Star Trek Master Series from Skybox...

Lets take a look at my all time favorite Star Trek trading card series, the Skybox Star Trek Master Series featuring original art compositions from some of the genre's top illustrators.
These cards were released back in 1993, and to this date I don't think we've gotten another trading card series with art as beautiful as these. I used to try and buy 2 or 3 packages of these every time I went to my local comic book shop back in the day.







Some of the artists whose work is included in this set had been illustrating Star Trek posters and novel covers for many years and they truly know how to capture the essence of our favorite characters, aliens, and ships. Artists like Sonia Hilios, Keith Birdsong, and even Trek production illustrator and FX guru Dan Curry all contributed paintings for this set. These are just beautiful to look at. There is so much detail in each image that you could just stare at them for hours.







Usually one has to spend a lot of money buying limited edition prints or lithos to get this level of quality in Star Trek art, but this set was the perfect way of bringing high end Star Trek art to every fan. Skybox did an amazing job at putting these together. During the many years they had the Star Trek license they put out some amazing card sets, much better in my opinion than what Rittenhouse Archives puts out these days.







SkyBox International Inc. was a trading card manufacturing company founded back in 1989 as Impel Marketing, the company became SkyBox not long after. In 1991 they picked up the license to produce Star Trek trading cards. Skybox, which was later bought by Fleer, continued to produce Star Trek card sets until the year 2000, when their license expired.







Since these cards were produced back in 1993 the set only features art from the first 6 motion pictures and The Original Series, The Next Generation, and DS9. There was a second series produced the following year, I'll share my thoughts on that one as well as my favorite images in a future post. It would be great to see a new series of art cards in the same style released today so it could include art from all the Star Trek shows and films produced since these Skybox sets were released. Now lets take a look at a couple more of my favorite images from the Star Trek Master Series 1.

Free Star Trek promo card

Rittenhouse Archives is sending out a free Star Trek promo card to everyone who registers on their site and sends in a self addressed stamped envelope. I did this about two weeks ago and my card just came in. I recommend you put in a protective card sleeve inside your envelope since my envelope was pretty beat up when it arrived, but the card was in perfect shape thanks to the sleeve. I was pretty sure I'd never get the free card since these type of offers are usually not guaranteed and if they do send out some promo cards its only a few and the offer runs out pretty quickly, but Rittenhouse came through on this. There should still be time to get yours so check out their website for more details.

The Making of Star Trek: The Next Generation trading cards

In the spring of 1994 as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was finishing up production on its final season the folks at the Skybox trading card company sent photographers to the set to document the production process of the last couple of episodes of the show. These images would become the basis for a collection of 100 trading cards that would give fans of the show a look at what it took to produce an episode of the top rated syndicated drama.







A few months after the show wrapped production, the trading card set was released in three different editions. Each edition contained the same 100 card base set, the difference in each of these editions was the bonus premium. One set included a series of three dimensional images, while another included a commemorative pin with the logo for the final episode of the show, and the third set included a holographic card of the Enterprise encased in lucite.



The reason I love these trading cards is that they give fans a peek at images they would not be able to see anywhere else. I hate trading card sets that only feature still frames taken directly from the show or film they are based on. There's nothing special about that at all, but these cards have some very exciting images that are quite insightful and do reveal a great deal about the process behind the production of a weekly television series.



The card set gives you a look at every step of production, from the early story meetings, to casting, principal photography, and visual effects. The back of each card features descriptions of the specific stage of production depicted on the front of the card.







1994 was a very exciting year for "Star Trek" fans and one of the most important events was the end of The Next Generation's TV run. These images take me back to those days and remind me of all the hype and excitement surrounding anything that had to do with "Star Trek". I hope those days come back soon. In the meantime a set of trading cards like this one reminds us of how popular "Star Trek" once was, to the point were even the people behind the making of the show were getting the opportunity to share the spotlight with those in front of the camera.