Thanks for visiting my Gallery of the Sketchagraphs that I have collected over the past several years. Sketchagraph is a term coined by Fleer/Skybox in 1997 to describe "chase" cards that were inserted into packs of some of their Marvel-related trading cards. These "chase" cards were not the typical mass-produced reproduction of some artwork, but each is an actual hand-drawn piece of artwork, done in pencil or pen or both, usually by an artist in the comic-book field !! The card is initially produced as a "blank format" by the card company. An assigned number of blanks is then sent to each artist. The artist draws on the blanks, and then sends them back to the card company, who later inserts them "randomly" into the packs. So in theory, every one of them is different, though in many cases, some artist drew "essentially the same" image over and over again. However, in those cases where an artist only drew an image once, those sketchagraphs (or sketch cards) are considered "unique", and that makes them even more "collectible" and/or "valuable", among us sketchagraph collectors.

 

I mainly collect the sketchagraphs that were produced in 1998 for Skybox's 'Marvel, The Silver Age' (MSA) series. Sketchagraphs in this series were inserted at 1 per box. This series focused on the Marvel comics, characters and artists from my childhood, back when I collected ALL of the Marvel titles. Since there were 11 autographers in this card set, 10 of which did sketchagraphs, my goal was to get at least one sketchagraph from each of those signers. Also, there were five "modern" artists that also drew sketchagraphs for this series. I decided to get at least one from each of them. As you will see, I got "carried-away", and for the most part, I got more than one sketch from each of these fifteen artists.

Over the past several years, I have added other sketchagraphs. In 1998, Skybox also released the 'Marvel Creators Collection' (MCC) series. Sketchagraphs in this series were also inserted at 1 per box. The sketchagraphs for this series were drawn by a "large number" of current artists in the comics' field, and varied widely in quantity, characters, style and "quality". I added some of those sketches that I deemed had a "Silver Age" look to them, though in 2006, I decided to add a whole page of ones for Silver-Age villains because they "looked cool". Then in 2007, I added a whole page of Spider-Man related ones !!

In 2001, Topps got the Marvel comics trading card license, and they came out with the 'Marvel Legends' (ML) series. They called their hand-drawn sketch cards "Custom Covers", and were inserted at 1 per box. There were nine variations (characters) of the blank Custom Covers. Topps was the first to define "rarity levels" for their sketch cards, based on how many sketches each assigned artist did, and thus had inserted into the packs. In theory, the fewer sketches a certain artist did, than the "higher level" his sketches were, and thus more sought-after, and thus pricier, than those at "lower level". As with MCC and FUSM, I decided to collect the Custom Covers that had a Silver Age look to them. As it turned-out, I got only ones that showed Jack Kirby originated characters
NOTE: In December of 2007, since I had a few "common" ML sketches that had "no home" in my collection, and since I realized that there were nine variations of the blank Custom Covers for the Hobby boxes, I decided to make a 9-pocket showing an example of each Custom Cover.

In 2003, Topps made a card set for 'The Incredible Hulk' (IH03). The sketch cards for these were the same Custom Covers format as they used in the Marvel Legends series, but these were extremely limited (and thus pricey) ... less than 1 per 20+ boxes !! I eventually managed to get at least one from each of the four artists for this series

In late 2006, Rittenhouse Archives (RA) released a card set for 'Marvel Heroes: The Complete Avengers'  (MHCA) . RA calls their sketch cards Sketchafexes, and for this series, every sketchafex was colored !! There was one sketchafex per box. There were 50 "approved" Avengers-related characters for this set, but some artists included characters that were not on the "approved" list. At first I was just going to collect ones that I deemed had a "Silver Age" look to them, or Silver-Age character, though you will see that I got a little bit carried-away with these too !!

In late 2007, Upper Deck (UD) released a card set for 'Marvel Masterpieces: 2007 (MM07). To me the sketches for MM07 is very much like those for MCC98, where all characters in the Marvel Universe could be drawn, by a "large number" of current artists in the sketch card and comics' field, and varied widely in quantity, characters, style and "quality". My opinion as of this writing, is that aside from those from a few artists (and most of those few drew ony 1 - 20 sketches), these sketches are "not as good" as those for MCC98 !!

