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After 20 years, DEVO has made their official return. Sure, for the past 20 years, they’ve resurfaced at a few concerts, have written new music for ad jingles, and have even recorded a children’s album Kidz Bop-style – but now, they have a real album out, called ‘Something for Everybody’. There’s a reason for that title.

I collected DEVO back in the mid-90s, after they’d kinda closed up shop and I was really discovering music, though I’d been unconsciously listening to DEVO since birth. We just happened to have a DEVO kind of household. DEVO has also always been a band which made a point of offering up odd collectibles from early on, including Energy Dome hats, limited edition records, nuclear jumpsuits and lenticular cards from the inner liners of their vinyl releases. However, for the last 20 years, things ran a bit slower than usual as each band member pursued different projects by themselves. If you visit DEVO’s website today, you’re hit with a plethora of collectibles to rival the old days.

Everything about this new DEVO is a rebirth. They still maintain the philosophy that mankind was entering a dark age of de-evolution, and their current reappearance couldn’t be more appropriate. We exist at a critical point in human greed, anti-intellectualism, self destruction and shortsightedness, and DEVO’s been telling us that this was coming all along through synth-pop, new wave beats. Leading up to this new album, DEVO ran a series of weirdly generic, streamlined focus groups over the internet which permitted the public to choose almost everything about how they would return, ranging from their costumes to the songs which would be included on their new album.

The methodology here is not revolutionary, but the new contention is that we’ve finally reached a point where we’ve de-evolved not into cavemen or potatoes, but mindless automatons from prefer comfort to innovation. By putting everything through a filter of the most common denominator, DEVO has produced, presumably, what everyone would most like to see. Fortunately for us, DEVO continues to write great music – even when most of it criticizes the homogenization process that they’d just subjected us to.

As a robotic consumer, I can’t help but want some of the new merchandise which DEVO is offering, which includes a bevy of awesomely dorky t-shirts and a series of great poster designs from gigs in the past two years. But by buying DEVO merchandise, are you part of the problem or part of the solution? Are you spreading the DEVO gospel, or are you just being a consumer? I’m sure that the irony is not lost on them.

Either way, it’s great to see DEVO continuing the great tradition of concert posters, and there are surely more to come. I’ll be looking for a way to get in on that gig.

This week has been composed of a whole lot of cards from Rittenhouse, but it’s important to get back to the moment I fell in love, and of course, it has everything to do with Batman.

I buy a lot of cards in the hopes of scoring some nice chase pieces with original artwork or autographs, but Batman Archives is a series where I can enjoy every card. Rittenhouse chose 63 covers out of over 700 Batman comics to display on a series of thick, glossy trading cards for Batman Archives. Not just comics where Batman has appeared on the cover, like Detective Comics or Justice League – this set is exclusively Batman covers, starting with issue #1 in 1940, and each one is a little work of art.

Having just purchased five comic book frames, I’m on the lookout for a few really great comic book covers to purchase and display so that girls don’t talk to me anymore. This is an excellent starting point.

It’s very interesting to watch the character of Batman turn into a dark, angry figure from his bright, silly origins. The evolution of the Batman logo is also great to see, as well as the simple way that comic art has evolved into this complex, hyper-detailed portion of fiction. Early comic book covers were often filled with exposition and narrative, misleading statements or depictions of what was going to happen inside, and generally more strange than the comparatively simple, literal covers of today.

The front of each card includes a very crisp mini-reproduction of a Batman cover, while the back redundantly includes a snippet of the same cover and a listing of which issue the cover has come from (which is also on the front of many cards anyhow as a natural detail on the cover). Unfortunately, there are no panel snippets from the same comic, and all artists go uncredited, which doesn’t seem like it would have been a very difficult detail to include. A little bit of sleuthing will reveal all, though, and a complete collection of Batman covers can be seen at Cover Browser, though of varying quality.

Additional cards in this set include a handful of Tim Sale ‘Dark Victory’ cards, lenticular cards, retro cards printed on cardboard stock, and of course, sketch cards. I scored a very well-made upside-down Robin by a man known only as ‘Jeff’ from my box. I’d like to see what else this artist has done, but I’m not sure how to weed out the website of a man who goes by one common name.

Rumor has it that Rittenhouse is done with DC products. In the event that this is true, pick up some of these if you’re a Bat-nerd, because they’re actually very cool cards.

