C-3PO Golden Rod Error Sketch by John Soukup

Today's card is an art "card" paying homage to an infamous Star Wars card, the C-3PO Golden Rod error. Back when the original Star Wars sets were being produced, the C-3PO photo chosen had a bit of costume out of place, leading it to look like C-3PO was rather excited. This was scandalous, and Topps put out a corrected version of the card that removed the offending appendage. The uncorrected version is rather popular and probably one of the more expensive cards from the Star Wars sets now.

Recently, artist John Soukup, whose work I've featured on this blog before, has been posting Star Wars sketches done on wood to his eBay page. One of those sketches called back to the C-3PO Golden Rod error card, and I had to have it for my collection. I've got at least one copy of the error card in my collection, and in fact it makes up part of the background collage for my blog.

Here is the back of the artwork, for the sake of completeness. Not sure what SSW stands for, but it is appropriately labeled as a 1/1.

How Much is This in Imperial Credits?

Over a year ago, I posted about some painted dollar bills I'd gotten from artist John Soukup. Those ones were superhero-themed. A couple (few?) months ago, I picked up another handful of them from his eBay store, with this batch focusing on Star Wars characters. It took me a while to scan them and get them to the front of the posting queue.

First up are a couple of Star Wars heroines, Leia and Rey. In the typical Soukup fashion, both are holding pickles in their hands. I haven't thought to ask him, "Why pickles?' but I imagine he has his reasons. The Leia card is what drew me in to bidding on these, but I usually check out his auctions anyway, just to see what cool stuff he's come up with. 

I also got a few other characters, including cantina patron Momaw Nadon, bounty hunter Greedo, and Darth Vader. At the time these were up for auction, there was also a Boba Fett bill listed that I lost out on when I got distracted as the bidding closed. That was disappointing, but I've become a lot better about not getting worked up when I lose an auction. There will always be another cool thing out there for me to add to my collection, and most of the painted bills on offer wound up coming to me anyway. I really ought to stop by the Art-o-mat machine here in Dayton while I'm in the area. I'm in a different hotel this year, so the gallery is pretty far out of my way. It still might be worth the trip, though, to see what they've got in the machine this time.

Darth Bader and Star Wars Sketches from Corky

Corky from the Pack War blog recently sent me a package full of some of my favorite things: UFC autographs and sketch cards.

I'll start off with the UFC autographs. Corky is one of the few bloggers I know of who collects UFC cards, and I believe his primary fighter collection is Ryan 'Darth' Bader. Apparently he's picked up some doubles over the years, and he sent them my way. This one is from 2010 Topps UFC.

The resemblance isn't really all that great when they are side by side, but whenever I see Ryan Bader, I think of Nick Frost, who played Simon Pegg's friend in Shaun of the Dead.

This one is from 2010 Topps UFC Knockout. It's on fancy thick stock, and also serially-numbered # 076 / 188. Even though Bader is the #4-ranked Light Heavyweight and has won 8 of his last 10 fights, he is currently looking at moving to Bellator due to the UFC refusing to renew his contract. There's always drama in the fight game.

Corky is an artist, and did up a Leia sketch for my collection. He even drew it on his own custom sketch card stock, with the artist's real name and blog link. It's always fun to add another sketch to my Leia collection.

He also included this Boba Fett sketch by artist John Soukup, whose work features heavily here on The Raz Card Blog. I remember seeing this sketch on eBay. I hope I didn't bid on it, as that would have been a bit rude on my part.

This was a pretty fun package to open, with plenty of good stuff for my various collections. Once again it is much too late for me to be awake, but I am trying to get through everything that other bloggers have sent my way. I don't want anyone to think I am ungrateful, because I am thankful to be surrounded (virtually) by so many generous folks. Thanks, Corky! I will try to get something decent put together to send back your way.

More Star Wars Goodness by John Soukup

John Soukup is an artist who features heavily in my collection, and back in November I picked up another one. Wow, November was a long time ago! I am pretty far behind on my posts, and I've got enough queued up to get me through the end of February. This sketch actually appeared in my Carrie Fisher tribute post, but I haven't yet posted about it specifically.

