Friday, March 13, 2009

What IS this???


'Cuz I don't have a clue.
It's printed on a 4 1/2" x 7 3/4" card stock.
It's dated 1996 and signed as if it were part of some sort of promotion.
It fell out from between some penciled pages from the same era.
I don't think I designed it because the typography isn't my style with that rule flanking my name.
It looks more like an Eclipse Comics type thing except in 1996 Eclipse had been out of business for a long, long time.
I have absolutely no idea what this is or what it was for!
Do you?

11 comments:

bob said...

There's a similar, but not identical, drawing of Mr. Spook on the backcover of CEREBUS #204 (March 1996), advertising an event with you, Sim, Gerhard and others celebrating an anniversary for Montreal's Librairie Nebula on April 13th. Scan over here. Related to that?

Unknown said...

I haven't seen that card before. Tried finding it online, and the only thing I found was a reference to a "“Parts Unknown” trading card" in a 1996 Gunk'l'dunk issue here: http://gunkldunk.wordpress.com/gunkldunkv02/gldv2n2/ but no image to accompany it. Could it be that?

bob said...

"Parts Unknown" was a series Beau Smith did for Eclipse. I don't recall the details of the trading card that led me to list it as upcoming in Gunk'l'dunk way back then, but as far as I can determine it never came out (if it was going to be published by Eclipse, Cat Yronwode doesn't have it on her list of everything Eclipse published).

Though just checking now I see that Smith continued Parts Unknown from Knight Press and Image. If anyone knows if any Marder art that might have been intended for the card set (if it was ever drawn) showed up, I'd love to know.

(by the way, also on that Gunk'l'dunk list, "Visions of A Distant Soil" did eventually come out as "Images of A Distant Soil", though without any Marder art)

bob said...

To clarify, Yronwode doesn't list the PU trading card set, she does list the 4-issue series and subsequent one-shot Eclipse published.

Doc said...

Just IMHO, but it looks like a tipped in book plate sort of thingy. Maybe for the comprehensive Beanworld omnibus that reprinted everything ever published, including the one-shots and short stories. Oh, wait, that was just a dream I had. A bee-oo-tee-ful dream.

Grandfather Coyote

Unknown said...

Doc, I think you may be onto something there. The back of the Image/Beanworld Press collections have an ad that says V.1 and 2 had limited hardcover editions (V.1 had an original sketch!). V.1 has a copyright of 1995, so it's the right timeframe. Never saw the hardcovers myself though, only the paperbacks

Geoffrey said...

I have both the aforementioned hardcovers and I'm almost positive that the card in question appeared in neither. I have v2 right in front of me and the tipped in plate is a print of a section of the Bone Zone with a hand-drawn nervous Bean peeking from behind one of the Skulls. I don't have v1 in front of me because I'm in the middle of a move and somehow the movers managed to pack the 2 volumes in separate boxes. (Ugh...) But I can all but guarantee my fellow beanophiles that the Mr. Spook image is absent from v1 as well. My memory tells me that it was a non-descript Bean (aka a tool-less Chow Soldier =) ). But my memory has proven to be erroneous in the past so I can't weigh in with full authority until more of these boxes divulge their contents! =)

bob said...

Shield, the only hardcovers (until the recent WAHOOLAZUMA, of course!) were the Eclipse ones, both long before 1996. As you mention, v1 had an original sketch in each (mine, #532, has the Lead Guitar Boom'r). I never did get v2, but Geoffrey's description of a printed image with some sketching by Larry around it seems right.

Inkstuds said...

I am pretty sure it is from a Diamond promotional deal from about 1996. They were offering deals on alternative tpbs that would have a bonus signed card. I remember there was an ash book, the first Hate, and a bunch of other stuff. It was probably added to the first Beanworld trade back when those were reorderable from back stock.

Larry Marder said...

A Diamond promotion!
That rings a bell now!
That's gotta be it.
Funny how the whole thing just slipped out of my memory.
I think that clears up this mystery.
Thanks, Inkstuds!
And thanks to everyone who put on their Thinking Caps for this.

bob said...

So there was a time Diamond encourage re-orders and interest in indy comics? Weird...

By the way, Larry, do you know if "? and !" is included in the upcoming third collection of MySpace DHP?