SOTW: Part 10

"Join me and I will complete your training" Hey why not? Darth Vader seemed to have a pretty sweet gig right? Not for Luke though he was a Jedi, like his father before him! Wait a minute... Oh well, this weeks Stormtrooper of the Week (SOTW) is from a set of Topps Empire Strikes Back cards, printed in 1980.

These can still be found at comic shops across the land, but this particular card is from one of my first encounters with a wholesale club concept that has changed the way America buys bulk. All my friends and I would go and beg our parents to take us to Sam's which had just moved into a bowling alley right next door to Wal Mart, go figure, huh. The place really didn't seem as big as it does now, and come to think of it it really wasn't in that location long.

We would save our allowance and newspaper money to buy these chewing gum cards by the box load and tear home to see who could chew the most gum while sorting and trading cards. The stacks of cards and stale chewing gum never seemed to end.

The illustration cards were always some of my favorites (next to the Ralph McQuarrie cards), while simple in design they had pretty dynamic poses of the characters. The backs of the cards would carry quotes or facts about the movie which were always good for a quick reference to all your favorite moments in the film. These were probably one of the reasons I decided to start a career in illustration.