I believe this card comes from the Topps Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens set, but I am not 100% sure on that. There are a lot of Topps sets based on The Force Awakens, and because I didn't buy a lot of those products I am not intimately familiar with the variances in the sketch card stock used for them. But Journey to The Force Awakens is my best guess.

I am inclined to believe that this was the reference photo used for the sketch. I don't always seek out reference photos for sketch cards, but I thought that C-3PO hanging out in a dark background like that was a little unsettling, and I had to see if it came from a film scene.

There isn't a whole lot else to say at the moment. Today was kind of a wasted day. I slept in and didn't do much else. I spent the last two days at work moving furniture around, and it kind of wiped me out. We are getting a new supervisor on Tuesday, and we wanted to get everyone moved around before he starts work. We had to shuffle things between three offices, and then move all of the extra stuff into the tiny office that was left over, aka the new storage closet. I found myself involved in almost every furniture move, and I also spent a lot of time running the carpet cleaner. I don't mind physical labor, but I was tired by the end of Friday.

A Star Wars Sketch Card and Decorating the Walls of My Office

I'm going to keep the sketch card theme rolling with a Star Wars sketch by artist John Soukup, whose work has been featured a lot on this blog. 

This card illustrates the briefing room scene in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope prior to the Battle of Yavin, which led to the destruction of the first Death Star. The sketch comes from the 2013 Topps Star Wars Galactic Files: Series 2 set.

I recognized the scene right away when I saw the card, but here is a screencap from the film. This is the part where they talk about a weak point they've found in the Death Star's defenses, a thermal exhaust port that is vulnerable to a torpedo attack that could lead to a chain reaction that would destroy the base.

I am a pretty big fan of Soukup's work, and I recently also acquired a full-size painting of his for my new office at work. It's a pretty big painting, and I've had plenty of compliments on it from my coworkers. This cell phone picture sucks some of the color out of the painting, which is unfortunate. I have it hanging in front of my desk so I can look at it when I need to zone out for a second. That flame in the middle of the painting glows in the dark.

I also finally hung up some prints we bought from artist Mike Maydak at the Emerald City Comic Con in 2012. They depict the three characters my kids are named after. I don't know what I'll do if we ever have another kid. I guess I'll have to track him down and see if he's got a print of whatever character's name we come up with. He's got some cool stuff. It would be really neat to snag one of his original paintings, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

My Long Journey to See the Art-o-mat!

Some time ago I was goofing around on the internet, as is my custom, and I stumbled across something called Art-o-mat. An Art-o-mat is a retired cigarette vending machine that is refurbished and converted to dispense pieces of artwork that are the same size and weight as a pack of cigarettes. I thought that was a pretty cool thing, but I checked the map and saw that Idaho does not have an Art-o-mat machine in the state. I did, however, notice that there is one in Dayton, Ohio. I happen to be in Dayton for some training right now, so I put it on my list of things to do while I'm here.

My work has kept me pretty busy during the day and I have been studying in the evenings, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity to get out and about yet. But today we got out of class early enough that I had time to put my plan into action. The plan was to park my car at a park near the river and walk the trail down the river to the Dayton Visual Arts Center, where I would use the Art-o-mat, see what else there was to see, and head back down the trail to my car, hopefully catching a lot of Pokemon along the way.

Things started out pretty well. The trail is paved and it was pretty scenic. Ohio is very green. If you leave nature to fend for itself in Idaho, it turns brown and rocks come out of the ground. If you don't mow every 8-12 hours in Ohio, you get a wall of brush and weeds 20 feet high.

My main complaint is that it was hot and muggy. I think the temperature was around 90 degrees and the humidity was like a million gallons per atmospheric unit or however they measure the water in the air. That is one reason why I was the only person on the trail aside from the occasional bicyclist. The other reason is that after I got down the trail a ways it was blocked off and closed for construction. There were detour signs, so I followed them and found myself walking several miles through the less-scenic parts of Dayton. There were waste management companies, recycling facilities, scrapyards, forges, abandoned buildings, and all the stuff you usually see while driving quickly through the industrial part of town. I am glad that for most of the detour there were sidewalks. I noticed that I continued to be the only person stupid enough to be out walking in the heat.

