Fleer Trading Cards: Babylon 5 Sets |
Currently 'out there' (ie not necessarily easily available!) are sets for series 1, 2, 3 and 4 plus a Special Edition set from Summer 1997.
The following is some summary information about Fleer's upcoming plans for their B5 trading card sets from Stephen Smith - this is reproduced from the 5th May edition (#108) of the Zocalo e-zine.
With less than two months to go, I wanted to give all of you an update on the June 1997 trading card set, "BABYLON 5: Special Edition." The project is on target for its scheduled June 11 release date. We've selected the images for all the cards, most of the text is written, the graphics designer is creating the card images, and WB Licensing has started the final approval process. First off, a reminder ... It's a good idea to pre-order your boxes. The last set (the 1996 annual) was 80% pre-sold, and Fleer's inventory was sold out within ten days of release. I've seen some messages posted by dealers who are warning collectors to get their pre-orders in now, based on the tremendous demand the last time around. For those who ask ... A box is *not* the same as a complete set. You will probably have to trade with other collectors to get a complete set; hence the term, "trading cards." (This isn't some slight against B5; almost all card sets are released this way.) You'll probably get most, if not all, of the regular cards in a box, but you'll probably have to trade to get all the chase cards. I receive many e-mails from people wanting to know where they can get the cards. Fleer/Skybox doesn't sell them directly; you have to go through a vendor. Your best bet is a local trading card or comic book dealer who carries entertainment (i.e. non-sports) cards. If you don't have one available, there are some vendors on the World Wide Web. I can't vouch for any of them, although Super Collector is near where I live (in Southern California) so I can kneecap them if they cheat you. Their Web address is http://www.supercollector.com. Again, this isn't an endorsement, they're just someone I know who's been around and I've found them to be reliable. I'm very happy with the subsets. We'll have 72 regular cards, which is more than the last set (60). For those of you who are latecomers to B5, with this set I'm kicking off what I call "B5 Retrospective." I want to go back and visit the early days of B5. In this set, we'll have a 20-card retrospective of B5's pilot episode, "The Gathering." You'll get character cards for Jeff Sinclair, Laurel Takashima, Dr. Kyle, Carolyn Sykes, all the regulars still with us, plus a series of cards spanning the story line. A special note for Michael O'Hare fans ... This will probably be the last time we'll do a Jeff Sinclair card, since he hasn't been in the series since Season 3, so you'll definitely want this subset. (If JMS brings back Sinclair in a future episode, then of course we'll have another card for him.) There are some great shots of Sinclair in this set! Along with some wonderful portrait shots I found of many of the characters that I've never seen in print before. The next subset is "B5 Perspectives." For those of you who haunt the Lurker's Guide Web site, you'll appreciate this. It's a set of images with JMS text taken from the Lurker's Guide's archives. Some of the quotes go back as far as 1992. "Ships of the Earth Alliance" is a great CGI subset. (You should give Fleer a pat on the back; they have to pay extra money to get CGI images, and they didn't hesitate to do it.) You'll find cards for ships such as the E.A.S. Alexander, the Hyperion, the Asimov, the planetside assault craft from "GROPOS", the Space Marines breaching pod, Catherine Sakai's Skydancer, and lots more. Another CGI set is "Ships of the Shadow War." For those of you who've asked for shots of a Vree Saucer, a Drazi Sunhawk, a Brakiri ship, etc., well, here you go. There's a great shot of a White Star ship strafing the Vorlon observation post. My favorite CGI is from the interior of a Starfury with the cockpit panel all lit up, with a battle outside the window. In the chase cards, we have quite a few exciting subsets. I just got off the phone with Mira Furlan. We're doing a four-card "The Faces of Delenn" subset. The images are Delenn from the pilot, from Season 1, and how she looked in Season 3, along with an image of Mira herself. Mira will autograph the Season 3 card! (Okay, so let's see whose autograph card becomes more valuable on the open market, Mira's or JMS's!) Mira gave me a brief interview so the text on the back of her cards will be her first-person recollections. A great subset is "The Costumes of Ann Bruice Aling," B5's costume designer. Ann provided us with 18 sketches she's done over the years for various characters and their costumes. On the back is Ann's first-person commentary (from an interview we did in April). I've seen the early card design. They're outstanding. Fleer is also creating two sculpted holograms. They haven't finalized the images so I can't tell you more about them just now. The last chase set is "The Worlds of Babylon 5." Images of Centauri Prime, Minbar, Narn, Mars, Z'ha'dum, JMS's house (just kidding) and so on. Looking ahead, we're already in early pre-production for the October set, which will be our traditional "annual" format -- character cards, episodic cards, prominent guest stars, etc. Fleer has some really cool ideas for this set; if they pull it off, you guys are gonna stampede. Any questions, comments, or pure adulation can be sent to me at <scsmith@igc.org>.
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