 

In April 2008, Rittenhouse Archives (RA) released TWO card sets: 'Women of Marvel'  (WoM), and 'Iron Man Movie'  (IMM). RA calls their sketch cards Sketchafexes, and for both of these series, every sketchafex was colored !! For WoM, there was one sketchafex per box, and basically ANY female whoever graced the pages of Marveldom was allowed, and there were IMHO some very obscure characters drawn !!   For IMM, there were two types of sketches, those based on Iron Man as seen in the movie, (which I refer to as IMM sketches), and those drawn to represent Iron Man and related characters, as seen in the comics over the past 46 years. These latter sketches were on sketch cards titled 'Invincible Iron Man', which I refer to as 'IIM'. There was only one IMM or IIM sketchafex per approximately every FOUR boxes.

In November 2008, Rittenhouse Archives (RA) released a card set for 'Fantastic Four Archives'  (FFA). RA calls their sketch cards Sketchafexes, and for this series, every sketchafex was colored !! There was one sketchafex per box. There were 55 "approved" FF-related characters for this set, but some artists included characters that were not on the "approved" list. At first I was just going to collect ones that I deemed had a "Silver Age" look to them, or Silver-Age character, though you will see that I got a little bit carried-away with these too !!

 

Non-Marvel sketch cards

 

With the popularity of the Marvel sketchagraphs, other card companies, soon caught-on, and started adding hand-drawn sketch cards for their non-Marvel card series.

* In late 2001, I got some of what Rittenhouse Archives (RA) calls "Sketchafexes", for the Star Trek 35th Anniversary card series ... definitely NOT a Marvel property !! But I am a Trekkie from way back too
* After that, I added more RA sketchafexes for the "newer" TV shows, Farscape and Stargate SG-1.
* In 2003, Inkworks came out with some Justice League (animated TV show) sketch cards, so I decided to get some of those, since as a kid, I also collected some of the DC comics.
* In 2004, Topps did two series of Star Wars related sketch cards, so I did at least one page of each of those too.
* In 2005, Topps had sketch cards for their (animated) The Batman cards, so I did some of those.
* There have been numerous other card series that had sketch cards, but for various reasons, (such as subject matter, poor quality of the artwork, etc.), I decided not to collect any of them. Some of these include Robots the Movie (Inkworks 2004), Conan The Hyborian Age (RA 2004), Lord of the Rings Evolution (Topps 2005), etc.
* However, in 2006, when Topps came out with Lord of the Rings Masterpieces, their second Lord of the Rings series with sketch cards, I decided to collect one page of those too
* In 2008, the UK company Strictly Ink released 'Thirty Years of 2000 A.D.' There were sketch cards included in this release, showing various characters that have appeared over the years in the 2000A.D. comics. What is sort of interesting is that the original license for this product belonged to Cards Inc. and a few years ago, many of the sketches were originally drawn on Cards Inc. brown-border blank sketch cards. These sketches were stored, as Cards Inc. went out of business. Their stock was bought by Strictly Ink in 2008. Since there weren't enough of the original brown-border sketches for Strictly's print-run, they produced their own blue-bordered blanks, and commissioned some of the same artists, and some others, to draw more sketches. Thus the sketch cards for this release comes in two styles of sketch cards. 

 

In late 2007, Rittenhouse Archives (RA) released a card set for'DC Legacy'  (DCL).  RA calls their sketch cards Sketchafexes, and for this series, every sketchafex was colored !! There was one sketchafex per box. There were 49 "approved" characters for this set, but some artists included characters that were not on the "approved" list. At first I was just going to collect ones to make pages for "Silver Age" JLA, JSA, Teen Titans, and some Czop's. You will see that once again, I got a little bit carried-away with these too !!

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If you have any comments, questions, want a more detailed scan, etc ...

contact Ed Wong via the link Contact Me.