Jim Lee's art looked so much better with the old flat coloring than the digital coloring. His figures were already sculptured with his rendering technique and didn't need the fake 3D of the digital coloring.
In Venezuela in the '90s someone made a bootleg album with the best images of every set it was pretty cool, I completed it and the images were like half the size as the cards, that was probably my first contact ever with X-men art and Jim Lee art
When Uncanny X-Men #268 came out, my dad took me to a local shop where Jim Lee was signing. Not many people there. This was my first time meeting any professional comic artist, and as far as I was concerned, he was the best there was at what he did. He signed our copies of 268 and was doing a sketch for each person of any character they wanted. I chose Wolverine, and my pop got Cap. He used a regular black Sharpie, and I was absolutely stunned and amazed at how fast and confident he was. I still have them, and I still feel that sense of awe when I look at them.
When Jim Lee inks himself, he's a much more interesting artist. As beautiful as his work looks with Scott Williams- its just a bit too commercial, perfect and precise. On his own Lee rises to another level in my opinion.
The two things that have held Jim Lee back are his complete lack of curiosity and Scott Williams. Jim has the potential to be as great an artist as Moebius, Frazetta, Bilal, Tove Jansson and Breccia, but only twice has be ever been pushed out of his comfort zone: the first two issues of Deathblow, and the first issue of the abandoned Wildcats reboot written by Grant Morrison.
Leaving comics in the free libraries is one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard!!!! I’m stopping by the dollar bins at my local & making some stops…THANKS CARTOONIST KAYFABE, FROM CURRENT & FUTURE COMIC FANS!
Super cool! Great to see this. I think I used to have some of these cards. I grabbed a Marvel Mastepieces book one day for $1 and it's some nice Joe Jusko card work.
I loved Excalibur, mostly on the quality of Alan Davis art, plus Claremont was still on it in the first part of the run, so it felt like an old school x book, even though it read more like a fantasy adventure comic.
I agree! Any excuse to see Alan Davis art is a good one. And later in the run Alan Davis returned as writer and artist, picking up and resolving a lot of threads that had been dropped after Claremont left.
Did they make this small to keep it with the card size? This should have been standard comic size, would have liked that 9 card danger room put together image as a fold out poster.
Maaaannnnn I used to fiend for these cards back in the day. I live in Baltimore so we had Geppis comics in Woodlawn MD. My pop used to take me there every single weekend, I'd get them back to my grandmother's house and proceed to redraw every single one of em. Had a crispy white collector binder and everything lol. I gave all of them to a kid that lived in my building, he didn't have any friends n shit so we were buds. Cool kid that guy. So cool to see these again. Peace y'all ✌🏾 p.s. I'm buying that book if it's not sold out lol
Man, I ate these up when they came out. I still love them, but my favorite set was the first series of Marvel Masterpieces. Glad to see you discussing these cards, maybe a future episode with the first Marvel Masterpieces?
Pretty sure Paul Mounts is from the same town I'm from (Calumet City, IL). In high school my art teacher mentioned he was a student of hers. I bought a color separation printout of his work (layers of acetate with each color + line) at a local show. Anyway, Mounts is dope and a legend.
As I'm watching thys ...I look over to my desk & what do you know the holograms & X-men set is hanging out withe 90's impel series one set...great work guys I have to pick thys little gem up....thanks
Awesome set. I still have all the cards but still preordered the book. Just a great time to be a X-Men fan as a kid. Including the cards in the toys was a great idea as well. It would have a toybiz stamp on those cards though which annoyed me. Early OCD haha. That Magneto with the glowing hand was just perfection to me back then.
Regarding the question in the video of who wrote the acknowledgements section. It was Bob Budiansky-the main writer of the book and the editor of the original card set.
Such a great time to be a kid, looking upto McFarlane, and Lee, and trying to copy there art! Collected so many of these cards I have 2 sets and extras, I would even cut them up into pogs!
I preordered this months ago. Can’t wait to get my copy. I would line it if they contributed this book series. Marvel Universe ‘94 and Masterpieces ‘94 were my jam.
There’s some really good stuff in the first 50 issues of Excalibur. Claremont and Alan Davis working on Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers and Nightcrawler. A lot of fun to read.
Seeing the Magneto hologram unlocked a memory. Before the set released Diamond packed in a promo card with Previews. It was a Magneto holo, and the quality was better than the final card we got. You lost a lot of fine line art detail in the final version. Crazy.
