Review – Suckadelic Suckpax Trading Cards Series 1

“A Mandalorian evolution 20 years in the Making; A childhood obsession that began with a 1979 Kenner main-in figure metamorphosises into an adult criminal enterprsise.”
— from the back of card #1

The Suckadelic Suckpax trading cards were released last month (mentioned here) and — as of this writing — they’re still available at the Suckadelic store. If you’re a fan of the work of Suckadelic, and if you loved non-sport trading cards in the seventies and eighties, then don’t even bother reading this review. Hit the Suckadelic store now and buy five packs of these cards before they’re completely sold out. These are silly, enjoyable, and wonderfully produced.

Packaging

Using the classic “wax pack”-style of packaging — “the original wrapper with base and insert cards within, often called ‘wax packs'” (source: Wikipedia) — the Suckpax trading cards come in individual packs of seven cards per pack. Out of the five packs that I opened only one was a bit too gummy; the adhesive used to close the pack bled through and smeared across the back of one of the cards (a duplicate, luckily enough).

The minimalist design on the packs is perfect, carrying across the feel of the trading card packs I used to collect when I was a little kid. The colors are bright and ugly, the Photoshopped image perfect for the subject matter, and overall these are great little packages. I’m gonna keep one of the wax packs, but the other four wrappers have already hit the trash.

The Cards

A series of 43 cards, plus various chase cards and extras, my five Suckpax packs were just standard cards without any of the specials (no sketch cards, splatter cards, distressed cards, or anything else wacky or unusual). Out of the five packs I received 34 cards — yes, one of the packs was short one card — and out of the 34 cards only 9 are duplicates. That’s actually a pretty good mix, since it suggests that if I were to order another 5 packs I might get pretty close to the set of 43 cards.

Each card is numbered on the front and back, with the card fronts showing a photo of a toy, a custom one-off art piece, a scene of some sort, or just women dressed up as Princess Leia. The card stock feels cheap — almost exactly like the cards from 30 years ago, which means that these perfectly fit the intended theme — and are coated on the front only. (Again, the uncoated back helps these to feel like they were made back when I was about 8 or 9 years old.)

Flipping through the cards — with names like The Console (a photo of an old Atari 2600 system), Blinging Rings, and Making Sucklords — is fun, with every single image requiring a few moments of study.

But as much fun as the card fronts are, it’s actually the card backs that make this set a must own for fans of the Sucklord’s work.

Most of the card backs include a description of the image on the front, and this is where the set goes from a simple collection of photos on cards and truly turns into a work of art that’s a hell of a lot of fun to flip through. The text ranges from factual information about one-of-a-kind toys, random chattering about whatever the hell is going on in the photo on the front of the card, to reminisces of times long past. All of this text is what you would expect to find in a Suckadelic retrospective, but here it’s presented on the back of trading cards, making the story of Suckadelic difficult to piece together.

(Of course, I’m betting that there would be a book collecting everything from this card set if the Sucklord thought he could make money at it. If he’s one thing, it’s a lover of the cash. Well, I would buy a book if it was reasonably priced. Sucklord, if you’re reading this, I recommend using lulu.com, since that won’t take any upfront cash.)

Closing Thoughts

I love these cards, but only because they were so much fun to read. The addition of the text on the back of most of the cards (some of the cards are parts of a larger, puzzle image) turned a novelty item into a historic reference that is well worth reading if you have any interest at all in where Suckadelic came from and where it has been.

I don’t have any idea how well these card packs are selling, but I recommend that any art or designer toy fan should seriously consider ordering one of the sets of five packs. I don’t know if I’d recommend going so far as ordering a box, but five packs for $25 feels like a great price for a very low-run set of trading cards.

And if anyone wants to trade cards hit me up. I’ve got nine duplicates that I’d be more than willing to trade away to snag some of the cards that I’m missing.

Philip Reed would seriously buy a book that collected all of the information in this trading card series. $25 or $30 for a full-color book (probably 60 to 80 pages in length) sounds about right.