Abrams ComicArts Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Volume One

Star Wars was a licensors dream.For perhaps the first time ever - or at least to a scale never before seen - people (especially children) buying into a film franchise werent just buying into a movie, they were also buying into toys, cartoons, bed spreads, wallpaper, and indeed trading cards.These cards were produced by the company 'Topps', and would occupy the counters of news agents and corner shops accross the land, just waiting for excited school children to blow their weekly spending money on them, and the cries of "Got. Got. Got. Got. NEEEEEED!!!!" would subsequently become a regular feature of breaks and lunch times in every school the length and breadth of the country as those same children attempted to complete their collections by obtaining that one elusive card that they could never find!And there were plenty of cards to collect too. 330 to be exact for Star Wars (with additional series released to coincide with each of the sequals), which included images of the cast, the iconic vehicles and locations, important scenes from the movie, and behind the scenes shots of crew, make-up, and props. The reverse of each card meanwhile featured interesting facts about the production and filming of Star Wars, profiles of the actors careers prior to Star Wars, quotes and anecdotes, and technical information on vehicles.You even got a stick of gum!Sadly, I never managed to complete my collection as a child, but thankfully I finally get to release that heavy childhood burden from off of my now adult shoulders, because 'Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, Volume One: 1' contains reproductions of the lot!EVERY image from every card and sticker, and every fact and figure, each accompanied by a commentary from the author, along with packaging images and promotional material, all spread accross more than 500 pages. The book even comes with its own packet of limited-edition bonus trading cards.In fact, the only thing the book doesnt include is a stick of the aforementioned gum - although I'm pretty sure that the dust cover is made out of the same paper that the packets for those original cards was made out of!

In 1977, Gary Gerani and Len Brown of the Topps Company, won the licence from 20th Century Fox to provide trading cards for their new film “Star Wars”. The first set - blue borders with a flecked starfield - consisted of 66 cards and 11 stickers and was an instant success, leading to a further four series (two more in 1977, the final two in 1978). I collected the first set as an 8-year-old who wouldn’t see the film until early 1978 but was desperate to and those cards provided me with a glimpse of this new world. As Gerani says in the book, “One of the cool things about Topp’s Star Wars trading cards was that they froze a specific moment from the movie and fanciful elements could be analysed at length. This was the pre-video age, so what flashed by on the big-screen was all you had to savour until you saw the film again - or bought some of our trading cards.” The book details everything about the five series, with an introduction by Gerani who sets the scene and explains the process. All of the cards and stickers are then reproduced (to a very high quality), with one a page (occasionally with narrative) and the cardbacks (story summary, movie facts, actor profiles and puzzle pictures) are presented too. There’s also a section focussing on the cards that were given away with Wonder Bread. The book itself is beautifully designed, not only for the image reproduction but also in that the dust jacket is the same as the series 1 pack (and even feels waxy) and there are some bonus cards stuck in at the back of the book (over an image of an empty box). The covers of the book itself show a stick of gum on the front and a broken stick on the back as if, I assume, you’d dropped it. A fantastic blast from the past, full of iconic images that take me back to 1977 and 1978, this is an excellent book and a must for Star Wars fans, especially if they were kids back in the late 70s. Very highly recommended.

Long before blogs, podcasts or webpages these cards represented one of the few ways to relive the enjoyment of the film (you waited 5 years for it to be shown on TV!)The book shows an image of each card per page with sections dedicated to the details on the back (smalls bios of the lead actors) and even the fact that a number of the cards had a jigsaw image on the back that made up a bigger picture.Great to remember the fun of collecting these and discovering new images that you had not seen before. If you had the cards back then you will love this now. Enjoy

I still remember it like it was yesterday - January 1978, when my dad took the then 7 year old me to London to Leicester Square to see Star Wars. I'd been badgering him for ages about it, and back then you had to remember that films opened in London first then would roll out to the rest of the country weeks later, hitting major cities first before then eventually made their way to our little Bucks market town, so a trip to London was the only way to see it. It was a few weeks after it had opened at Christmas '77, so we were able to get tickets at a frankly ridiculous expensive £2 or so each. I remember the queue snaking around the left of the front of the cinema, seemingly for miles, and my building excitement as we got closer and closer. I still have the R2-D2 badge and the official film programme he bought me at the time somewhere.Anyway, that was it - I came away from the cinema completely obsessed, and in truth I still am pretty obsessed 4 decades on. The Topps cards were an essential part of my youth, and I pestered my poor mum and dad to get me a pack every time we passed the local newsagent. Unlike many people I LOVED the weird pink gum you got in a pack, I think mainly for the smell of it, but it was the thrill of opening the waxy paper to see what cards you got that was the main thing. I wish I knew what happened to my collection, I suspect they were chucked out years ago when I first left home, but finally I get to relive it all again. This book collates them all (yes, it included the famous X-rated C3-PO one with his, ahem, metal appendage) and as soon as you open it the memories will flood back and you are instantly transported back 40 years.What is fascinating is the notes underneath many of the cards. The captions were obviously written before the guys at Topps had seen the film, so they had to guess and improvise on a lot of stuff. There's also pictures from unit photography which look different to what we saw in the film. It's utterly fascinating stuff for any Star Wars geek.

A fantastic wee book. Opening the cover, I could almost smell that bloody awful pink gum that came with the cards!The cards came out just before the film was released in the UK (December 1977) and for many of us, this was the first time we saw images. Without knowing the context, we oggled #31 "sighting the Death Star" or #37 "cornered in the labyrinth" (the book explains that sometimes, Topps didn't know the context either) 47 year old me was suddenly 9 again