There are three reasons to watch James Bond films : the beautiful women, the bizarre bad guys, and the awesome weapons. Sometimes, these three elements are combined into one, id-driven mega-entity of awesome. The James Bond : Heroes and Villains trading card series from Rittenhouse explores these in great, tingly detail.

While occasionally dipping into obscure figures from the Bond films, all of the favorite, creepy bad guys are included here : Tee Hee, Odd Job, Baron Samedi, Zao, Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd, and Dr. Evil himself, Ernst Blofeld. Of course, every James Bond is included among the heroes, as well as many of his paramours, both friendly and deadly. The weirdly iconic villains are awesome as trading cards – especially since the 6” James Bond action figures that we were promised a few years ago, as well as the Golden Gun prop replica, never surfaced. I’ve been jonesing for a collectible Bond fix ever since.

Each box of Bond trading cards is guaranteed to include three autograph cards. Of these cards available in packs, John Cleese fetches the highest confirmed value at around $120. While his role in the James Bond series of films isn’t classic, his universal popularity has elevated the value of his particular card. Daniel Craig’s autograph card has an asking price of $500, though none have recently sold for that much.

Roughly one in every five cases includes actual swatches of movie-used items, from pieces of parachute bags, to leather seats from cars, and bits of detonator boxes. Some of these have reached around $200, as they’re relatively more rare than relic cards included in similar trading card sets. Secret, sneaky card-collector tip : the packs that contain relics are a bit harder to flex than regular packs – but don’t go bending packs at your local comic shop. That would be bad.

Other cards to watch for are translucent ‘Men of James Bond’ cards, lenticular ‘In Motion’ cards, and ‘Expansion’ cards which add to existing James Bond sets. I love anything that includes lenticular cards.

Because of the high value of these particular cards, a box of 24 packs (with 5 cards per pack) costs around $80. If a retailer (or overzealous collector) orders 15 cases of cards (180 boxes, or 21,600 cards for just over $14,000), one of every relic, signature, and chase card, as well as bonus incentive cards, are guaranteed as bonuses (plus whatever is found in the cases). Some people are just really, really into Roger Moore.

My haul is composed of autographs from Cecilie Thomsen, Michael Kitchen and Samantha Bond – and a whole lot of great photographs that I want to base a series of Bond-related portraits off of.

More trading cards coming up soon!

[Cards graciously provided by the publisher.]

I’m unofficially declaring it trading card week here on the Collectors’ Quest blog, because I’ve suddenly found myself waist deep in trading cards, and that’s all I want to write about.

I’ve been out of trading cards for about 15 years now, but working briefly with Topps drew me back in. Everyone’s heard of Topps and Upper Deck, but the amazing cards that are made by Rittenhouse are the focus of my attention lately. Printed on thick stock, clean and glossy – trading cards have become a completely separate entity than the gritty things they used to be, and Rittenhouse is a perfect example of top quality stuff.

My love of Rittenhouse started when I came across Justice League of America Archives cards at the local comic shop. Each featured covers and bizarre scenarios from the Silver Age of comics, and I was charmed enough to want out to find more. Trading cards are perfect little bite-sized bits of specialized ephemera that have been around since the turn of the century, with rarely a lapse in collectability.

The object of my affection today is Rittenhouse’s ‘Women of Star Trek’ series of trading cards. I have a plethora of Star Trek game cards, at least 3 series of collectible Trek trading cards and holograms from the 90s, but nothing so focused as the women of Trek – and there are a lot more of them than you probably remember.

Cards range from the tremendously obscure (a woman named only ‘Number One’ from the pilot episode, ‘The Cage’) to the females who have served on the bridges of various starships, and even a handful of evil chicks, like the Borg Queen and Admiral Nechayev. Images have been pulled directly from quality screencaps, and cards feature one main photograph and an auxiliary photo on the flipside, as well as the character’s name and the series and episode in which they appeared. Actress names are easy enough to Google, as the focus of the set is the Trek mythology, not the theatrical aspect of the shows.