Jim Lee has defined comic book awesomeness for me since I was 12. I had a binder full of these cards. Bernie Wrightson made a bunch of trading cards too. Any chance you guys might talk about them sometime? I just supported a Kickstarter for a 9x12 hardcover collection of them, printed by the same company that made the Ploog/Bisley Thicker Than Blood Collected Artwork edition.
I used to work at a comic book shop and I have SO MANY of these cards lol so many memories! also, didn't they release like a comic book format that released these page size? without the graphics on top? am I remembering that wrong?
Hopefully we'll get an Artist's Edition of these. It won't be very big though because Jim did two cards per 11x17 sheet so that's just over 50 pages. I guess they could throw in random pages that weren't included in the first X-Men Artist's Edition.
Awesome book lots of good memories, the danger room cards were dope I rember as a kid the hardest cards to find were the middle card Gambit, wolverine, shatter star. I would say even night crawler. The bottom cards cyclops, colossus, and cable were almost in every pack of cards I bought. Some of thoes cards were packed with action figures you didn't want but bought anyway cause you wanted to complete the set. Good times.
They’ve done wacky packs books that I love and that would be a good art spiegelman episode to talk about some of his different works since he was a really big force behind wacky packages. But after this episode I am excited to get my hands on this X-men book
God i loved this set. I think i had like 9 sets and 7 full sets with the foils . And Jim Lee is still the man. And a really nice guy. Great memories, thanks. 🫵😃👍 Oh i also had a hologram card of the X-Men #1 it was an oversized hologram. So cool. Jim Lee what a great artist 🔥
When I was a kid and these cards were coming out, I bought a few complete sets that Comics X-Press were putting out. Jim signed and numbered 100 of each card--- I still have 10 of the randomly inserted autographed cards *including that awesome Wolverine* and 2 signed holograms that were also randomly inserted into the sets. Luckily I ended up with two. I bought 5 sets and here were two of the signed cards per set.
I brought a unopened box of these cards to open with my son not so long ago we managed to get a full set and nearly a second set and boy am I glad I picked it up before the kayfab effect took affect 😅
I still have 2 (of 3 I think) full size comics of the card images blown up, they’re so cool. I think they are from a different year of the card sets though. The comics are fairly dated at this point but still a treasury.
these were a big deal when i was in grade school. i only had a few. domino and deadpool. if i remember correctly. in a art class we picked cards and drew the art on larger paper once.
Love him or hate him, he was one of my idols as a kid. An asian comic artist doing arguably the highest profile book at the time? I couldn't not support Jim Lee. The Psylocke card with her about to take out some Hand dudes, what a classic
Jim Lee's art looked so much better with the old flat coloring than the digital coloring. His figures were already sculptured with his rendering technique and didn't need the fake 3D of the digital coloring.
In Venezuela in the '90s someone made a bootleg album with the best images of every set it was pretty cool, I completed it and the images were like half the size as the cards, that was probably my first contact ever with X-men art and Jim Lee art
When Uncanny X-Men #268 came out, my dad took me to a local shop where Jim Lee was signing. Not many people there. This was my first time meeting any professional comic artist, and as far as I was concerned, he was the best there was at what he did. He signed our copies of 268 and was doing a sketch for each person of any character they wanted. I chose Wolverine, and my pop got Cap. He used a regular black Sharpie, and I was absolutely stunned and amazed at how fast and confident he was. I still have them, and I still feel that sense of awe when I look at them.
Hi Sken, hope you’re good. Hey may I please see an image of those (unique) sketches? Thanks !
When Jim Lee inks himself, he's a much more interesting artist. As beautiful as his work looks with Scott Williams- its just a bit too commercial, perfect and precise. On his own Lee rises to another level in my opinion.
The two things that have held Jim Lee back are his complete lack of curiosity and Scott Williams. Jim has the potential to be as great an artist as Moebius, Frazetta, Bilal, Tove Jansson and Breccia, but only twice has be ever been pushed out of his comfort zone: the first two issues of Deathblow, and the first issue of the abandoned Wildcats reboot written by Grant Morrison.
Leaving comics in the free libraries is one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard!!!! I’m stopping by the dollar bins at my local & making some stops…THANKS CARTOONIST KAYFABE, FROM CURRENT & FUTURE COMIC FANS!
Nice! I want to see art reviews for Hildebrandt Bros and Joe Jusko too!
Always thought Jim Lee was the best of his generation.