After a long time, I got to where I was headed. There were people there, and I saw a park with a water pad and benches and a vending machine where I might find a cold bottle of water. But first I had to get to the Art Center.

This is me in front of the Dayton Visual Arts Center. I actually took this picture as I was leaving, but that doesn't really matter. It didn't change much while I was in there. Before getting to the Art-o-mat I signed the guest book, enjoyed the air conditioning, and looked at the displays they had up. It's a small building, but there was enough art there to keep me busy for 20 minutes or so. I don't have much of an art vocabulary, but there were a few things that made me linger and think for a minute. There was a guy moving around, setting up a table with hors d'oeuvres for an event they were having. One art fixture was a wind chime/gong-looking thing. I wanted to make a sound with it, but I wasn't sure if it was okay. Later on a couple came in for the event and the guy went over and rang the chime and I cheered a little inside. They were known to the guy setting up the table, so it was probably better for that guy to be the one to bang the chime.

So I finally got back to the Art-o-mat machine and had to decide which art to get. It's a pretty cool-looking fixture in itself. They are all different and there are a lot of them. The gallery of machines on the Art-o-mat site is pretty impressive. Each slot in the machine is stocked with art by a particular artist, so you have some idea about what you might get.

I saw a familiar name among the listings, as Kettle is a pseudonym for John Soukup, an artist I've featured many times on my blog. I knew from my research beforehand that each piece of art costs $5, so I had a couple of fives ready. Two times I put my bill in the machine and pulled the handle, and after a ker-chunk sound and some rattling a painted block of wood slid out of the chute.

Here are the pieces I got, both by Kettle. In retrospect it might have been cool to sample some other artists, but maybe I can visit again and give it a shot. I was happy to add another couple of pieces to my Kettle art collection. I'm pretty sure that I purchased the last two Kettle pieces in the machine, as when I looked at the slot in the machine that painting of the girl was the one on top of his stack. Not all of the art is paintings on blocks of wood. Some artists make jewelry and put it in little boxes. I saw that one person makes little toy rocket ships that can be assembled. Artists make little notebooks or figurines and package them so that they are the right shape. It's a pretty cool idea.

At this point I realized that it was about time to start heading back. I hadn't thought ahead enough, and now I had a dilemma. I had these two pieces of artwork painted with water-soluble paints, and I had to get them all the way back across town to my car. I asked the guy at the gallery if they had a bag I could take with me, and he went in the back and found something that would work. I thought that was pretty nice of him, and I thanked him and went on my way because it looked like the art event was about to kick off and I didn't want to be there when that happened. I don't have a goatee, so the art folks would have known me for an outsider and hazed me or something.

I walked back by the park and found that the vending machine didn't work, but there was a concession stand and I bought a slush drink from them. It was probably the best dollar I spent this year. It was just icy sugar water, but I was hot and miserable and that sugary water ice drink was the best thing in the world. I noticed that there were a lot of people around looking at their phones, so I got my phone out and saw that I was right on top of two Pokestops. I sat there with my slush for a while and caught a lot of Pokemon, including several new ones that I hadn't seen yet. The breeze coming in off the river made the weather almost nice, if a little hot. Once I started walking again that niceness went away. I walked past Fifth Third Field where the Dayton Dragons play baseball, but they didn't have a game tonight. It looked like there was something going on in the park, but it wasn't baseball. After that I walked through a slightly different part of Dayton's industrial area than I had on the way in. Again, I was the only person on the sidewalk for the whole time.

At one point a woman called out, "I like your bag! It's real cute!" from a car stopped at a red light. I thanked her, but I think she must have been messing with me or something. As you can see, it's a plain white bag with handles on it. I guess maybe it's an odd thing for a man to be carrying around the industrial area of town. I am not very good with social cues and interactions, so I don't really know what was going on there. Hopefully she got what she was looking for.

Eventually I got back to my car and I was very happy to be sitting down in the air conditioning again. My feet still hurt, and I imagine I will have more aches and pains tomorrow. The walk was a little too long and the heat was a little too hot for me to be doing that kind of thing. I would like to go back over to that area of town, but next time I will park a lot closer. At least I got some nice art, some new Pokemon, and a decent story out of the ordeal.