The identity of the actresses is included on the signature cards, and with the purchase of a full box of 24 packs, the collector is guaranteed three signature cards. In terms of value, women from the main starship crews fetch the most money, with Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) fetching around $100 and Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) fetching around $80. Women who have guest starred but are ‘famous’ in a more general sense also fetch big bucks, with Famke Janssen and Joan Collins topping out at around $80 each. The most expensive signature card isn’t included in boxes at all, but was only given out as an incentive to purchase 6 full cases of ‘Women of Trek’ cards, and features the signature of Majel Barett-Roddenberry, the only actress to appear in every Star Trek series, and the widow of Gene Roddenberry. Since the release of these cards, she has passed away.

Each box also contains two costume cards culled from outfits worn by various Trek women, the most valuable being a costume card from Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi from Next Generation), which hovers around $160. Each card includes a 1” swatch, though the exact number of swatches has not been disclosed.

Other rare (but not as valuable cards) include translucent ‘Leading Ladies’ cards, foil ‘Romantic Relationships’ cards, and ‘Portrait Gallery’ cards which feature paintings. For the cost of a box, at five cards per pack and 24 packs per box for around only $60, Women of Star Trek includes an incredibly high number of rare cards. I can only name about 1/3rd of the women here, but that’s half of the fun.

Be careful when you tear into your packs, as Rittenhouse also has a redemption program using points included on their wrappers, and each one from this series is worth two points.

I was lucky enough to score costume cards from Beverly Crusher and Kathryn Janeway, and signatures from Joan Collins, Sherry Jackson (from the original Trek), and Penny Johnson Jerald (Deep Space Nine). Overall, a very fun haul, leaving plenty of room to keep on collecting this extensive series.

Stay tunes here for James Bond & Lost cards from Rittenhouse, and many more signatures & costume bits!

The traditional perception of ‘toy’ lends itself to plastic objects that can withstand the heavier and more violent abuses that a pre-teen (or teenagers with small explosives) can deliver to them, but that definition is shifting towards a wider acceptance of toyetic objects – and I couldn’t be more pleased.

When you combine the unexpected versatility of paper with the innovative aesthetic of the designer toy art movement, some pretty incredible things start to happen. We Are Paper Toys from Collins Design chronicles this evolution by showcasing some of the very best paper toymakers out there.

Paper toys, if you aren’t already aware, are little foldable-and-glueable works of art that you can download and print out from your computer (or sometimes, purchase pre-printed). After a few minutes with a pair of scissors and some patience, you’ll get your own three dimensional sculpture to pose in your cubicle for nothing more than the cost of a piece of paper and a few drops of ink (which, ideally, the office is paying for anyhow). This is an unusually interactive experience for any form of sculpture, and many of these artists also provide blank templates for you to customize into a collaborative work – all for free.

Many of these paper forms are released in waves of five or six patterns at a time. Many of these toys are the works of contributing artists who lend their art to an ongoing schedule of releases, very much like how smaller toys are released in the designer toy world. I’ve had the pleasure of getting my art on a few officially released pieces as well – a Spiky Baby from Shin Tanaka, a ‘Calling All Cars’ piece from Horrorwood, and soon, a MechaBunny from Nick Knite.

With that essential background information out of the way, We Are Paper Toys does a beautiful job exploring all of the aspects of this new, incredibly fun, all-ages medium. Simple designs might consist of a few cubes glued together, or work their way up to complex, curvilinear, multi-limbed figures that span four or five pieces of paper. The result is the same : the visualization and engineering necessary to imagine a solid paper figure is a mathematical and creative work of art. Many of these transcend the nature of their materials, while others embrace the fact that they are made of paper. Each artist gives a brief statement about the artform, revealing many different attitudes and approaches taken to making paper toys, but all express a love of design and the desire to make these freely accessible to the masses.

Some artists hide their paper edges, while others leave them obvious. The full-color photos on every page are presented in high detail, and the diversity and design is the definition of fun.

Best of all, there is a CD included in the back of the book which features many designs that can be printed without the need to go to the internet – some of which seem to be exclusive to this disc. There are a few designs from each artist – some are templates, some are completed designs, and many are both. While it is not a complete archive of everything found inside of the book, it’s enough to keep you busy and hunting for more online. The disc is designed to autorun on a Windows machine, but even Mac users can dig into the files without a fancy interface and get what they need.

It goes beyond a ‘craft’ movement and into a very special corner of the ‘arts’ world, so this is a great book to check out and make an afternoon of, whether you’re 10 or 75.

[Book graciously provided by the publisher.]