Mars Attacks Read online

  MARS ATTACKS is back! The infamous science-fiction trading card series produced by Topps in 1962 celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with this first-ever compilation, including high-quality reproductions of the original series of fifty-five cards as well as the hard-to-find sequel from 1994, preliminary sketches by Wally Wood and Bob Powell, concept art, rare test-market materials, censored cards, and more. Also includes an introduction by series co-creator Len Brown and an afterword by Zina Saunders, daughter of artist Norm Saunders, providing an insider’s behind-the-scenes view of the bizarre and compelling world of Mars Attacks.

  OTHER TOPPS BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM ABRAMS:

  Wacky Packages

  Wacky Packages New New New

  Garbage Pail Kids

  Yankee Greats

  Copyright © 2012 The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

  By The Topps Company, Inc.

  Introduction and commentary by Len Brown

  Afterword by Zina Saunders

  Abrams ComicArts, New York

  TO WOODY, LEN, WALLY, BOB, AND NORM

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Ira Friedman and Adam Levine at Topps; Len Brown and Zina Saunders for their editorial contributions, as well as for their generosity and all-around availability to help this book come together; Fred Walstrom (for very generously supplying us with rare images from his collection); Grant Geissman (advice and friendship); Les Davis (for letting us quote from Butch Capadagli’s 1981 interview with Norm Saunders published in The Wrapper). At Abrams ComicArts: Charles Kochman (editorial), Kari Pearson (editorial assistance), Sara Corbett (design), Chad Beckerman (art direction), David Blatty (managing editorial), and Alison Gervais (production). Finally, a very special thank-you to Woody Gelman, Len Brown, Wally Wood, Bob Powell, and Norm Saunders for the creation of this material.

  Editor: Charles Kochman

  Designer: Sara Corbett

  Production Manager: Alison Gervais

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Mars attacks / by the Topps Company, Inc.;

  Introduction by Len Brown; afterword by Zina Saunders.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-0409-3

  1. Trading cards. 2. Mars attacks I. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.

  NC1002.C4M36 2012

  741.6—dc23

  2012001737

  Copyright © 2012 The Topps Company, Inc.

  Introduction copyright © 2012 Len Brown

  Afterword and accompanying photographs copyright © 2012 Zina Saunders

  Mars Attacks and Topps are registered trademarks of The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published in 2012 by Abrams ComicArts, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Abrams ComicArts is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  Abrams ComicArts books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  Cover design by Sara Corbett

  Case photography by Geoff Spear

  Detail of Mars Attacks action figure, 2012, courtesy of Mezco Toys. Sculpted by Steve Kiwus.

  Weird Science no. 16 (November–December 1952), illustrated by Wally Wood. Copyright © E.C. Comics/William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.

  This Island Earth movie poster and photograph copyright © 1955, Universal Pictures International.

  Mars Attacks movie poster copyright © 1996, Warner Bros.

  All of the images of “The Classic 55” were scanned from original transparencies and trading cards in the Topps archives. Every effort was made to keep the quality of images consistent throughout this book.

  Interview with Len Brown (captions, this page) conducted by Adam Levine on January 14, 2012.

  The following artists contributed to the “Visions: New and Original” section of this book as well as “The World of Mars Attacks”

  Charlie Adlard, Kevin Altieri, Simon Bisley, Steve Bissette, John Bolton, Ted Boonthanakit, Frank Brunner, Mark Chiarello, Joe Ciardiello, Geof Darrow, Ricardo Delgado, Cathy Diefendorf, Jim Elliot, Steve Fastner, Drew Friedman, John G. Gernon, Keith Giffen, Jim Groman, Sam Kieth, Miran Kim, Gus LaMonica, Rich Larsen, Jay Lynch, Earl Norem, Michael Ploog, John Pound, Ed Repka, John Rheaume, Rob Robison, Chris Ryan, Norm Saunders, Zina Saunders, Peter Scanlan, Mark Schultz, Joe Smith, Ken Steacy, William Stout, Herb Trimpe, Timothy Truman, and John Van Fleet.

  www.topps.com

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  www.abramsbooks.com

  Mars Attacks!

  INTRODUCTION BY LEN BROWN

  THE CLASSIC 55 (1962 SERIES)

  VISIONS: NEW AND ORIGINAL (1994 SERIES)

  THE WORLD OF MARS ATTACKS

  BEHIND THE SCENES AND MORE

  AFTERWORD BY ZINA SAUNDERS

  BONUS TRADING CARDS

  On a spring day in 1955, I was thirteen years old and riding a bus in Brooklyn when I saw something that was life changing for me! At a red light, I stared out the window at a newsstand with a new magazine on display—issue number one of a publication “for boys” by Triple Nickel Books. The cover featured a man in a coonskin hat carrying a rifle through the woods, completely oblivious to a menacing Indian stalking him from behind. It was an adventure magazine featuring a biography of the American frontier hero Davy Crockett.

