of Toni Kroos, a midfielder for FC Bayern Munchen [Location: Munich, Germany]. 

#382 Toni Kroos

And here's the reverse side of the sticker before you peel off the front side.  

Next we have Alex Sandro, a defender from FC Porto [Location: Porto, Portugal]. 

#18 Alex Sandro

My next sticker is of a player who only needs one name apparently...that is Jonas who plays forward for of Valencia CF [Location: Valencia, Spain].  Not exactly Pele in the name recognition department.  His full name is Jonas Goncalves Oliveira for those keeping score at home.  

#405 Jonas

My next sticker is a super shiny team sticker for Juventus F.C. out of Turin, Italy but you can call them Juve for short.  Founded in 1897 they are the most successful team in Italy.  

#336 Juventus Team Sticker

My last sticker is of Ezequiel Lavezzi who is a forward for Paris Saint-Germain FC [Location: Paris, France].  Originally from Argentina, Ezequiel was on the 2008 Gold Medal winning team.  

#63 Ezequiel Lavezzi

UPDATE: Topps Is Selling T-Shirts Now

UPDATE:  Since I complained about their shipping costs in my original post it is only fair that I mention that currently Topps has free shipping on apparel in their online store.
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Topps sent me an e-mail today commanding me to "PROVE YOUR FANDOM" by buying some of their new t-shirts to go along with their new web page.

Okay, I'm game...I'll take a look and I will admit some of these are very nice.  This Bob Feller shirt below is my personal favorite but the $28 price is a bit too high plus the INCREDIBLE SUM OF $13.05 TO SHIP UPS GROUND we are over $40 for a single shirt.  And to compound the mistakes they, of course, don't seem to offer tall or extended sizes either.   Did no one in any meeting possible mention that could be something you might want to offer?

My First UEFA Game

Last night I went to a UEFA Europa League match between Kharkov Metalist and Newcastle United here in Kharkov. It was my first UEFA game and it was an experience to remember to say the least if for no other reason than the experience of being in the stands with 40,000 yelling Ukrainians.  I made a video of some of the chants the home town fans were shouting through the match.  



The game got me in the football mood so I finally ripped a pack of my Ukrainian stickers and I'll have the results tomorrow.

I Finally Found Some Sports Cards In Ukraine

Since moving here to Ukraine in September I've found exactly zero packs of sports cards or stickers in my travels.  I've been surprised by this because last summer my home city of Kharkiv was a host site for the 2012 Euro Cup and you can still find memorabilia from the event in stores...but still no cards to be found.

That was until today.

I've been traveling around the middle part of Ukraine [south of Kiev] this week and was just randomly walking by a small store in Zhytomyr and there right in front of me were Panini 2012/2013 UEFA Champions League booklets and stickers.

So I finally get to rip open some semi-new products.  I'm going to saver this as who knows when I'll find some more of these so I'll wait until I'm back home and really write some detailed posts [and learn something about the Champions League as I know next to nothing about soccer]. 

Interesting [To Me] Andy Pafko Item On eBay

Back in 2011, I wrote about visiting Andy Pafko Athletic Park in his hometown of Boyceville, WI.  It was a lot of fun and a nice little crowning glory to my Andy Pafko collection.  I was reminded of this trip recently when a unique item showed up on eBay.  It is a poster for the ceremony that dedicated the park to Andy.  The seller is asking $29.99 for it which is about $10 more than I would pay for it and unfortunately there isn't a "make an offer" option on it currently.