A LOOK BACK AT FUNNY MONSTER TRADING CARDS

Any Monster Kid back in the days of the Monster Craze of the 1960's and 1970's could hardly forget the monster cards that were always around at drug stores and mini-marts. I spent many a' nickel on the magical "wax packs", and believe me, it wasn't for the crappy slab of gum that sometimes ruined the faces of the cards with the powder that was on them! Like opening any other type of trading card pack, it was always exciting to see which cards you'd get next (usually doubles, triples, ad nauseum!).

Leaf had the quintessential series, "Spook Stories", with pictures on the cards from the Universal monster movies and the Hammer horror films that had been licensed and distributed in the US. On the front was a joke about the photo on the card, and on the back were more jokes, usually the type told between one ghost or other spooky character to another.

The first monster cards I remember seeing were from the Topps "Funny Monsters" series launched in 1959. This 66-card series, also titled "You'll Die Laughing", were masterfully drawn by MAD magazine illustrator, Jack Davis, and are considered to be the first ever series of monster trading cards. It's also interesting to note that they came out just the next year after the first issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND was published.

From 1959 through as recent as 1980, Topps produced three different series of their monster joke cards. This article from the October issue of the NON-SPORT UPDATE takes a look these creature collectibles