Super cool! Great to see this. I think I used to have some of these cards. I grabbed a Marvel Mastepieces book one day for $1 and it's some nice Joe Jusko card work.
I loved Excalibur, mostly on the quality of Alan Davis art, plus Claremont was still on it in the first part of the run, so it felt like an old school x book, even though it read more like a fantasy adventure comic.
I agree! Any excuse to see Alan Davis art is a good one. And later in the run Alan Davis returned as writer and artist, picking up and resolving a lot of threads that had been dropped after Claremont left.
Anytime Davis was on Excalibur it was magic. One of my top 5 books of all time.
Did they make this small to keep it with the card size? This should have been standard comic size, would have liked that 9 card danger room put together image as a fold out poster.
The palpable sense-memory I got from seeing these was intense. Thanks for the video and I’m looking forward to mainlining the book soon.
Great review! I also love the book pages that show the original art that was used for the cards. Super cool!!
I just stuupon this page and I love it because it grabs my younger days of comic book collecting in the late 80's and 90's you guys are awesome
I wish they would have included some blurbs along with the cards. like an annotated bibliography talking about their inspiration and creation
Maaaannnnn I used to fiend for these cards back in the day. I live in Baltimore so we had Geppis comics in Woodlawn MD. My pop used to take me there every single weekend, I'd get them back to my grandmother's house and proceed to redraw every single one of em. Had a crispy white collector binder and everything lol. I gave all of them to a kid that lived in my building, he didn't have any friends n shit so we were buds. Cool kid that guy. So cool to see these again. Peace y'all ✌🏾 p.s. I'm buying that book if it's not sold out lol
Man, I ate these up when they came out. I still love them, but my favorite set was the first series of Marvel Masterpieces. Glad to see you discussing these cards, maybe a future episode with the first Marvel Masterpieces?
Oh my God, I collected so many of these cards as a kid! I'm gonna have to get a copy of this book. It's kind of a must have for me. 🤩
The original art for many of these have shown up on Heritage Auctions and Comiclink.
Pretty sure Paul Mounts is from the same town I'm from (Calumet City, IL). In high school my art teacher mentioned he was a student of hers. I bought a color separation printout of his work (layers of acetate with each color + line) at a local show. Anyway, Mounts is dope and a legend.
As I'm watching thys ...I look over to my desk & what do you know the holograms & X-men set is hanging out withe 90's impel series one set...great work guys I have to pick thys little gem up....thanks
And you guys cover Jim Lee and I feel you guys felt the impact he had on us as kids and the the industry
Still got my full set of these. Happy days.
Awesome set. I still have all the cards but still preordered the book. Just a great time to be a X-Men fan as a kid. Including the cards in the toys was a great idea as well. It would have a toybiz stamp on those cards though which annoyed me. Early OCD haha. That Magneto with the glowing hand was just perfection to me back then.
John Byrne, Art Adams, Jim Lee - Best of X!!!!! Honorable mention - Marc Silvestri!
Regarding the question in the video of who wrote the acknowledgements section. It was Bob Budiansky-the main writer of the book and the editor of the original card set.
Such a great time to be a kid, looking upto McFarlane, and Lee, and trying to copy there art! Collected so many of these cards I have 2 sets and extras, I would even cut them up into pogs!
lol @ the Caliban card. I had like 5 of those!
Loved these as a young un. Never noticed the error on Wolverines card before. First appearance Incredible Hulk 180 October 1981?!
Thank You👍
I preordered this months ago. Can’t wait to get my copy. I would line it if they contributed this book series. Marvel Universe ‘94 and Masterpieces ‘94 were my jam.
There’s some really good stuff in the first 50 issues of Excalibur. Claremont and Alan Davis working on Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers and Nightcrawler. A lot of fun to read.
Seeing the Magneto hologram unlocked a memory. Before the set released Diamond packed in a promo card with Previews. It was a Magneto holo, and the quality was better than the final card we got. You lost a lot of fine line art detail in the final version. Crazy.
Jim Lee has defined comic book awesomeness for me since I was 12. I had a binder full of these cards. Bernie Wrightson made a bunch of trading cards too. Any chance you guys might talk about them sometime? I just supported a Kickstarter for a 9x12 hardcover collection of them, printed by the same company that made the Ploog/Bisley Thicker Than Blood Collected Artwork edition.
I love your spirit Ed!
I've owned 2 boxes of this set, both magneto boxes. One of the earliest sets I can remember along with marvel series 3 and dc cosmic cards.