  At the time, Crockett was a national rage, thanks to a Walt Disney television series, and kids across America were all singing the number one hit “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” by Bill Hayes, collecting Crockett trading cards, and dressing like their TV hero. At home I kept thinking about the magazine I had seen, and the following morning I decided to walk the two miles back to the newsstand and purchase it. I had no way of knowing that the events of that day would ultimately have a lasting effect upon my life.

  I read the Crockett biography quickly, wrote a letter to an unknown editor praising this new boys’ publication, and just a few days later, received a surprise phone call. It was from Woody Gelman, the publisher of Triple Nickel Books and also the creative director for Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. in Brooklyn. In his position at Topps, Woody was the person who planned and created which trading card series Topps would release. Ever since my sixth birthday, I had been spending my pennies on the various trading card packages that Topps marketed in the late 1940s and early’50s.

  Picture cards like Scoop (a series chronicling world history), Jets (modern airplanes), Freedom’s War (Korean War cards), Target Moon and Spacemen (two early sets that focused on outer space and science fiction), and of course, the annual baseball cards were all typical of the Topps products I collected back in my preteen days.

  When Woody invited me to visit the Topps offices, I was overjoyed. I remember walking down 36th Street in Brooklyn for the first time and smelling the aroma of Bazooka Bubble Gum as I approached Topps. I really could taste sugar on my tongue, as it permeated the air outside the factory at 254 36th Street, where the gum was manufactured.

  For five years after that first visit, I maintained a telephone friendship with Woody Gelman, as he became almost a second father to me (I lost my real dad to a heart attack when I was just five years old). When I turned eighteen, I received another important call from Woody: He stunned me with an offer of a part-time job as his assistant. I was walking on air, and in October 1959, I began a career at Topps that lasted
for almost forty-one years, until I retired in May 2000.

  During that span of time, there were many exciting projects and products I helped develop at Topps—trading cards and stickers from Star Wars to Star Trek, Wacky Packages to Garbage Pail Kids, Michael Jackson to Pokemon, and hundreds more. If anyone ever asks which was my personal favorite, I always answer, “Mars Attacks.” It was an original science-fiction trading card series that Woody and I co-created in 1962, based on a modern-day version of The War of the Worlds. At first we called the product Attack from Space, but ultimately we changed it to Mars Attacks, believing the shorter title would appear bolder and more dramatic on our packaging.

  Our next decision was to figure out just what these Martian invaders would look like. Somehow, the cliché of little green men from another planet just didn’t seem dramatic enough.

  My love of old comic books brought to mind an issue of E.C.’s Weird Science from 1952, with a striking cover illustration by Wally Wood. The cover depicted UFOs landing on the Earth and releasing a group of large-brained, foreboding aliens onto our world. The invaders were pretty hideous, like nothing I had ever seen before—until in 1955 when I saw a similar-looking creature in the Universal movie This Island Earth. Those big-brained aliens were the perfect inspiration for the Martians in our trading card series.

  Woody and I contacted Wally Wood (who back in 1961 had drawn a series of Believe It or Not! spoof cards for us called Crazy Cards). This time we asked him to help us visualize our Martian card concept. Wally, one of the most talented artists who ever put a pen to a sheet of paper, took on the assignment. His initial artwork looked beautiful, yet we felt they were a little subdued; we required more drama and excitement to be sure to catch our young audience’s attention. Each Mars Attack card needed to achieve the impact of a paperback cover, with a dramatic story clearly detailed at first glance.

  We contacted another comic book veteran, Bob Powell, who had penciled a fairly violent series of trading cards called Civil War News for Topps in 1961. Bob submitted two or three thumbnail sketches for every scenario we gave him, and then Woody and I picked our favorite composition. He would then render a tight five-by-seven-inch pencil drawing on illustration board. That finished art was then forwarded to our painter, Norm Saunders, one of the most lauded pulp cover illustrators of the’40s and’50s. We felt very lucky to have Norm working with us on Mars Attacks. I loved watching him paint over the Powell pencils. He created beautiful, colorful masterpieces, working with a fine paintbrush under a magnifying glass, filling each card with more and more dramatic detail.

  It took us six months to complete the artwork for the entire series of fifty-five Mars Attacks trading cards. Before sending the artwork to the printer, it was customary to run the material by the Topps president, Joel Shorin, for review. Usually Joel nodded approvingly and wished us good luck, but not so fast with those Mars Attacks cards! Joel felt that many of the images went too far in depicting violence and brutality. Not the least of his concerns was the presence of too many scantily clad women. Based on Joel’s strong words, we sent back at least a dozen paintings to Norm Saunders for modifications. He toned down the more violent images, eliminating some of the bloodshed, and the women revealed far less cleavage and flesh in the modified artwork. Despite these changes, Joel still feared bad publicity, so he decided to remove our regular corporate copyright line from the backs of the trading cards and replace it with the copyright “Bubbles Inc.”

