Mars Attacks: Occupation - on Kickstarter May 5th
 

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ITS HERE, FOLKS!

Hopefully this is good news to some-- i'm certainly very excited!

I will be running the campaign myself and creating the product as well. We're already knee-deep into sketch work, and some of you may already have an idea of what's in store based on discussions i've had with fans right here on blowout!

I've posted in the sketch section a pic at the first one, and so far response is good on the look and design, not to mention the actual sketch. I'm going to great lengths to make sure sketches are TOP NOTCH, and that's something that going through Kickstarter allows, because it frees up our production schedule a LOT.

I'm sure there'll be TONS of questions and comments, and i'll be here every day to address them as best I can.

For now, go to [url]www.topps.com/marsattacks[/url] and sign up to receive updates and exclusive sneak peeks (as well as early access to the actual Kickstarter page in 2 weeks).

[I]Special Thanks to Site Admins for setting me up as a Topps rep and helping me get this thread started![/I]

Looking forward to it :)!

It seems weird that established companies are turning to Kickstarter to get products made.

I can't imagine Topps would be doing this for anything other than a smaller, niche brand like Mars Attacks. It was definitely not an easy decision, and one we spent a lot of time debating the pros/cons of.

In the end, we felt the pros of going directly to fans were too many to ignore.

[QUOTE=Dewman;8935911]It seems weird that established companies are turning to Kickstarter to get products made.[/QUOTE]

For niche products that they aren't sure will do well, it's a low risk way to get the fans to help fund production and they can gauge interest. If it's not there, nothing lost other than the time running the campaign.

Pretty smart, actually.

[QUOTE=Dewman;8935911]It seems weird that established companies are turning to Kickstarter to get products made.[/QUOTE]

Not anymore. Maybe 2 years ago. This is now the venue to get people to pay for exactly what they want. It allows big companies to offer more focused products with better quality than the usual spray and pray releases...

That's the big thing: quality. By utilizing Kickstarter, we've been allowed to go outside of our normal production process. Which is going to allow us to be a lot more flexible. It's going to mean a lot more work for me, but in the end, hopefully a better product will be the result, and you guys will be the beneficiaries of it.

But yes, customizing your purchase, being able to get exactly what you want. You'll be able to buy by the box, but also bundles of items, master sets, etc.

Glad to see you were able to get this posted.

Updates, news and imagery will start in earnest next week. For now I can tell you there's going to be at least a 72 card base set with 18 chase cards, and 4 kinds of hits:

Sketch Cards (of which there will be multiple types, and more than just simple logo variants)
Autographs (all on-card)
Metal (metal editions of the 1962 series)
Letter-Press (featuring woodcut art)

Lots more fun stuff to announce. All suggestions welcome, too.

Looking forward. Glad Alvin is in charge. Very nice sketch posted in the other MA:O thread.

Sounds cool... I hope this Kickstarter is successful!

Thanks, SFM. It's going to have it's challenges, but i'm excited to get started. For example, I will not have access to a lot of our usual internal resources.

But rather than look at this as a negative, I see it as a big opportunity, and an advantage of going through kickstarter... because also don't have their red tape :)

I can give our sketch artists a lot more time, I don't have to nail down a product configuration as soon, giving me more flexibility to make changes based on what's working, what's not and most importantly, how fans are responding on kickstarter.

[QUOTE=ALevine - Topps;8939839]Updates, news and imagery will start in earnest next week. For now I can tell you there's going to be at least a 72 card base set with 18 chase cards, and 4 kinds of hits:

Sketch Cards (of which there will be multiple types, and more than just simple logo variants)
Autographs (all on-card)
Metal (metal editions of the 1962 series)
Letter-Press (featuring woodcut art)

Lots more fun stuff to announce. All suggestions welcome, too.[/QUOTE]

any idea of the autographs at this point?

[QUOTE=glen87;8944576]any idea of the autographs at this point?[/QUOTE]

All the artists for certain-- and a few surprises, too.

With the multiple types of sketch cards... I hope their are some martian heaad diecuts floating around!

I am also excited by the metal subset... they should be sweet!

We've considered diecut sketches. Currently not in the plan, but we could be persuaded to add them, perhaps as a stretch goal. Is that something you think would be received really well by a majority of fans?

And is a Martian head you think the right shape? What other shapes might work?

[QUOTE=ALevine - Topps;8947120]We've considered diecut sketches. Currently not in the plan, but we could be persuaded to add them, perhaps as a stretch goal. Is that something you think would be received really well by a majority of fans?

And is a Martian head you think the right shape? What other shapes might work?[/QUOTE]

Yeah.. I think Martian head is the way to go to keep it in the spirit of the Star Wars diecut sets which were all heads/helmets (Vader, Stormtrooper, Clone trooper, Darth Maul, and Akbar).

Ah, that's true. Most of those were before my time at Topps, but I have seen them. Didn't realize they were all heads. Hmm...

But there are other shapes in other sets, like the Garbage Pail Kids garbage cans.

Yeah, I was just thinking though, there's not really a ton of great shapes... maybe a saucer?

[QUOTE=ALevine - Topps;8947304]Yeah, I was just thinking though, there's not really a ton of great shapes... maybe a saucer?[/QUOTE]

I would go for the head... and if there is ever another set, you can do a saucer (although I would probably just do another Martian head for that one too since it is so iconic :D).

Having fun with these!
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Nice looking sketch!

[QUOTE=finfangfan;8948200]Nice looking sketch![/QUOTE]

Thanks, appreciate it!

Not a fan of die-cuts