Way to go Charlie! Welcome to Card talk!

The Hildebrandt is a great pull, and even the 2 autos are pretty cool.

Holy mackarel - what a waste of perfectly good money. Robert also brought me home a box of this from the Philly Show. My box was seriously defective (although with all of the disclaimers, I doubt there's little I can do).

It had 1 autograph card by Lisner (should have had 2). It has ZERO sketch cards (OMG - I only wanted it for the sketch cards) AND, just to rub salt in the wound, I was shorted chase cards to boot. I only got 4 instead of the stated odds based 5.

So very disappointed

Here's a newly cracked cases' worth of sketches:



Pretty nice, and great to see the pair of full color standouts by Joyce Chin, whose sketches I'd not yet seen for this series. The Marcos is also pretty nice as you'd expect, as is the Czop card in the upper left corner. Even the cards from the artists who did about 200 cards are pretty decent.

So this 10 box case held 10 Sketches and 27 Autographs (including 2 of the "Star Power" Autos from director Robert Rodriguez), meaning it met the given odds for sketches (1 per box) exactly and was actually even better than the odds for autograph cards (2.7 per box instead of 2 per box as promised).

All in all, a true limited edition and a great looking set with nice base card art (albeit on card stock that is too thin and shows edgewear very easily, even straight out of the pack on some cards). There is also a terrific selection of autograph cards from top industry talent, and many great drawings of a character perfectly suited to artist sketch cards.

Even so, as others have remarked, the distribution of the cards on a box-by-box basis leaves something to be desired. Two of my boxes had no sketch, but were made up for by two boxes that contained 2 sketches. Likewise, some of the boxes had 0 or 1 autograph card while a couple of the others had 4 and even 5 autographed cards. The same pattern followed for the foil insert cards. There should have been 5 cards from each of the two 9 card sets per box, but some of my boxes contained as many as 18 of them (from between the two insert sets) while others had as few as 3 or 4 foil cards.

My point is, this is a real crapshoot if you are purchasing this product by the box which I don't recommend, particularly considering Dynamic does not answer Email inquiries about missing "hits" or even about exchanging defective ones. To wit, I received an unsigned Joyce Chin Autograph card in my first case (which I'd opened right when the set was released back in March) and despite my Emailed requests to exchange it for a properly signed one, I did not even receive an answer one way or the other.

So for anyone who likes what they've seen about this set, I must strongly suggest a full case purchase, although I fully realize $500 is a lot to pay, particularly given the current climate.

If you do go for the single box, good luck, and may it be one of those that has the multiple "hits" in them, or at least the correct amount as opposed to the virtual "dud" boxes (which are approx 1 in every 5 boxes, based on my experience with 2 full cases).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

Note to Jeff Allender if he sees this:

Joyce Chin did 11 sketches for this set. They originally wrote on the back of the card that she did 10, but perhaps they found an extra one (or maybe decided to insert her sample card), so the 10 is altered on both cards to show an 11 instead.

My 2 cards by her are #1/11 and #6/11

Congrats on the killer Chins!

Thanks, "Ig"!
They are really sharp, tightly drawn with lovely color.

Here they are, a little larger for detail...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

Here's another case worth of sketches:



CZOP Mollinelli MARCOS
SHARPE Sharpe STEGMAN
LEISTER Pennington PENNINGTON

There was a 10th sketch in the 10 box case, but it was very much like the one in the lower left corner by Jay Leister. If I had to get what was essentially a "dupe" sketch, at least its a detailed beauty.

Autographs wise, there were 26 of them, so about the same as in the other 2 cases I bought. No "Star Power" autographs this time around (2 in each of the other cases), but I did get a Stan Lee autograph card which was great because I really wanted that one.

There was also a newly drawn sketch card by Ken Haefer offered as an all new case incentive to help Dymanic clear out the last few Red Sonja 35th cases as well as cases of the original Red Sonja Card set from 2005. This brand new (dated 2010 by the artist) case incentive card is actually drawn on original Sketch card stock from that 2005 Premiere edition. Nice card, simple, but drawn in silver paint pen, so it looks great when the light hits it just right.



So once again, over the ENTIRE* case of the 10 boxes, the sketches are one per box and the autographs are about 2.5 per box. Each foil set (9 cards for each) averages about 5 cards per box, so you'd be able to make about 5 complete sets of each from a case, were they perfectly evenly distributed. I believe this case made 3 sets of each, so I had some dupes left over.

