Krazy Kats

As Woody Gelman's band of merry artists grew in the mid 1960's, Topps started branching out into more esoteric items as the decade wore on. In what must have been a fit of MAD Magazine inspired inspiration, 1967 saw a 16 "card" limited issue called Krazy Little Comics marketed.

The genesis of this set was previously looked at here, as part of a longer piece on Presentation Boards:

As we will see momentarily, this board is more advanced that most as it uses artwork that would see issue in 1967.  Many of the boards were merely mockups created from previous issues that were altered to show a conceptual idea.  The set title though, was still to be tweaked by changing the "C" to a "K". There is some artwork known for the wrapper as well; not sure if this was used for the actual release or frankly if it's even artwork but I think it is due to the uneven inking:

Most references call this a test release but I think it made it to a second stage as there are too many indicators of a retail issue.  While test wrappers are known (and would be one of the first of their kind), I have found pictures of packs and boxes scattered throughout the web.  Here is a nice flat from a prior Heritage auction:

It's clearly a 1967 issue based upon that production code.  Here a few more shots of boxes and the like, giving credence to the "more than a test" theory:

That little beauty is from comprehensive Spiderman blog with over 8,000 collectible shown of America's favorite webslinger (wow!).

Another reason I lean toward a limited release is that you cna find these with relative ease compared to true test issues.  They are more properly in the "scarce" category I think and prices for nice, raw books have fallen to about $35-$40 from $75 or $80 of late, although a new find could also explain the drop.

The artwork is stellar which makes a lot of sense as it was done by Wally Wood and Gil Kane, with stories by Roy Thomas.  Wood effected many of MAD's comic book parodies in the 1950's and is considered to be one of the finest comic book artists of all time while Kane and Thomas worked on many of the comic books that were parodied. In fact a study of Wood, edited by Bhob Stewart, notes that "some nervous corporate lawyers" put a halt to the series. Considering how much effort had been put into the set, there must have a huge threat of litigation to make Topps pull back.

Each book was eight pages, including front and back covers.  As seen on this uncut Tarsam book consigned to Probstein123, there was only one panel shown per page:

I thought I would do a visual checklist of the sixteen covers, since they have all popped up on eBay of late and are not well known otherwise:

As Topps proved with Wacky Packages, parody and satire can be accomplished without copyright being infringed, so the legal issues Topps was afraid of could instead have been related to the back covers.  Here's a better look at the back of Tarsam:

No funny title, just a direct steal of Popeye.  Here's some more, the GI Melvin and Aorta ads probably caused the Topps legal team some serious heartburn:

Really killer stuff, too bad it got squelched.  And remember the MAD connection?  Here is a final parting shot courtesy of www.madcoversite.com:

Copy That

One of the things I noticed early on when diving deep into the Topps canon was that they borrowed (or perhaps were inspired by) many issues from the 1930's. One such instance even stretches back to the early 1920's. I'm  not sure if it had to do with Woody Gelman's all seeing eye (he would have been too old to be a kid collector in the 1930's), Sy Berger's childhood memories (he would have been the perfect age or maybe just past it) or maybe the four Shorin boys' own kids but somebody at Topps was clearly influenced by the gum sets of the Depression.  I thought I would look at a few today.

One of the earliest Topps sets to crib an earlier one was 1948-49 Magic Photo.  Patterned after a number of self-developing issues of the 1920's and 30's, a couple of series of circa 1921 strip cards seems to be the earliest of these:

(Legendary Auctions)

(The Trading Card Database)

Magic Photo of course was a major early Topps release:

It was followed in 1955 by Hocus Focus:

I am struggling to find the link or a scan but there was an obscure 1930's set Called Hokus Fokus, if I recall correctly, that operated under the same principle of wetting the blank surface, rubbing against a piece of paper with a developing chemical and then exposing to sunlight.

Another series, American Chicle's Thrilling Stories (R25) was a small pulp booklet with a colorful, sensational cover:

(Legendary Auctions)

While R25 sported text stories, other similar issues from the 1930's did not and featured traditonal comic art. Topps seized upon these for a couple of jokey issues in 1967 and 1970 respectively:

Of a slightly sturdier construction, Goudey came out with some flip movies of baseball players in 1937 and '38; other companies issued similar fare as well in this time frame:

Topps of course came out with Flip-o-vision in 1949:

(Heritage Auctions)

The 1930's also gave us 4 on 1 Exhibits (1929-38) and 1935 Goudey Baseball:

While 1969 gave us Topps Mini Stickers (a.k.a. 4 in 1's) and Football Stickers:

There are other issues as well this can be done with.  I'll dig out a few more and maybe some of my faithful readers have a few doppelgangers of their own to share.

