Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead Fans

Topps’ Brand Manager of Entertainment Mark Von Ohlen

Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead Fans – Last year, Topps acquired the trading card license for the AMC TV series The Walking Dead. With multiple releases already on the market, the company has quickly looked to establish its presence with the brand. With the show’s season finale on the horizon, I had the chance to catch up with Topps’ Manager of Brand Entertainment, Mark Von Ohlen, to find out more about the company’s plans for the license. The following interview was conducted via email.

KS: Why did Topps decide to pick up the license for The Walking Dead?

MVO: Topps has a long history of creating captivating entertainment trading cards from Wacky Packages over 50 years ago to Garbage Pail Kids, which began in the 1980s to Star Wars, which we’ve done for 40 years.

We’re a pop culture and entertainment company so we’re always looking for the next great entertainment license. The Walking Dead is such an interesting franchise with incredible depth in terms of characters and storytelling. It’s consistently been a top-rated TV show, has been critically acclaimed, and embraced by fans of all ages. It’s a fantastic show and one that we felt we could create interesting products around.Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead Fans

We have several TWD fans in our office who were dying to sink their teeth into this property and put their own spin on it. Our writer Kellye is a super-fan of the show, and she and I even went to Walker Stalker Nashville together to meet members of the cast. There is no shortage of passion for this property at Topps!

KS: Cryptozoic held the previous license for TWD for multiple years and seasons. What do you feel Topps has done differently to try and change the property from past releases?

MVO: Picking up The Walking Dead was very exciting for Topps as the license includes TWD and Fear The Walking Dead, plus physical and digital cards. Along with card sets for The Walking Dead, we’ve been working on a Fear set for quite a while. We are ready to announce that our Fear The Walking Dead Seasons 1&2 Widevision collector box will be on sale on April 26 on Topps.com while Fear Season 3 is on the air! Each set will have two autographs from the cast per box.

Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead FansIt’s very exciting for us to launch the first trading card set for Fear and continue to expand this franchise. Within TWD, Topps wants to go beyond just ‘season sets’ and tap into themes from the show. We launched our The Walking Dead Survival Box in late 2016, which explored how to survive in the world of TWD. We have another thematic set planned for 2017 after the release of Season 7. Along with our physical trading cards, Topps launched a digital Card Trader app for TWD and Fear where fans can collect digital trading cards from both shows. The app has been live for almost a year already and new content is always being released.

Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead Fans

KS: What kinds of challenges have you faced in putting together this particular property?

MVO: It’s been such an exciting and fun time working on The Walking Dead that it’s hard to describe it as a challenge, though launching any new license always takes a lot of work. We had to secure all new autograph signers, of course, and learn all about the rules of what can be shown in licensed product. You’ll notice our cards aren’t as graphic as what’s seen on TV sometimes. We have to find the right balance between showing an important scene and being too violent in imagery.

Now that we’re working on our third and fourth products, we’re moving much more smoothly. We were also Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead Fansable to get sketch cards into our upcoming products, which was a challenge last year. We will have over 60 sketch card artists in our Season 6 set and are planning for as many in Season 7. We’ve also offering cards in retail outlets, which is incredibly exciting! Target will be carrying $20 value boxes (blaster boxes) with 10 packs plus a bonus relic card along with an exclusive insert set. Walmart will also have a $20 value box with 10 packs and a bonus hit card, which could include a relic, autograph, or sketch. Walmart also has an exclusive insert and exclusive Walker relics to collect. The costume pieces that AMC provided us with are just killer.

KS: In terms of purely new autograph signers and relic pieces, what have you been able to gather for product insertion?

MVO: Season 6 includes autographs from the key cast including Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Danai Gurira, Steven Yeun, Michael Cudlitz, Chandler Riggs and many others. We have costume pieces from Walkers, Negan, Carol, Maggie, Carl, and more! We’ve added in autographed relics, dual relics, and exclusive Negan + Walker dual relics for Walmart. All of that is coming in Season 6. We also just released info for a Season 7 trading card set and revealed bullet relics exclusively for Walmart in their value box. Those will be very rare and I’m sure very exciting for consumers to pull.

Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead FansKS: How do you feel The Walking Dead has compared in performance to Topps’ other entertainment lines such as Star Wars and Dr. Who?

MVO: We’ve launched two sets so far and we’re thrilled fans are coming back for more Topps cards featuring The Walking Dead. Since we picked up this license we actually had to play catchup in some ways so our first launch was a Season 5 set, which hit shelves as Season 7 aired. We will have Season 6 out in June, then Season 7 in September. So by that point we will be ‘current’ with the TV show. We’re so excited to have The Walking Dead Season 6 trading cards in retail outlet and reach fans of the show that don’t usually collect cards. In terms of releases, TWD will have more products released in 2017 than Doctor Who but not as many as Star Wars, which is still our top entertainment license and the second largest license we have at Topps.

KS: Looking toward the future, what are your hopes for Topps’ TWD card lines?

MVO: I would love to continue building interesting thematic sets while trying out new technologies. I loved Survival Box because of the theme and storytelling and how the ‘layered’ effect of the cards really brought to life the Walker bites. As always, we’re working on getting new signers and bringing in sketch cards artists. AMC has been very generous and accommodating in terms of providing costume relics, which been a big help. I’m thrilled we’ll get to introduce the bullet relics in the Season 7 release and we’re looking for ways we can use other types of relics in future sets as well.

KS: What is one Walking Dead card you would eventually like to be able to make for product insertion?Hobby Musings: Topps BIG AMC Walking Dead Fans

MVO: Personally I’m a huge fan of Negan so I would love to do a whole insert of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his victims. We actually have a dual autograph featuring Negan and Abraham that we revealed in the The Walking Dead Season 7 solicitation. You can easily guess at who another pairing might be in that set. I’m also a big David Morrissey fan and thought The Governor was one of the best ‘big bads’ of all time, so at some point we’ll need to go back and explore his ruthlessness and see how others have stacked up against him. Morrissey signed for Topps for The Walking Dead Survival Box and we’ll want him to return for any other thematic sets that encompass the franchise.

KS: Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been a pretty strong presence on the show, especially with his character’s prop Lucille. I have to ask, will we see a show-used Lucille prop relic card in a future release?

MVO: Everyone here at Topps is a big fan of JDM, myself included. He actually just signed his autographs for The Walking Dead Season 6 and we have Negan costume relics in our June release of the Season 6 set, and Season 7 coming this September. While we don’t have Lucille, the costume piece is really nice. We will also have ultra-rare autographed costume relics featuring Morgan and several other cast members. Finally, the Negan plus Walker dual relics are exclusively in the Walmart value boxes in Season 6 so you’ll have to head to your local Walmart to chase those down. You’ll also see Negan on the front of the Walmart value box package, Lucille in hand.

Editor’s Note: For more information about the aforementioned Topps The Walking Dead trading cards set, please click on the links below.

 

Hobby Musings: Topps bringing its own take to The Walking Dead
GTS Distribution

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