I used to work at a comic book shop and I have SO MANY of these cards lol so many memories! also, didn't they release like a comic book format that released these page size? without the graphics on top? am I remembering that wrong?
Have this set plus almost every set they made it's insane and I'm very proud of my collection.
Hopefully we'll get an Artist's Edition of these. It won't be very big though because Jim did two cards per 11x17 sheet so that's just over 50 pages. I guess they could throw in random pages that weren't included in the first X-Men Artist's Edition.
These cards were coming out when I was in 5th grade. I preordered the book, i hope they do more for other sets.
Got this bad boy on preorder!
Excalibur was pretty great. Alan Davis killed it every month. If you haven't read it look it up.
Awesome book lots of good memories, the danger room cards were dope I rember as a kid the hardest cards to find were the middle card Gambit, wolverine, shatter star. I would say even night crawler. The bottom cards cyclops, colossus, and cable were almost in every pack of cards I bought. Some of thoes cards were packed with action figures you didn't want but bought anyway cause you wanted to complete the set. Good times.
You guys need to do an episode on 90s marvel t-shirts
read that intro bro. I want this book. I also hope they make books dedicated to the marvel trading card series
These are so good that the new Marvel SNAP card game uses recolored version of some of these cards in the game.
You guys would benefit from a reread/examination of Alan Davis' Excalibur run. Amazing book with some really outstanding weirdo characters.
They’ve done wacky packs books that I love and that would be a good art spiegelman episode to talk about some of his different works since he was a really big force behind wacky packages. But after this episode I am excited to get my hands on this X-men book
God i loved this set. I think i had like 9 sets and 7 full sets with the foils . And Jim Lee is still the man. And a really nice guy. Great memories, thanks. 🫵😃👍
Oh i also had a hologram card of the X-Men #1 it was an oversized hologram. So cool. Jim Lee what a great artist 🔥
These cards were a big influence on how I perceived these characters.
Jim Lee set the bar for the comic book art I like.
I bought an X-rah copy of Hulk Grand Design just to store in my friendly neighborhood library box
And ordered
When I was a kid and these cards were coming out, I bought a few complete sets that Comics X-Press were putting out. Jim signed and numbered 100 of each card--- I still have 10 of the randomly inserted autographed cards *including that awesome Wolverine* and 2 signed holograms that were also randomly inserted into the sets. Luckily I ended up with two. I bought 5 sets and here were two of the signed cards per set.
In the early 2000s Marvel released reprints of this card series in comicbook size format.. 3 issues
Absolutely loved this set. I had all the cards except 1. I would love to see the Mark Bagely Spider-Man set get a treatment like this.
It looks like there's a bunch of tacos in the background behind Feral. 🌮
I brought a unopened box of these cards to open with my son not so long ago we managed to get a full set and nearly a second set and boy am I glad I picked it up before the kayfab effect took affect 😅
i would love the batman masters series cards in a book too!!!
My guess is the wrapping paper they used is holographic and that's why the lines are showing up on them.
Mr. Rugg that hulk shit made me like hulk.
I still have 2 (of 3 I think) full size comics of the card images blown up, they’re so cool. I think they are from a different year of the card sets though. The comics are fairly dated at this point but still a treasury.
I'm from Italy, how could I order a copy of this book?
"Ch'od" "uh-huhuhuh uh-huhuh"
Red room is so fun
hi mind if i ask where can I can get the book?.
is this book small or are Ed's hands even more ginormous than I thought?
Physical comic books are cost prohibitive. Only adults have the income to buy them and because of the cost, not in large amounts.
I still have my complete deck.
I usually give put comics to trick-or-treaters. One year I gave out 500 comics. Kids love it.
That is amazing. Kudos to you sir. maybe I will think about doing the same. Just gotta find 500 comics 🤔😆
Grand design rox
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Not a huge Jim Lee fan but whenever I see some of his X-Men I can’t help but get a surge of good nostalgia. His Sabretooth is unmatched in my opinion.
these were a big deal when i was in grade school. i only had a few. domino and deadpool. if i remember correctly. in a art class we picked cards and drew the art on larger paper once.
I always liked Maverick
Ah yes, the guy that along with Bob Harras caused Chris Claremont leave the X-Men. Great artist, wish he'd never worked at Marvel.
Jimbo rox
✌️
Love him or hate him, he was one of my idols as a kid. An asian comic artist doing arguably the highest profile book at the time? I couldn't not support Jim Lee. The Psylocke card with her about to take out some Hand dudes, what a classic