  It wasn’t long after Mars Attacks shipped that newspapers began to run feature stories citing the mayhem depicted on the trading cards, and Topps began to have second thoughts about shipping additional sets into new markets. The final straw occurred when Joel Shorin received a call from a friend in Connecticut who also happened to be the local district attorney. In no uncertain terms, Shorin was told that Mars Attacks was “unsuitable for children,” and he was cautioned about releasing more of the trading cards into the state. Sadly, the combination of bad press, some negative letters from concerned parents, and the DA’s phone call, brought an end to Topps’s plans to expand the series.

  While Mars Attacks was never shipped nationally, it made a huge impact on the consumers who had seen the cards. Now, years later, fans young and old still try to complete their collections, despite the rarity of the cards. Any of these vintage cards appearing for sale are quickly grabbed up and sold. Today, a complete set of the fifty-five original 1962 Topps Mars Attacks cards in mint condition is valued at twenty-five thousand dollars—a pretty good increase for a product that initially sold for a nickel a pack, or a penny a card. More extraordinary, an original wax wrapper sells for over five hundred dollars, and an empty Mars Attacks display box (rarely found) is scooped up for over a thousand dollars!

  In 1962, Topps received about thirty letters from students attending the same public school. It was obviously a class assignment, as all the letters had the same basic message, “Mars Attacks trading cards are not suitable for children.” Each student writer expressed hope that we would replace the series with something “more educational.” One letter, however, contained an additional final sentence: “We really love collecting your Mars Attacks cards. It is our teacher who is making us write this letter to you.” A true confession at the very end!

  Mars Attacks bubble-gum trading cards are fifty years old and have survived their early criticism. Over the years, there have been action figures, model kits, comic books, life-size masks, hardcover science-fiction novels, and additional trading card sets.

  In 1996, Hollywood called, and famed director Tim Burton brought Mars Attacks to the screen with an all-star cast including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

  More toys, a line of apparel, a new comic book series, and additional trading cards are in the works as the Mars Attacks story continues. What else lies ahead? Tough to predict. I’ve been surprised so often that all I can do is look up at the stars at night and try to contemplate the possibilities!

  Cover for The Adventures of Davy Crockett by Nat Wilson. Triple Nickel Books no. 1 (1955), published by Woody Gelman.

  Soupy Sales with Len Brown (left) and Woody Gelman (right), taken in 1967 at the time Topps released a series of “wallet-size” photo trading cards of the television personality.

  Scoop (1954) no. 72, “Ederle Swims Channel”

  Scoop no. 75, “Dillinger Shot”;

  Jets (1956) no. 116, “Convair YF-102”

  Freedom’s War (1950) no. 28,“They Won’t Stop!”;

  Target Moon (1957) no. 33, “First Men on the Moon”

  Target Moon no. 50, “Enjoying Earthshine”;

  Spacemen (1951) no. 175, “Overcoming Pirate Rocket.”

  Weird Science no. 16 (November–December 1952), illustrated by Wally Wood. This classic E.C. Comics cover prompted Gelman and Brown to contact Wood as the first artist hired to visualize their series concept.

  Movie poster and publicity photo for This Island Earth, released by Universal Pictures International (1955).

  According to Len Brown, the mutant aliens were one of the primary inspirations for the look and design of the Martians in Mars Attacks.

  Civil War News (1962) no. 12, “Bloody Combat.”

  Civil War News no. 48, “Smashing the Enemy,” which shares a title with Mars Attacks card no. 50.

  Movie poster for Mars Attacks! (Warner Bros., 1996). “The original cards were so beautiful,” director Tim Burton told Cinefantastique magazine in January 1996. “They were really pure, not campy. They had a lurid quality that I like.”

  “The idea to start on Mars was Woody’s,” says co-creator Len Brown, referring to Topps creative director Woody Gelman, who developed the series with him. “We worked fairly sequentially, as I recall, so this was the first card Norm Saunders painted.”

  Artist Norm Saunders produced most of the art for Mars Attacks from his uptown Manhattan apartment and visited Topps’s Brooklyn offices to deliver the
finished paintings, feeling that was safer than sending them by mail. Saunders also brought his paints with him to Topps, in case he had to do any retouching.

  “The first artist we tried out was Wally Wood, because he had done an alien on the cover of an issue of Weird Science. We called Wally in and told him we wanted a creature with a big brain, and he did a lot of early sketches for us.” (See “Behind the Scenes and More,” starting on this page.)

  After Wally Wood pinned down the look of the Martians, comics veteran Bob Powell was brought in. “We felt that Bob’s layouts had a better sense of drama than anyone else’s. When it was clear that Bob was going to be our penciler, we asked him to give us two or three versions of each scene that we described. I wish we still had more of those roughs.”

  After getting back several rough sketches for each card concept, Gelman and Brown would pick their favorite. Powell would then tightly pencil the scene on a sturdy five-by-seven-inch illustration board, which the artists would paint directly over. This process, in effect, eliminated an important layer of the original artwork forever.

  While often cited for illustrating the entire series, Norm Saunders had some help. Though he did paint most of the Mars Attacks cards, other artists were brought in to keep the project on schedule when Topps requested the release be moved up. Additional painters included well-known pulp artists Geoffrey Biggs and Maurice Blumenfeld.