*I capitalize the word "entire" in the paragraph above because these ratios DO NOT exist within a single box. In my experience with these cases, all three of them has 2 boxes with virtually no inserts in them, and 2 boxes with essentially double inserts (including sketches and autos) in them. So single box purchasers, 60% of the boxes will have a sketch and 2 autos, but on a full 40% of the boxes, it could be feast or famine, so buyer beware.

But certainly, for those who inclined and able to purchase an entire case, I can now recommend doing so.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

anyone know how many 'Star Power' Rose Mcgowan there is in the set?
thanks

22 cards signed by MacGowan according to the most recent seller of one, you know where.
The other "Star Power" cards are from the director (Douglas Aarniokoski) and producer (Robert Rodriguez) of the Red Sonja movie that is supposed to come out this year.

yeah, that's the one I won...but I would have like to have a confirmation from another source
Can't wait for this movie, Rose McGowan is the perfect personification. They couldn't have selected a better actress for this role.

Did the seller say how they came by that information? And if it seems reliable, ask them how many of the other ones there were signed (if you'd be so kind).

Thanks!

22 sounds about right. I remember when the set first came out hearing somewhere around that number...remember it being really low.

And yet, even with only 22 cards signed by Rose, they're still found 1 card in about every 6th case (about 1 in 60 boxes) thanks to the low production run of 120 cases (1200 boxes).

SKETCH BREAKDOWN: One nice feature that bodes well for the long term collectability of this set is that there are only about 1200 sketch cards total from ALL of the artists put together. With some of the sketch-driven sets from Topps, there's been a number of times a single artist has drawn more cards than that for just one release.

And that Dynamic got Pablo Marcos to draw 150 cards (every one of them I've seen has been a detailed beauty) means that if the Marcos cards are spread equally throughout the run, all 120 cases produced should have one Marcos card and approximately 30 of cases would actually have 2! My 3 cases each had one, all stunning.

What's more, Dynamic got 60 cards each from fan favorites John Czop and Allison Sohn, meaning you can reasonably expect a card from one artist or the other in each case, a nice thing since both did typically fine work on their cards. Allison's are painted, most in a wash, but a few in full color. I love mine, it is one of my all-time favorite sketch cards.

There are 4 artists who drew around 200 cards each, effectively 2/3 of the run between them. Kevin Sharpe nevertheless delivered lots of finished drawings with lot of great detail and poses. Ryan Stegman's cards are simple but effective. He put up a cool YouTube video where he shows off all 200 cards, one at a time, to a cool technobeat. He's got work coming up for Marvel, I'm looking forward to that. Jay Leister is a noted inker and he didn't spare the ink on his cards, many of them very nicely drawn. Mark Pennington has also done a lot of inking on notable projects, but his cards here are mostly in pencil, with occasional color. Very loose drawings mostly, but that makes each one different, too, which works since most of his cards I've seen were straight-on portraits in contrast to the other 3 more "common" artists who varied it up a little more.

Reliable Rich Molinelli turned in some nice cards for this set, plenty of different designs from what I've seen. I found just one by him in my 3 cases, the last case actually, and I was very glad to add it to my "permanent" collection. It had nice and detailed drawing plus nifty flesh-tone color.

In terms of the rare artists, a few of the Adam Hughes' 10 cards have surfaced, and they're exactly what you'd expect, cards that make you say "AH!". Congrats to their owners!

Kevin Graham did 9 cards and there are 2 of them on view elsewhere. Nice finished drawings with a bit of color on those two.

Marvel Silver Age legend John Romita drew 21 cards, so they're at the roughly same odds as MacGowan autograph. There is at least one out there to be had, a nice stright on portrait.

The one of a kind cards, true 1 of 1's from Art Adams and Bernard Chang have also just surfaced and are you-know-where if you fancy a look. Both are fantastic and neither is cheap! The CB Cebulski (writer) sketch card was found almost immediately and it was indeed the work of a talented...writer. I found it very funny, but I'd still have rather found a one more of the 150 cards by Marcos than that particular true 1 of 1.

Joyce Chin did 11 cards. A fine colorist, Joyce is also an amazing artist. I was lucky to find 2 of her cards in the same case. I still have one of them (#1/11) and it is incredibly beautiful, I am more fond of it than even my Sohn card from this set, and you already know what I think of that!

Greg Hildebrandt did 10 cards and I know a few of those have been found. It was real coup for Dynamic to be able to seed original art from a living legend at a very reasonable rate of one in every 12 cases.