The Art Collector

I've shown off quite a few pieces of art done by John Soukup aka Kettle over the last year or so, including several sketch cards, a sticker sketch, and a Ken Griffey Jr.-themed painted baseball. Several times I have expressed the desire to own a larger piece of his work, but I wasn't ever sure if I would be able to make it happen.

Earlier this year he posted one of his paintings on eBay, a piece featuring Marvel comic book characters Thing and Man-Thing having some tea. I was in a position to bid on it at the time, probably because it was around tax return time, and when the dust cleared I was the winner.

I'm not 100% sure that I 'get' this painting, but I know a Carfax report shows information for used cars, like accidents, ownership history, repairs, and maintenance records. I would imagine that it would be useful to get a similar report for someone's heart, so you can know what kind of stuff to watch out for before you begin a new relationship. That might take some of the fun and mystery out of things, though.

I was really excited to see the next painting he posted a little while later. I had actually seen it on his DeviantArt page in late 2015, and I liked it so much that I even left a comment on the gallery page. And I mentioned it in a blog post in January. I'm not sure why, but I could stare at this thing for hours. I went back and looked at it quite a bit online over the first couple months of 2016, and when Kettle posted it on eBay I knew I had to have it for myself. 

He e-mailed me around the same time to show me some other work and I had to ask him the story behind this painting. The short version of his response is that he goes to a lot of comic conventions and there are always women there cosplaying (dressing up as characters from comics/TV shows/movies) and when they walk by everyone is looking at them and thinking about them. He wondered what the cosplayers were thinking about while everyone was thinking about them and decided that they were probably disconnected from all the attention and instead were thinking about what their cat was doing at home. So this is a Wonder Woman cosplayer focused on her cat while everyone else is focusing on her.

I was able to win this painting, too, and unfortunately as soon as it arrived my wife stole it from me. We share the room that we use as an office, so I still get to look over at her wall and see the painting, but it's not the same as if it were actually mine. I will have to steal it back some day. These are some decent-sized paintings, with the 'Carfax' one being 20" x 20" and the Wonder Woman one (titled 'Left Iowa Saturday Afternoon' on DeviantArt) being 18" x 24".

I am pretty excited that timing and fate matched up in a way that allowed me to obtain both of these paintings for my collection. While these weren't small purchases for me, I feel good every time I look at them and that's more than I can say about a lot of the stuff I buy. While I don't 'get' everything that Soukup / Kettle produces, he does a whole lot of stuff that speaks to me, like there is stuff in the art that tells me he's been to some of the same places mentally as I have. The Star Wars and comic book references are an important part of that, but I think there is more to it than just recognizing the characters or pop culture references. It has more to do with which characters he uses, how they look, and how they interact with each other and their environments. I don't know if any of that made sense. I'm not that great at talking about art and I'm probably even less good at talking about feelings.

Leia Sketches by John Soukup and Bianca Thompson

I really enjoy adding new art to my collection, especially art featuring my favorite characters from comic books and the Star Wars universe. I recently picked up a couple of pieces featuring Princess Leia from two of my favorite artists, John Soukup (Kettle) and Bianca Thompson.

This piece by Soukup is done on a Priority Mail postage label. Apparently there is a whole movement devoted to making art on postal labels and other stickers and then sticking onto things in public places. Label 228 is a popular item for this as it can be obtained in large quantities for free and the surface can accept all sorts of inks and paints. Apparently there is also an arms race going on to develop stickers that cannot be easily removed from surfaces, allowing artists to more permanently affix their work to public fixtures. My inner delinquent thought it might be fun to stick this Leia sketch somewhere in public, but the collector in me reasoned that if I did that I wouldn't have it in my collection anymore.

I wonder if it is hard for artists to sell their art and ship it off to some other person? I think that if I were an artist I would want people to enjoy my work, but I would want to be able to take it back with me and have control of it. Not a great business model. Even with my less personal possessions I find that if I lend it to someone else to get a better look I really have to fight the urge to snatch it back from them when I feel they've had it for too long or aren't appreciative enough of it. I guess I have a bit of a problem with sharing. Probably every artist has an individual level of comfort when it comes to letting their art go out into the world.