Catching Up on Coins and Cards

A couple of threads to update today kiddies, namely 1952 High Numbers and 1980 Baseball Coins, with a wide and wild detour back to Presentation Boards.

I have tabulated responses to my query on a few online forums that was cleverly titled "Where Did You Buy 1952 Topps Baseball High Numbers as a Kid?" The results were mostly supportive of my distribution theories but the sample size is way too small to cement anything except distribution may have been a little wider than I thought.

Confirmed purchases took place in a suburb of Toronto (nice to have that verified), Eastern Massachusetts (presumably Boston or environs), Elizabeth and Jersey City, New Jersey (both just across the North River from Manhattan), Ridley Park, Pennsylvania (a Phildadelphia suburb) and near the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. These were late summer/fall 1952 purchases from what I can gather. North Carolina is interesting as it is well past the MLB territory of the time and gets us into the true South.

Looking westward, substantive purchases (two full runs from packs) were made by Roger Neufeldt of Sports Memories (one of the nicest guys you will ever meet) and whom I believe lived in Oklahoma City at the time of purchase (1952). That's farther afield than I would have thought and may demonstrate the spotty distribution the highs had in '52. Stabbing further westward we have Los Angeles, seemingly much later in 1952 and Rialto, CA,a San Bernardino 'burb in 1953 at a Rexall drug store (they had thousands of stores nationwide at the time) which is a connection I want to explore further as it may have something to do with the distribution of the cards. Woolworth's was allso a big seller of Topps 1952 baseball but I am not sure about their relationship with the high numbers.

There were also numerous stories of people not being able to find them in their neighborhoods after being able to find semi-highs. I did not track (yet) where they could not be found however but do note one such place was Buffalo, New York which I had previously theorized may hot have gotten the highs in '52.

There are also recollections of people buying the cards in 1953 wrapper sbut getting fistfuls of 52's. This brings up three good points: 1) Every account I have read involves highs from '52 only being bought in nickel packs, so were they sold in penny packs that year? 2) Does this explain why there are dated and undated wrappers (penny and nickel variants exist for each year) from 1953-55? 3) Did Topps therefore consistently "reload" the previous year's high numbers in current packs during this time and if so, why?

Questions, questions....now we move to an answer, or at least an advice concerning the population of 1980 Topps Baseball Coins with reports of Carew in Bronze and Silver:

Carew Bronze 3
Garvey Bronze 1
Jackson Bronze 2 (plus one unconfirmed)
Carew Silver 1 (plus one unconfirmed)
Garvey Silver 2
Jackson Gold 3

All we need for a full player/metal Master Set is a Silver Jackson and Gold Carew and Garvey. Still no word on which ones have punch holes though.

Following the coins and their state of being, a few more presentation boards have shown upon Ebay. You may recall these were used for internal Topps "pitch" meetings and were most probably created by their Art Department. A few more details are known now (hooray) thanks to four pieces being auctioned by BMW Sportscards, alas one looks to have been sold and has disappeared but we have these still):



That's the 1966 Black Bat Batman Set, which shows how far back these go (which is around the time Topps moved facilities from Brooklyn to Duryea, PA). Here is the back of the board:



The numeral "1" makes a lot of sense as these would have been placed on large easels and handled manually, so an order of presentation would need to be established.

The next year a pitch was made for Crazy Comics:



These would become a scarce set called Krazy Little Comics, which looks to have been both tested and then on a very limited basis, perhaps due to threat of a lawsuit or two from the companies the little comic books were parodying. The back loses the border but retains the numeral "1":



We then jump ahead to 1977 and the set that sold and sold-Star Wars:



It's hard to tell here but the auction description indicates the C3PO sticker is original artwork-they painted his head over a 1976 Star Trek Sticker of Dr. McCoy!! We lose the numeral on the back for this one, so this may have been prepared for an initial review and not a full "pitch":



Sorry I missed out on grabbing a scan of the fourth board but ya snooze ya lose!