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The X-Files goes miniature
by Chris Lee
While trading cards are usually marketed to kids, there is a very adult undercurrent to this seemingly harmless hobby. Whether the subject matter be athletes, movies or television programs, or parody (like the popular "Wacky Packages" series of the '80s), the world of trading cards is many an adolescent's first introduction to grown-up pastimes like gambling, fetishism, and investing.
It's true. The purchase of every pack beyond the first is a crapshoot-you never know what you'll get or if the pack will be full of "doubles" previously acquired. The excessive attention given to hard, glossy photos with backsides containing detailed information on something one is already nuts about to begin with only heightens an obsession. And, of course, collectors justify their ever-mounting purchases with hopes that someday it will all be worth a lot of money.
The Topps Company's new "Season Three" collection of trading cards commemorating The X-Files, however, seems blatantly geared toward the same demographic of young adults that helped the FOX series and its network come to prominence in the first place. After all, what parents want their children fixating on pictures of a rotting, severed head in a garbage can (card 38) or an "embittered quadruple amputee" (card 45)?
Some of the cards feature dark, surreal artwork that appears to have been commissioned especially for the collection, freaky compositions that look like backdrops from a Nine Inch Nails video.
Since The X-Files itself relies heavily on the viewer's imagination to make its creepiness even more effective, it's no surprise that the world found in the confines of a 3-1/2 by 2-1/2-inch package of trading cards is a scary, nightmarish one.
Like the stats of a baseball player on the back of sports cards, X-Files cards include detailed information on the various episodes, including original air date, writer, director, cast information, and story. The obligatory magazine-style portraits of Agents Mulder and Scully pop up as expected as well, as do action shots and entire cards devoted to the production aspects of the series.
These particular "bubble-gum cards" don't even come with bubble gum, an improvement since nobody bought them for the stiff, tasteless stick that was always caked with so much sugar it left a permanent residue behind on the one card it had touched in the pack. Each pack does promise the chance of finding "randomly-inserted" 3-D hologram cards though (along with an "Approximate odds per pack of finding 3-D hologram cards 1:18" disclaimer).
It remains to be seen if these X-Files cards will ever pay off as an investment. Each slim pack, priced at $1.50, contains only nine cards. It would likely take several dozen packs to eventually attain the entire collection, and adults who are so ga-ga over the show to do such a thing would surely be the only ones looking to pay top dollar for such items in the future. But then again, what do I know-trust no one. Get 'em while you can.
For more X-Files information, check out Rhonda Hicks's site
