These are the Kickstarter-funded Topps cards that were released earlier this month, about 10 months after the crowdfunding effort began.

The reward levels that provided the backers the cards included complete sets of base and chase, hobby boxes of 24 packs, and various hot packs featuring sketches, metal parallel variants of the original 1962 series, Dinosaurs Attacks, and even an 18 card Mars Attacks Vs. Judge Dredd set.

Here are the main "hits" from my Pledge level which included a hobby box (with 2 hits), a Sketch card "Fat Pack" featuring 10 sketch cards, and one of the Judge Dredd Packs (which includes a sketch card and creator autograph in addition to the 18 card set).





The Judge Dredd sketch is a nice one by Neil Camera with lots going on. The hobby box yielded a complete base set, the Layron sketch, and the Woodcut Letterpress card (made with actual material from the planet Mars ground up and added to the red ink).

The other 10 sketches from the Fat Pack included a couple of real beauties: The fully rendered giant robot by Kris Penix, the Joe Simko with an axe being taken to a Martain's head, and the Sam Keith pencil sketch. (Not much to that card, compared to the others, but Sam is a celebrated comic book artist, one of the co-creators of Neil Gaiman's Sandman as well as his own "The Maxx" for Image Comics).

The hobby box and sketch pack had several of the regular chase cards from 4-5 different sets, but nowhere near to close sets. Luckily, my reward level included those sets complete, and they are teriffic, particularly the Jason Crosby sports-themed chase set and the "Then & Now" set comparing the art styles between vintage Mars Attacks cards and modern ones.

Here's the packs that yielded most of the above. They are wax wrappers, a nice touch, and the Judge Dredd one had a piece of soft, pink mock bubble gum in it. Pretty cool!

It's a nice assortment of sketches. I really liked the first 3 shown. I do prefer the ones that are not strictly the Martians, but that is the theme.

The only thing you don't say is how much the pledge level was to get this batch.

Sketch pack was 350 (or 300, I forget). Dredd pack was 50. Those were add-ons.

My actual pledge level was 300 (or 350, I forget. One was 350 and one was 300.)

The pledge level included the Heritage and Foil parallel sets, the 4 regular insert sets, a sealed hobby box, a binder, an 11x14 autographed print, two Dinosaur sketch cards and a Dinosaur metal plate card, an unused and unfolded pack wrapper and empty hobby box (with a different color foil logo stamp than the regular), and two of the pack of 23 promos that included a 10 card set of "Attacky Packages" and a printing plate. (That promo pack was sent to all backers, a nice bonus for those who couldn't afford to go large).

Looking at the direction of Topps cases lately, one of MArs Attacks Occupation released in the regular way probably would've cost about as much as I spent here, and I don't think I'd have received the same value via that route, especially considering the nice-looking but generally useless manufactured "hit" cards they've been padding their boxes with these past few years. I'm happy with this purchase.

My PC items include the Sam Kieth sketch, the regular base set I got from the hobby box, the Heritage parallel set, the regular chase sets, one promo pack, the binder, the print, the 18 card Dredd set, and maybe another sketch or two.

I've already got back a few hundred and still have most of the sketches, the foil parallel set, and a few other things to punt. It might take a while, but ultimately, I think I'll end up with the things I'm keeping for free, so not too shabby.

You did well CPF. I like to keep it simple when estimating value. Just considering the 13 hits you scanned, an average price of $30 a card would be fairly conservative. So you have your monies worth right there.

Well, they asked for color from the artists and I think that went a long way to ensuring value in the sketches. Naturally, my favorite one is in pencil with less detail than probably all of the others, haha. I was hoping for Sam Kieth or a Miran Kim (and later, a Ted Dastick, when we learned of his wonderful Atari 2600 videogame box art homages), so I was very happy to get at least one of them.

I sold two empty wax wrappers (Dredd, Fatpack), the unfolded foil wrapper, and the unused empty box they sent me for $100 today, so that comes off the top, which is nice. I also sold the Dinosaur metal card for $32 this morning, and got $80+ for a Dredd sketch and autograph over the weekend, and did very well with some of the extra promos and the Wacky Packages promos last week. It all means that I've already made a lot of the money back, have all those cards (and the binder and oversized print) I listed for my collection, and still have virtually all of the sketches, too.
Hard not to be pleased on this one.

The Penix was worth almost $300 and the Camera Judge Dredd went for $150. After that, the McMillen sketch and a printing plate sold for another $100, that amount pretty much all a return over the original investment, maybe take away $50 of that for all the fees.

So at this point, I did have to wait almost a year for the cards, but after laying out the initial $700, in about two weeks, I've got all the money back (and then some some) and still have the vast majority of what I was sent.

This series does end on a cliffhanger, so another set is coming at some point, 2017 has already been bandied about. It'll be interesting to see what route they go for its release.

Curious if you backed Uprising, CPF!

I did.
(I'd have to be crazy and a bit of an ingrate to have not!)

I mentioned 2017 above as a date for the possible continuation. 2020 (or 2021) is close enough. Thanks for making it happen.