Description
Celebrate the 30th anniversary of artist Jim Lee’s legendary X-Men trading-card art with this annotated, digest-size collection of the complete 1992 set! Includes 4 bonus cards! In 1992, Marvel Entertainment commissioned Jim Lee, the young superstar penciller behind X-Men (1991) #1 , the bestselling single-issue comic book of the modern era, to create all of the art for a new set of 105 trading cards—a set that would go on to become one of the most celebrated in Marvel history and the gold standard for non-sports trading-card artwork and design. Lee was the first artist to create all of the original artwork for a Marvel card set; his dynamic character portraits, battle scenes, team shots, and innovative nine-card Danger Room puzzle cards helped fuel both the ’90s boom of comic-book trading cards and the general public’s mania for all things X-Men. Fans of the chart-topping comics could turn to the cards for further insight into their favorite characters, as Marvel writers and editors included bios, stats, and trivia for each hero and villain. The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series collects, for the first time, the front and back of each collectible card in the set—including Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Magneto, and Deadpool—along with select scans of Lee’s original and digitally remastered art. It also includes an introduction by and original interviews conducted by writer and set editor Bob Budiansky, with the Marvel staff who helped assemble, design, and create these iconic trading cards.
Gregory Furr –
Because I kind of was expecting that, after they remastered a bunch of the art from these for variant covers a while back. It’s cool, for what it is. But note that it’s only like 6″x7.5″, and the cards are reprinted inside only slightly bigger than the actual cards were. So if you’re expecting a nice art book to enjoy some classic Jim Lee X-Men, this isn’t it. It’s the cards, printed front and back, with some fun little tidbits from the production of the cards by the people involved (with one very obvious and understandable exception.)
Dennis D. –
Honestly, I ordered it initially thinking it was a set of the cards. I checked a little while later to see the estimated ship date and realized it was a book. I didn’t look at the dimensions in the description, so when it showed up, I thought it would be a bigger book. However, it’s a book about trading cards. How big does it need to be? It’s plenty big to show off the cards. It does have a good bit of example art, sketches, covers, cards, stickers, etc. in the the introduction section of the book. Not to mention four cards taped to the back cover of the book. Oh, and the dust jacket is a poster!
Brice E. Carson –
One star for it’s small size.
Ryan Chamness –
This book was exactly what I was looking for and expecting. I have the actual card set and this book is a great companion that allows me to view the cards without getting the real ones out. It also includes some history on the artcards. Bonus it comes with some actual cards too and the cover if removed and unfolded is a big X-men poster. It is a digest size so smaller than a regular book but it calls this out in the product description and in the listed dimensions so not sure why some are complaining about the size. Recommended for X-Men fans!
Christopher Hanson –
The book is small, barely larger than my hand, but that didn’t bother me; my memory was tickled anyway.
Shawn & Michael –
Love this book. It is so cool to see these cards from my childhood in a neat little book. I did think it would be a bit bigger but that’s okay. I really hope they do some more of these. Like masterpieces and such.
D.M. –
I still own the card set in my binder, so owning this book just allows me to reread the cards without having to unearth them on my cabinet.
Anthony –
This is a treat! Especially for many of us Jim Lee X-Men fans of the early 90’s that grew up to his work! Publisher “Abrams ComicArts” put together this little collection of Jim’s X-Men series 1 trading cards in a handy dandy hardcover book! All 100 cards are featured in this beautifully produced book a presented as a “digest” style format (think of the old school TV Guide mags you got at your local grocery store) I’m familiar with Abrams style of books, they have a similar one with early garbage pail kids cards I picked up and I’m definitely gonna check out the Star Wars trading card series they have available!