And here is a sketch card done by Bianca Thompson featuring Leia as Jabba the Hutt's slave. Thompson recently posted a link to my post about one of her Wonder Woman sketch cards on her Facebook page. It was kind of cool that she went out of her way to plug my blog. I have conflicting feelings about the slave costume which I discussed at length in a previous post about a sketch card. To rehash, it's an important part of the story and it fits into the timeline, but I think people tend to see it as the SEXY slave costume rather than as the sexy SLAVE costume. Maybe it's just nit-picking and I understand that culturally the costume probably reaches further than the films do, so many people know it more from the cultural references to it than from watching and thinking about the films. Like anything, there are multiple viewpoints and we each view everything through a different filter. This is a cool sketch card done in Thompson's distinctive style, and I am happy to have it in my collection. In going through my blog posts it looks like this post contains my 14th and 15th different sketches of Leia, so I'm building a decent little collection. I need to find a way to display them all together.

These Marvel-ous Dollar Bills have got Me in a Pickle

I won a couple more pieces from artist John Soukup aka Kettle; this time a couple of illustrations from a series he did featuring superheroes holding pickles painted on the face of dollar bills. I chose to bid on these ones because Spider-Man is universally awesome and one of my sons is named after Wolverine. My other two sons are named after superheroes as well, but their namesakes weren't among the items available...yet.

I actually purchased these items and wrote that first paragraph a long time ago, probably several months or maybe even close to a year ago. At the time I was thinking pretty heavily about how you define art and how we separate art from not-art. The thing that really sparked this internal discussion was a couple of performance art pieces I saw, but then I started thinking about sketch cards and art on currency and figures painted for wargaming and where the line is that you have to cross to have something be considered as art. I found that the discussion kind of goes around in circles and seems to have a lot to do with being able to trace the inspirations for your art along a lineage of influences that are accepted by the artsy people as legitimate. You could also influence other people and be retroactively accepted by arty people because they like the work of people who traced themselves artistically back to you. That's the really short version, and there are probably all kinds of holes and exceptions in that definition. You need arty people to like your art or your art isn't really art. For what it's worth, I think the stuff Soukup does is art because it appeals to me in a certain way.

In the time between picking up those first pieces and now I was able to get a couple more bills featuring the characters my other sons were named after, Hulk (Bruce) and Thing (Benjamin). These guys aren't holding pickles, though, so they don't quite all fit the same theme. I think they are pretty cool. I'd really like to pick up one of Soukup's full-size paintings, but that is a #futuregoals kind of thing more than a today thing. Until then I'll keep picking up these smaller works and spend time thinking about the true definition of art.

Leia Wooden Sketch Card by John Soukup

Here's another Princess Leia sketch I've had in my collection for a little while. I got it directly from the artist, John Soukup, through an eBay auction. I really ought to take a picture of this from the side, as the Leia portion of the card is a piece of wood that has been painted and attached to the card. It's a pretty cool piece of art featuring Leia in her classic bun hairstyle and white dress. I like the 3D effect that the wooden figure adds to the piece, although that doesn't really come through in the scan. He has done a couple of commissioned displays featuring groups of Star Wars figures in certain themes, like Hoth or Jabba's Palace. I found these images of them on a Rebel Scum forums thread:

More information on this set on the Mighty Jabba's Collection site!

If you click through the link in the caption on this photo you can see more detail on these figures, like the back of the Rancor! I really like the inclusion of Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

The ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi glows in the dark! I like the C-3PO, too. I think it's the eyes.

I've also seen some Marvel comic book characters that he has made wooden figures for. I think they're a pretty neat item. I'd like to commission a set someday, but it would be hard to decide what universe and which characters to ask for. It would also be really neat to add a full-size painting of his to my wall, but it would have to be the right piece and I'd probably need to save for a while to make it happen.

I was really glad to add another Leia sketch to my collection, and I was also very happy to get another piece done by John Soukup. It looks like he's updated his DeviantArt page a couple of times in the last few months. You can see some of his other stuff on there, like more of the wooden figures, some Star Wars tarot cards, some of his own creations, and a Wonder Woman painting that I can't stop looking at. I have a couple of other things done by him that I've been sitting on for a while because when I bought them I started thinking about the definition and meaning of art. That's a big subject and a blog post I may never be able to wrap my head around, so I might just do a regular post about the items so I can get them up on display.

