The Rise of Marvel Card Art 1 1

[John E.]

On 6/13/2023 at 2:07 PM, Garf said:

https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/MARVEL SNAP

... but I was looking forward to your long and illustrious streaming career.

I’ve never had a reason to go on Twitch until now and holy sith—did someone just thaw me from a block of ice? Where am I? I was like the Prophet John trying to describe to the world what I saw in the Book of Revelations No, no, I was Danny Torrance getting sucker-punched by my shine. Whatever this is it got to the Italians, and I’m sure all of Europe will soon fall. This paisa is Twitchin’ and eatin’ his lunch in front of the whole world and now I’m 😵

 

Return me to my glacier at once. Fogey out. 

[AnkurJ]

I “overpaid” for this many years ago. Glad I did.

[KingOfRulers]

On 6/13/2023 at 8:14 PM, AnkurJ said:

I “overpaid” for this many years ago. Glad I did.

That's definitely among the best! Probably is the best of the b&w single character cards. A true gem!

[John E.]

On 6/8/2023 at 9:40 PM, KingOfRulers said:

It's cool to have a sealed box. That's a great relic to have from the period, and would display nice in any comic room. I believe that's the Jusko Spidey 2099 art, correct? How about your collection; do you have any original pieces from any of the Marvel card sets?

I believe the Jusko Spider-Man 2099 box you’re referring to is the 1993 set. I have the premiere ‘92 series that looks like this:

I lifted that image from eBay since it’s too much of a hassle to pull mine out of the closet. 
 

For a minute I thought this was my only card art. It took me for 8-9 years to actually add card art to my collection. This is from the Skybox Saga of the Dark Knight set. Sorry, not Marvel.

Then I remembered that I bought some card art from Ariel Olivetti earlier this year. This is considered a prelim since Olivetti digitally painted the published image. I paid $150 for it—same price as the rest—so I’ll eat my words there. For an additional $600 Olivetti offered to do a 1/1 painting of any of the cards in the set. See: recreation. You can find the recreation on eBay and CAF. This is from Upper Deck’s 2016 Marvel Exquisite set. My plan was to keep this out of sight but screw it—CGC Boards exclusive, right?

[Mephisto]

On 6/8/2023 at 5:20 PM, comix4fun said:

That probably explains the perception difference. Coming at the series well after it was released probably gives us different memories of the time period. 

In today's art market it doesn't take much to get to a number that feels nutty. The Bagley art market is mature enough that seeing a piece that large (168% of a standard 11x17 piece) that was part of a big card series...well....we've seen less go for more. 

The Bagley piece feels like a product of being a pure play of having THE 90’s Spider-Man artist post Todd, especially given Todd’s prices.

I was 11 when this came out. I remember buying a few packs of these and only recall one of my friends buying packs of these. Nothing really stood out to me with these cards or inserts other than the Suspended Animation which really weren’t that great. That same year my friends were more into Fleer Ultra X-Men which having the cartoon airing at the time really helped boost interest with the younger crowd. The Spider-Man animated series only had its premiere episode in November 1994 and wouldn’t get rolling until Feb 1995. When I first met my wife she talked up the Dark Phoenix being on the animated series. 

I was in a few Marvel trading card groups on Facebook for a few years and never really saw anyone collecting anything from this set.
 

[comix4fun]

On 6/14/2023 at 9:34 AM, Mephisto said:

The Bagley piece feels like a product of being a pure play of having THE 90’s Spider-Man artist post Todd, especially given Todd’s prices.

I was 11 when this came out. I remember buying a few packs of these and only recall one of my friends buying packs of these. Nothing really stood out to me with these cards or inserts other than the Suspended Animation which really weren’t that great. That same year my friends were more into Fleer Ultra X-Men which having the cartoon airing at the time really helped boost interest with the younger crowd. The Spider-Man animated series only had its premiere episode in November 1994 and wouldn’t get rolling until Feb 1995. When I first met my wife she talked up the Dark Phoenix being on the animated series. 

I was in a few Marvel trading card groups on Facebook for a few years and never really saw anyone collecting anything from this set.
 

Well, once you got a set, you've got a set. No need to collect anything additional. It's not one of those autograph insert, case premium, chase chase chase sets. So, it makes sense there aren't people still chasing down parts to the set now.  A lot of boxes and cases sold. They had nice binders they sold at the time as well. The suspended animation weren't difficult to complete either.  
But at the time, buying and selling these from release at conventions, guys in their 20's - 50's were buying boxes and filling sets for a good long time. Longer than most sets of the era that came and went in a month or two. 

[-m]

From Marvel’s 1994 trading card set - Blood Ties

Art is approximately 23”x29” (roughly 4 covers in size). 90s goodness. 

Actual cards are below.

[Timecapsule85]

On 6/13/2023 at 8:14 PM, AnkurJ said:

I “overpaid” for this many years ago. Glad I did.

Great piece! Everything that has every been a true key of any sort in comic art or card art is always 100% an "overpay" and always will be at the time. It only looks genius in time.  

