Category: Retro

Panini Warhammer

August 10, 2022

Panini has been releasing sticker albums for decades now and the format has barely changed: you buy an inexpensive booklet with pages full of empty spaces waiting for stickers to be applied. The stickers are of course purchased separately in packs, like trading cards. Collecting them and sticking them in the album fills out the pages until you have a nifty picturebook. Aimed mostly at children, hundreds have been released – and continue to be released – since the 1970s.

Unfortunately, very few of these ever make it out of Europe. In the 1980s for instance Panini released loads of such albums for every imaginable kid-friendly film, but most were Europe and the UK only. A few were released in Australia when I was a kid, but they weren’t of little interest to me (Smurfs, football albums) so this was never a big part of my childhood.

In the years since I’ve bought a few more while on trips to the UK or Europe (a few different Star Wars ones, a WWE one) but with the exception of various sports albums or properties for very young children Panini still seems to mostly ignore the US market, and I’ve never had much experience with collecting the stickers or filling an album… until now!

When Panini announced a Warhammer 40k sticker album I was astonished, since it seemed so out-of-field compared to their other properties. But given how many other sets they have recently published – based on films, video games, toys, sports and even animals – it’s not unusual. It’s very specific though, and certainly aimed older than most of their other albums. The initial announcement was tempered (for me) by the followup that it would be England only, and exclusive to physical Warhammer stores. Bummer. However shortly after it was released sellers offered it on Amazon, which is how I got my album and a box of sticker packs.

It’s a beautiful album, full colour and crammed with detail and information. There are 204 stickers to collect, and each pack also comes with one of 50 ‘hero’ (trading) cards. The stickers are glossy and come in several shapes and sizes, some with various types of foil or holographic coating.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been opening packs and sticking the stickers into the album. With 50 packs I only had 200 stickers, and knew I wouldn’t be able to complete the album, but I hoped I’d make a good effort. It’s been a lot of fun, and now I know had Panini products been widely distributed in Australia when I was a kid I would have gone bonkers for them!

I’m impressed with how seamlessly the stickers match the book. In photos the page looks more matte than it does in real life, and when stuck (and aligned correctly) it can sometimes be difficult to see where book ends and sticker begins. A completed page doesn’t look like an array of stickers as it did back in the older versions (such as in the Gremlins book from the 1980s, shown in the photo at top).

The first and last page of the book contain 6-sticker murals. I was unable to complete either of them, and the above is as good as I got. There are many 2 or 3 sticker murals as well, most of which I completed. As you can see, the stickers align together nearly seamlessly (although I will admit I was extremely careful when applying them).

That’s a shot of two of the trading cards. Of the 50, I got 34 which I think is a good approximation of how many stickers I managed to get as well (about two-thirds). The cards are ok and have nice art, but are more a bonus than a reason to buy this collection.

Worth mentioning is the lore of 40k. If you know anything about Warhammer (which is a table-top strategy game played using miniatures) you know it has a bonkers story, and the snippets of lore in this album reinforce that. These aren’t just soldiers in robotic armor fighting orcs and demons: there’s all sorts of madness on both sides of the eternal war that is our future 38,000 years from now!

Once I had finished opening all my packs, this was the only one double-page of the album I managed to fully complete. Can you see the 11 stickers in the above photo? As I said I estimate I got about two-thirds of the stickers, which means I got about 60 doubles (which will go to Adam). Panini has a service where you can purchase individual stickers directly (for £0.28 each) which is nice for diehards, but I’m happy with my incomplete album and won’t try to finish it.

Overall I’m extremely impressed with this collection, and would love for them to not only make more genre-specific ones (such as Dungeons & Dragons or Ultraman!) or at the least sell more of them in the USA!

My Collection: Nintendo 64

July 17, 2022

As a followup to the SNES, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 (N64) in Japan in mid 1996, and in the rest of the world in 1997. Even at the time it was an unusual choice for the system to use cartridges for games (when the industry was moving to discs), and this ultimately doomed the console to lose in the market against the PlayStation.

I got my N64 early, since I had befriended the guy who ran the game company I would in time write reviews for, and he brought me back one from Japan in 1996. I had exactly one game for it, Super Mario 64, but this was such a groundbreaking and important game that it hardly mattered. I played it nonstop.

When the US version was released nine months later, I had to modify mine to play American games. Luckily this was a trivial process (I had to open the system and remove a piece of plastic) and I then had an N64 that could play games from anywhere in the world. Despite this I only ever bought one other Japanese game – Sin and Punishment – which was also fittingly the last N64 game I ever bought (in 2002).

As I mentioned this was a system hamstrung by the choice of cartridges. It was technically competent and had a great controller – the first true analogue controller for a home console in fact – but gaming was maturing from simple 2D graphics and games needed far more data storage. Publishers faced the choice of inexpensive CDs for PlayStation versus expensive cartridges for N64 and it’s unsurprising the discs won. As a result the N64 was the last non-handheld console to use cartridges until they returned for the Switch over 20 years later.