Leia Sketch Card by John Soukup

I've had this card for quite a while, having won it from an eBay seller back in October. It's a sketch card of Princess Leia by John Soukup from the 2015 Topps Star Wars: Journey to the Force Awakens set. You can see part of Jabba the Hutt in the background there, which leads me to wonder if this card has another piece out there somewhere. I haven't seen one, but I also haven't been looking very hard for it. I do have some pretty wide searches out there for Star Wars sketches and Soukup's work, so I would think that if one exists and comes up for sale I will at least see it.

Because I tend to sit and stew on things for months at a time, I have been thinking about how the world views Princess Leia's slave costume. It bothers me a little bit that people see the costume and say, "Oh! It's sexy Leia!" while ignoring that it is also a slave costume. It is a sexy costume, but it's not sexy because Leia felt like sexing it up that day. It's because Jabba the Hutt was a bad guy who enslaved people and dressed them up to humiliate them and show off his power. The scenes set in Jabba's palace are an important part of the Star Wars story in general and Leia's story arc in particular, and the costume deserves to be known as more than just the "Sexy Leia" costume. The costume is important in that Leia uses the chains that are a part of it to choke and kill Jabba while making her own escape. She is an active participant in the escape / rescue rather than just a damsel in distress waiting on someone else to save her. She overcomes Jabba's attempt to denigrate her and shows that she isn't defined by his attempts to control her.

Maybe I am overthinking this stuff, but as a husband and father I find myself looking at the messages that come into my home and the messages I send by my words and actions. Star Wars is going to be a part of my family's mythology, and the slave costume is part of that. I want to raise my kids to see female characters as more than eye candy. Leia is a powerful hero in the Star Wars universe, and taking a proper view of the slave costume as a symbol of Jabba's ill intentions allows the viewer to see Leia's strength and will to rise above the circumstances she finds herself in. I don't think that the slave costume needs to be whitewashed or removed from the movies. I don't deny that Carrie Fisher looks attractive in the costume. She is attractive in the other Leia costumes, too. But she also plays a character who exhibits strength, leadership, and determination. Physical attractiveness is just one of her qualities.

Sorry for the preachy post. I have conflicting feelings about the slave Leia costume and society's view of women, and I didn't just want to throw the sketch up here on my blog without some sort of commentary. I am not particularly qualified as a champion of gender politics, but I have been thinking about this stuff as I evaluate myself and the messages I send to my wife, kids, and the other people I interact with in life.

We still haven't seen The Force Awakens. It's hard to find five tickets side-by-side that aren't in the front row of the theater. It'll probably be next weekend before we get out to see it. A (former) friend of mine already spoiled the movie for me, so I figure I can wait another week to see it. The logistics of even simple things like going to the movies are much more complicated when you've got three young kids. The new Force Awakens set from Topps has added a new card to my want list, but the going price has this particular card up there in the White Whale category:

It's a sticker autograph, but that doesn't really bother me much. Time will tell if I eventually save enough money up and allocate it to getting a copy of this card, but it's the new top dog on my "If I Win the Lottery" list. It's currently trading at well over $200, so it's not one of those impulse-buy things for me. I definitely would like to add a copy to my Leia collection, though.

Another Awesome Interactive Sketch Card by John Soukup!

I picked up another cool interactive sketch card from John Soukup. The last one I featured was a lift-the-flap style card from Adventure Time. This one comes from the Topps Star Wars: Journey to the Force Awakens set and is an Artist Return I purchased directly from him on eBay. It's a pretty cool Darth Vader sketch in it's own right, but that's not even the best part. You may notice the little cut in the card next to the artist's signature in that scan on the right. That's what allows this to happen:

The card came with a lightsaber attachment that can be extended and retracted for battle. Either that or it's an extra-long tube of lipstick for touching up Vader's makeup while he's out and about. Can't have your face looking ratchet when you're choking Admirals and reviewing the troops. This is one of the cooler sketch cards in my collection and I'm glad I was able to add it to my collection.