[Mephisto]

On 6/8/2023 at 10:40 PM, KingOfRulers said:

 

I've got the other half of the collection being framed at this very moment. But I'm looking forward to having back later this month. I've only recently embarked on framing the collection. It has been a lot of fun picking out the frames and mats. Here are the other two pieces that I currently have hanging, both newly framed:

 

I moved 9 months ago and still have about half my framed art leaning against walls in my office. I have the opposite problem in that my wife wants certain art NOT tucked away in rooms she rarely goes in but out in the open. She has yet to commit where she wants a lot of stuff to go 🤦‍♂️.
 

She specifically asked for Mephisto drinking souls from a chalice from the Marvel VS System card game to hang in the dinning room and asked if I have any other art with characters eating or drinking…she wound up getting Wolverine vs Spider-Man from the 1994 Fleer Ultra X-Men set in the dinning room as the other piece of art in that room. 

[Bronty]

On 6/14/2023 at 5:03 PM, Mephisto said:

I moved 9 months ago and still have about half my framed art leaning against walls in my office. I have the opposite problem in that my wife wants certain art NOT tucked away in rooms she rarely goes in but out in the open. She has yet to commit where she wants a lot of stuff to go 🤦‍♂️.
 

She specifically asked for Mephisto drinking souls from a chalice from the Marvel VS System card game to hang in the dinning room and asked if I have any other art with characters eating or drinking…she wound up getting Wolverine vs Spider-Man from the 1994 Fleer Ultra X-Men set in the dinning room as the other piece of art in that room. 

tell them about the naked wolverine in the bedroom 

[KingOfRulers]

On 6/14/2023 at 3:57 PM, -m said:

From Marvel’s 1994 trading card set - Blood Ties

Art is approximately 23”x29” (roughly 4 covers in size). 90s goodness. 

Actual cards are below.

Very nice piece! Never seen those cards before. Your piece is very frameable. I find one of the biggest detractor of b&w card art is that it often doesn't look handsome in a frame because the placement of the image art and the headshot/thumbnails is often not symmetrical in placement or for whatever reason doesn't display well. Yours isn't like that at all. Great big image up top, with the character headshots neatly lined up at the bottom.  

[Mephisto]

On 6/14/2023 at 5:50 PM, Bronty said:

tell them about the naked wolverine in the bedroom 

It’s no longer in the bedroom since I sold it, but she had requested in that room in our last place.

[stinkininkin]

Since we have some card art collectors on this thread, does anyone recognize this Wolverine card--what set is it from and what year? I think I did it in the mid-90's, but can't remember for sure or what card set it was for. I want to say maybe an Upper Deck set? I also have a card of the Xmen's Thunderbird from the same card set somewhere around here...

Edited June 15, 2023 by stinkininkin

[John E.]

On 6/14/2023 at 7:05 PM, stinkininkin said:

Since we have some card art collectors on this thread, does anyone recognize this Wolverine card--what set is it from and what year? I think I did it in the mid-90's, but can't remember for sure or what card set it was for. I want to say maybe an Upper Deck set? I also have a card of the Xmen's Thunderbird from the same card set somewhere around here...

I’m having a hard time finding that card in my usual resources. It may be the reason why you don’t recall where it was published—maybe it wasn’t? Off hand, the image didn’t look familiar. If it is a published card, it could be that it was used as a promo card by a snack company or a magazine maybe? Those are rarer and less likely to pop up on the Internet. How about showing the Thunderbird art? If I find that then maybe I can find the set. 

[stinkininkin]

On 6/16/2023 at 7:31 PM, John E. said:

I’m having a hard time finding that card in my usual resources. It may be the reason why you don’t recall where it was published—maybe it wasn’t? Off hand, the image didn’t look familiar. If it is a published card, it could be that it was used as a promo card by a snack company or a magazine maybe? Those are rarer and less likely to pop up on the Internet. How about showing the Thunderbird art? If I find that then maybe I can find the set. 

I could have sworn it was published, but considering how much I've forgotten about this project, I don't trust my memory. I did do some digging and found the Thunderbird piece however. Let's see if this helps jog some memories, or if it's a card set that ultimately never got made...

[KingOfRulers]

I got all of my card art back from the framer! My last pictures were missing 6 or 7 pieces. It was a jigsaw puzzling arranging everything on the wall. I'm probably going to continue to make some more modifications. But the art wall is coming along nicely!

[exitmusicblue]

Missed this thread!  Still got this 90s example (1995 X-Men Fleer Ultra), love at first sight at just a 1k pickup back in the day:

 

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1447877

[MB1952]

On 7/22/2023 at 9:03 AM, exitmusicblue said:

Missed this thread!  Still got this 90s example (1995 X-Men Fleer Ultra), love at first sight at just a 1k pickup back in the day:

 

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1447877

Beautiful Illustration  

[Xatari]

On 6/13/2023 at 6:46 AM, Garf said:

Well for the $200 - $500 fix there is still some modern TCG art. 

The current generation will have whatever Marvel Snap cards were not done digitally, and haven't already been... snapped up 

https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/released/

https://marvelsnapzone.com/variants/ 

I’ve been loving collecting Snap art as well! There are some great up and coming artists, incredible variants, and a ton of people who play Snap. Here is the card art for the main Miles Morales card. 
 

[Garf]

On 7/30/2023 at 5:09 AM, Xatari said:

I’ve been loving collecting Snap art as well! There are some great up and coming artists, incredible variants, and a ton of people who play Snap. Here is the card art for the main Miles Morales card. 
 

Love it!