I only ever bought about 25 N64 games, and traded many of them in in the early 00’s when EB Games offered too-good-to-refuse prices. My remaining collection is above. Despite the small number of games there were some true classics on the system, including Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, which is a wonderful Zelda game that pioneered many advancements that countless games utilize today such as lock-on targeting and a user-controlled camera.

Ultimately though this system must be remembered as a failure which lost Nintendo control of the industry. It’s followup – the GameCube – didn’t do well either, and it wasn’t until the phenomenal success of the Wii that they would return to the top of the market. I loved the N64 when it was the current system (I always preferred it to the PlayStation), but in retrospect it’s unquestionably my least nostalgic Nintendo console.

Which is one reason why I’m now saying goodbye to mine. I’m about to sell another large chunk of my collection, and will this time say goodbye to my NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube games (and hardware). Lots of memories will go with it all, but the time (and price) is right and I feel comfortable parting with it. I hope the next owners get as much joy from the games as I have over the years 🙂

Retro Wax Packs (Part 3)

May 7, 2022

It’s time to open the last five retro card packs that I got for my birthday. Once again, this set includes some I would have bought myself as a kid.

Superman 2 (Topps, 1980)

This is a good set. For starters each pack is stuffed with cards – 12 in total including the sticker:

The cards depict a high amount of action scenes are included (always a positive to a young buyer) and I love the character and die-cut sticker cards:

The backs however are a little disappointing. The plot is relegated to a summary on 15 cards, a few others had random info about the film, and the rest were puzzle cards from at least four puzzles. I prefer detailed plot summaries describing the scene on the front of the card, which Topps was still doing in 1980 although obviously not for this set:

Of note is the gum: It’s easily the biggest I’ve seen in any pack I’ve opened so far, and is almost as big as a card!

I definitely bought a few packs of Superman 2 cards back in 1980. I bet I loved them 🙂

Trivia Battle Game (Topps, 1984)

This came out in the middle of Trivial Pursuit mania and is an obvious cash-in, but I think works as a card set. Each pack includes 7 question cards containing 70 trivia questions and answers:

Two of the cards contain rules and a ‘board’ on which to play:

The questions are very dated now and probably harder than they were in 1984, and to my shame it took me 47 questions to beat the one-player game. I guess therefore I’m ‘fair’ at US-centric trivia from 38 years ago!

I think this would have been a fantastic product in 1984, and an inexpensive way to scratch the trivia itch for kids.

ALF (Topps, 1987)

Alf was a short-lived phenomenon in the late 1980s. He was a sitcom alien puppet that told bad jokes to adults. Inexplicably he became very popular and highly merchandised, and this is the second card set based on him and his show.

The cards are well designed and manufactured, and I’m particularly impressed with the quality of the images considering this was a tv show (was it recorded on film?)! But the jokes – as they were at the time – aren’t funny and the appeal is lost on me.

The cardbacks contain absurdist ‘humour’ that seems like it was aimed at kids but probably missed its target.

The pack also contained a die-cut sticker and a fake baseball card obviously inspired by Topps’ successful Garbage Pail Kids cards (which I despise).

Overall this is a decently produced set, if a bit short on cards in the pack, but I wonder who bought it?

Michael Jackson (Topps, 1984)

Similar to the Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran cards I’ve shown previously, here’s another set based around a pop star, although in this case the biggest star in the world!

The cards are as you would expect: standard press photos of ‘Wacko’ with empty blurbs on the back:

The gum stick is incredible though, and I reckon would be of interest to a collector today:

Overall a predictable but acceptable set, and had I been a fan of Jacko (or Bubbles) back in the day I would have been happy with these.

Gremlins 2 (Topps, 1990)

Nine years ago I posted a few snaps of some Gremlins cards from the first film, and now it’s time for the set from the sequel. KLS and I watched both of these recently and the first one holds up quite well, but the second is a very strange film…

The cards are nice enough, although the white borders look unfinished. The images on the ones I got are heavy on character photos rather than scenes from the film, but each card has a plot summary on the back:

The stickers aren’t die-cut (once again this is in the final days of Topps’ wax packs) and while the back refers to a puzzle, I didn’t get a single card with a puzzle back in the entire pack!

As I said Gremlins 2 is a weird and difficult to watch film (Phoebe aside…) and I doubt anyone was enthusiastic about this card set when it came out.

So that’s it. Are there any other retro wax packs I haven’t yet opened on this blog? Well yes, but these days the packs are prohibitively expensive (original Star Wars, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Moonraker etc) so it’s unlikely you’ll see them here. Never say never though!

Robot Claw