I had a card that was numbered 4 of 4 (so 1 per 30 cases) from a name that looked like Stephen Sistica, but I could find nothing on that name anywhere. There is a very popular and prolific Dynamite (publisher of Red Sonja) Comics artist named Stjepan Sejic so I thought maybe the card was by him. My reasoning was that maybe Stephen Sistica was an Anglicized version of Stjepan Sejic or perhaps the person hand numbering (and sometime hand-naming) the cards on back didn't know how to spell Sejic's name! Whatever, that was how I passed the card on and "everybody happy", as they say. Whoever drew it, it was a cool image of Sonja having just chopped off some fellow's head with the drawing capturing the head in mid-flight over Sonja's shoulder. It'll be interesting to see if any of the other 3 cards from that artist surface. I found that card inside one of just a few (lucky) packs I bought from an actual card and comic store when the cards first came out. It wasn't from one of the 3 cases I bought which was why I wasn't as attached to it, for some odd reason.

Finally, it seems there may be a few more true one-of-one cards since it appears Dynamic might have inserted what some artists (including Randy Green) thought was their sample card, but instead ended up being the only card they drew.

Anyone who finds a sketch card from any artist I've not mentioned, I'd love to see it here, or at least be pointed in its direction.

Thanks!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

I picked up a case of these and am very happy. Although I am a comics person, I've never really got into Red Sonja but the case had a great lot of sketches and autos. Here's the breakdown (ignoring the commons):

Box 1
Sketch: Sharpe, Stegman
Artist autos: Romita, Lieberman, Linsner
Puzzle: 4 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 4 5 7 8 9

Box 2
Sketch: Stegman
Artist autos: Greg Hildebrandt, Hughes
Puzzle: 5 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 4 5 7 8 9

Box 3
Sketch: Leisten
Artist autos: Ha, Sohn
Puzzle: 5 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 1 2 3 6 8

Box 4
Sketch: Stegman
Artist autos: Linsner, Ha, Chin
Puzzle: 5 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 2 3 5 6 9

Box 5
Sketch: Czop
Artist autos: Stan Lee, Hughes, Hildebrandt, Gage
Puzzle: 7 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 2 4 5 9

Box 6
Sketch: Leisten
Artist autos: Hughes
Puzzle: 5 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 1 2 3 4 5 5 6 9

Box 7
Sketch: Sharpe
Artist autos: Sohn, Hildebrandt x 2, Perez
Starpower autos: Rose McGowan
Puzzle: 6 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 2 3 4 7 9

Box 8
Sketch: Stegman, Pennington
Artist autos: Lopresti, Chaykin, Chen
Starpower autos: Robert Rodriguez
Puzzle: 4 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 7 8

Box 9
Sketch: Sharpe
Artist autos: Suydam, Rubi
Puzzle: 7 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Box 10
Sketch: Molinelli
Artist autos: Hughes, Hildebrandt, Gage
Puzzle: 5 cards (not numbered)
Holofoil: 1 4 7 8 9

The big pull is obviously the McGowan auto. Some of the artist autos are also low numbers (according to Jeff's site anyway). The sketches are almost all good, with the 3 by Sharpe my favourites.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tangent,

12 Sketches was definitely lucky. Basically, you got one sketch in 8 boxes but the last 2 boxes had two sketches. That's very like my cases, except that they all had 2 boxes with no sketch, so it balanced them all out to 10 sketches per case.

Those Stegmans are among the nicest of his I've seen, and the Pennington is also one of his best. Leister's talented, more great pose variations from Pennington, and a lovely card from Molinelli. Czop must have used the "She-Devil" design quite a bit as I've already seen four different ones of those from his 60 cards. Still nice, though.

27 autographs seems to be the norm per case. Congrats on the Stan Lee and even the Rodriguez, too, in addition to the big Rose. The way Stan's cards and the Star Power ones had to be amended by hand on the card reverse by the folks at Dynamic tells you there can't be too many of any of those. Since they share that same style of alteration, Stan Lee may be considered to be one of the Star Power Cards, meaning there'd be 4 in all.

Good going!

Opened 1 box.


Jay Leistein (172/200)

Autos
Adam Hughes (Sonja sitting on a pile of bodies)
Mel Rubi

Great autos Jen

My 3 case breakdowns are shown above, but most of those sketches are gone, either sold or traded. Here's my "final" collection of these, the ones I couldn't bear to part with, including one each from Pablo Marcos, Alison Sohn, and Joyce Chin.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

I can see why they are keepers

Great Red Sonja's chesspieceface. . .

If you ever decide to trade the Sohn let me know!

Nice collection.

Jon