Mars Attacks is a science fiction trading card

Trading card

A trading card is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing and a short description of the picture, along with other text...

 series released in 1962. The cards feature artwork by science-fiction artist Wallace Wood and tell the story of the invasion of Earth by cruel, hideous Martians. The cards depicted futuristic battle scenes and bizarre methods of Martian attack, torture and slaughter. The story ends with a combined Earth invasion fleet attacking Mars by landing on the planet and destroying it.

The cards proved popular with children but their explicit gore and implied sexual content caused an outcry, leading the company to halt production. The cards became collectors' items.

In the 1980s Topps began developing merchandise based on the Mars Attacks storyline, including mini-comic books and card reprints. An expanded set of 100 cards was issued in 1994. Director Tim Burton

Tim Burton

Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...

 filmed Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour, and political satire, and claims to be also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies...

in 1996 based on the series, spawning another round of merchandising.

Trading cards

The Mars Attacks trading card series was created by Topps

Topps

The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

 in 1962. Product developer Len Brown, inspired by Wally Wood

Wally Wood

Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...

's cover for EC Comics

EC Comics

Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...

 Weird Science

Weird Science (comic)

Weird Science was a science fiction anthology comic book that was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. Over a four-year span, the comic ran for 22 issues, ending with the November–December, 1953 issue...

#16, pitched the idea to Woody Gelman

Woody Gelman

Woodrow Gelman , better known as Woody Gelman, was a publisher, a cartoonist, a novelist and an artist-writer for animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks...

. Gelman and Brown created the story – with Brown writing the copy – and created rough sketches. They enlisted Wood himself to flesh out the sketches and Bob Powell

Bob Powell (comics)

Bob Powell né Stanislav Robert Pawlowski was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930-40s Golden Age of comic books, including on the features "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" and "Mr. Mystic". He received a belated credit in 1999 for co-writing the debut of the popular...

 to finish them. Norman Saunders

Norman Saunders

Norman Blaine Saunders was a prolific commercial artist who produced paintings for pulp magazines, paperbacks, men's adventure magazines, comic books and trading cards...

 painted the 55-card set.

The cards, which sold for five cents per pack of five, were test marketed by Topps through the dummy corporation Bubbles, Inc. under the name Attack From Space. Sales were sufficient to expand the marketing and the name was changed to Mars Attacks. The cards sparked parental and community outrage over their graphic violence and implied sexuality. Topps responded initially by repainting 13 of the cards to reduce the gore and sexuality, then, following inquiries from a Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 district attorney

District attorney

In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

, agreed to halt production.

Adaptations and merchandising

Rossem Enterprises re-issued a set of 13 cards from the original series in 1984. The set consisted of those cards found most objectionable upon first release. Also in 1984, Renata Galasso issued a full reprint of the series that included a cover card featuring the original wrapper art. In 1988, Topps collaborated with Pocket Comics to create a 54-chapter mini-comic book serialization of the card series. Sales and distribution were poor and the series was canceled after four issues. Topps issued an expanded 100-card set in 1994, featuring the original 55 cards and 45 "New Visions" cards. Twenty-one comics and graphic artists collaborated on the new cards, including Zina Saunders

Zina Saunders

Zina Saunders is a Manhattan-based artist, writer, animator and educator. In 2010, for Mother Jones, she began creating regular weekly animations...

, daughter of the original artist. In conjunction with the expanded set, Topps issued a six-issue limited comic book series written by Keith Giffen

Keith Giffen

Keith Ian Giffen is an American comic book illustrator and writer.-Biography:Giffen was born in Queens, New York City....

 and drawn by Charles Adlard. The series featured a "flip-cover" format, with 22 pages of the book following the story of the card set and six pages detailing previous encounters leading up to the invasion. The limited series was successful and led Topps to continue it as a regular series.

In 1996, Tim Burton's film Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour, and political satire, and claims to be also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies...

was released by Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 The film combines the storyline and tone of a B-movie

B-movie

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

 spoof with the budget of a blockbuster movie

Blockbuster Movie

Blockbuster Movie was a movie showcase that aired on New York City television station WOR-TV .It aired on weekday afternoons at 4:00 PM and played a wide variety of films...

 and features an ensemble cast

Ensemble cast

An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...

 including Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson

John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...

, Glenn Close

Glenn Close

Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...

, Pierce Brosnan

Pierce Brosnan

Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years...

, Joe Don Baker

Joe Don Baker

Joe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...

, Annette Bening

Annette Bening

Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films...

, Danny DeVito

Danny DeVito

Daniel Michael DeVito, Jr. , better known as Danny DeVito, is an American actor, comedian, director and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC television series Taxi , for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman,...

, Martin Short

Martin Short

Martin Hayter Short, CM is a Canadian actor, comedian, writer, singer and producer. He is best-known for his comedy work, particularly on the TV programs SCTV and Saturday Night Live...

, Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...

, Rod Steiger

Rod Steiger

Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...

, Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...

, Lukas Haas

Lukas Haas

Lukas Daniel Haas is an American actor, known for roles both as a child and as an adult. His career has spanned more than 25 years during which time he has appeared in more than 36 feature films, as well as a number of television shows and theater productions.-Early life and career:Haas was born...

, Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...

, Jim Brown

Jim Brown

James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...

, Pam Grier

Pam Grier

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film...

, Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

, Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate is an American actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Bundy on the Fox sitcom Married... with Children. Since then, she has established a film and television career, winning a Primetime Emmy and earning Tony and Golden Globe nominations...

 and Jack Black

Jack Black (actor)

Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black is an American comedian, actor and musician. He makes up one half of the comedy and satirical rock duo Tenacious D. The group has two albums as well as a television series and a film. His acting career is extensive, starring primarily as bumbling, cocky, but internally...

. In conjunction with the film, three novels were released: Mars Attacks: Martian Deathtrap by Nathan Archer

Lawrence Watt-Evans

Lawrence Watt-Evans is one of the pseudonyms of American science fiction and fantasy author Lawrence Watt Evans...

; and Mars Attacks: War Dogs of the Golden Horde by Ray W. Murrill. Screamin' Products released a tie-in set of Mars Attacks model kits. A novelization by the film's screenwriter

Jonathan Gems

Jonathan Gems is a British playwright and screenwriter mostly known for his work on Mars Attacks!, directed by Tim Burton. He also wrote the film's novelization....

was also published.

External links

• http://www.bubblegum-cards.com/Mars-Attacks/index.html at Bubblegum-Cards.com