True Crime Trading Cards?
how high will they rank on the ick scale?
When I spotted this display of true crime trading cards at my local toy shop, I couldn’t resist picking up a pack.
As you can see, the font and blood spatter illustration is going for a sort of hard-boiled vibe, which is replicated on the individual packs.
I was curious if the cards themselves would also take a romanticized and/or salacious approach to representing crime and criminals in the images or copy. Accompanied by two intrepid co-hosts (my partner and our dear friend) and a glass of wine, we popped open the cards and were . . . pleasantly surprised?
As you can hopefully see, the art is quite skillful and unexpectedly understated, even the Gacy! (third row down, middle)1 The flash of red that is meant to represent Mayor Anton Cermak’s assassination (fourth row down, middle) is impressionistic, not gory.
Oh hey, never heard of the assassination of Mayor Anton Cermak? Neither had we! Another positive of the cards is the lengthy and fairly nuanced copy on the back of each card, providing historical context as well as basic facts about the subject of the card.2
Overall our hottest takes were as follows:
“Imagine if you got an autographed card”
On Dennis Nilsen (top row, far right): “This guy’s just Stephen King!”3
On Ted Bundy: “This has to be the Babe Ruth card”
In response to the card copy that Hindley and Brady “shared a burgeoning interest in sexual deviance, sadism, and antisocial behavior”: “That’s just called online dating”
We have issues with the “Slum Gangs” (top row, far right) being included collectively: “Seems kind of vague to have individual murderers on cards and then like every gang from New York ever”
“Definitely educational” and “better than reading Wikipedia by yourself”!
If you want more in-depth *live* commentary on these cards and have sixteen minutes to spare, please enjoy the following video! A few important notes:
there is pervasive cursing
there is discussion and description of the horrible things some of these killers did
I make the embarrassing mistake of calling Richard Speck “the Canadian guy” when he is the Chicago guy (I confused him with Marc Lépine)
There is footage of my cat, Jim
Please join me next week for my review of, and I’m not kidding, True Crime: The Musical.
The back of the checklist card has bios of the authors and artist, Jon Bright. Just eyeballing the pieces on Deviant Art, I’m pretty sure this is him.
If you would like to learn about Cermak and don’t have this card in your collection, Wikipedia is here for you!
Apologies to one of our country’s finest writers, because Nilsen’s crimes are truly horrifying.
It was fun to hear your voices!
This is a really good edition of True Crime Fiction! I especially loved the video. You guys sound great on audio and play off each other so well, I think you should consider a podcast! These true crime cards are crazy; I’d never buy them so I’m glad you did, because overall, not as bad as I thought, either. The art style makes all the difference I think.