Remember, Remember the 5th Of November

I am a comic book fan, not an advocate for starting any political debate.  

I had never heard of V for Vendetta or Guy Fawkes prior to the release of the movie in 2005.

The movie starred Natalie Portman (Evey) and Hugo Weaving (V) and takes place in a future dystopia.  V is a vigilante with terrorism attacks on his mind to try and change how things are.  The movie is based on the 1982 British comic book by creators Alan Moore (famous for creating The Watchmen) and David Lloyd.

Furthermore I had never read V for Vendetta until I had a rare opportunity to have dinner with one of it's creators, David Lloyd.  He was visiting the United States to promote his upcoming graphic novel and a local comic fan and friend of mine was hosting his visit to New York.  My then girlfriend and I met up with David and my friend and we went to a restaurant in NYC.  David was kind enough to draw the lead character for me (and my then girlfriend) a sketch using only the crayons provided at the table.  

The character V wears a Guy Fawkes mask. 

In the United Kingdom, every November 5th is celebrated as Guy Fawkes night.  Guy Fawkes was arrested in 1605 for guarding explosives that were placed under the House of Lords. People celebrated that King James had survived the attempt on his life by lighting bonfires throughout the country.

I never learned about (at least I don't remember it anyway) any of these gunpowder treasons or assassination attempts when I was in school.  It was only through the movie V For Vendetta that I even heard of Guy Fawkes.  The graphic novel/movie both bring and recite a famous nursery rhyme "Remember, Remember the 5th of November"

I may not know the backstory of Guy Fawkes or the real inspiration of V For Vendetta, but I do know about another Vee Has An Agenda.

Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee as he is more well known, is a famous investor in sports cards.  He has been hyping some cards up for the past few years and has gone on to predict that the sports card market would see an incredible boost in the next few years.  If this year was any indication, he was right.

I have a few Gary Vee signature cards because he put Andrew McCutchen in as an insert subject for the Topps Direct set made last year around the time of the National.

I was able to get this quick Gary Vaynerchuk Sharpie signature from a reputable source of the McCutchen card.

The back of the card talks about Andrew's love to sketch and draw.  I actually own an original Andrew McCutchen that was done for a celebrity sketches charity a few years ago. I'll have to show it off sometime.

I also own this pair of Topps Certified autographs of Andrew's insert in the set.  The base isn't numbered, but trust me when I saw it is extremely rare.  The red is also very short printed with only 10 copies produced.

Are you familar with the story of Guy Fawkes?

Have you seen V For Vendetta?

The Art of Staying Awesome

When Project 2020 first came out and I saw the checklist of iconic Topps cards that would be produced I knew I wanted to collect all of the Roberto Clemente cards.

If you've been following this blog (and my previous incarnations of it) for nearly a decade there are 3 things I really enjoy discussing: Pirates baseball cards, original artwork, and a cure for cancer.  This project offered an opportunity to boost my Clemente collection while still allowing me to look at artwork from different artists tackling the same subject matter.  When I collected original comic book art and would get commissions I would always get the artists to draw the same character (Gambit of the X-Men) so I could see how they would draw my favorite character.  If I had a chance to get another sample of the artist I would venture off to other favorite characters like Flash, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Iron Man, or Rogue.

I love baseball cards and I love art.

This project would be fun.

However, prices last weekend made me consider selling the 3 cards I have on hand to buy a vintage 1955 Clemente.

I ultimately decided not to sell at the absolute height the cards were selling for.  I could have turned a 3 card $60 investment into a grail card of a Clemente as collectively those 3 cards were selling in the $1.2K range at the height prior to last weekend.

Another reason I didn't want to sell them off is because there are a few artists I am really looking forward to seeing their rendition of The Great Roberto Clemente.  I always envisioned getting all 20 cards and having them grouped together on a bookshelf.

Of the 5 Clemente cards produced so far and seeing the different interpretations I would say 3 of the 5 artists to work on Clemente are on my bottom 10 list.  That's not a knock on them, but I am really looking forward to cards by Ben Baller, efdot, Sofia Chang, King Saladeen, Andrew Thiele, and Blake Jamieson.

The last artist, Blake Jamieson, has become one of my favorite artists on this project and it has been really fun to see his journey of Project 2020.  Shortly after the Project kicked off he followed me on Twitter (most likely because I liked the Mister Cartoon Clemente that Topps showed off).

I have logged into his YouTube Live stream almost daily each night at 10:23pm EST.  Link to his YouTube is here.  It is an awesome Live stream that gives something to look forward to each night.

During the journey I have also talked to his PR rep, Tony, who oddly enough a few years ago lived in the same town as me and knew of one of my coworkers.  Small world, right?

With everything that is crazy and weird going on in the world we live in today, it is an absolute blessing that Blake (and his crew) has given me a nightly outlet of a few guys just hanging out talking sports and art.  We can get away from talks of COVID and riots and injustices and just talk about guy things.

The excitement that Blake has for this project is contagious.

A few weeks ago Blake tried to get Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary Vee) to jump aboard the Project 2020 bandwagon and did some art on 3 sealed boxes of Gary Vee's 2019 card release.  Upon opening the cards Blake painted all over them and some of the cards became Card Art for viewers on the stream.

Tony sent me a trio of the McCutchen cards that Blake had splattered paint on.

This is the "cleanest" of the cards that still shows McCutchen's face on the front.

What I find to be really cool and unique about this Mccutchen card is that it mentions that Andrew McCutchen is a "doodler" himself.  Cutch is actually a pretty good artist and I have an original piece of art by him.  I'll show that off in the future.

You can follow more of Blake on his IG, website, or Twitter all below on his business card.

Thank you Blake and Tony for the incredibly kind package.

Thank you for the daily dose of positivity you share.

Thank you for being an inspiration for so many others.

I will leave with this...
#STAYAWESOME!

Be sure to log into the Topps site today (after 1pm) and buy the Mike Trout card drawn by Blake Jamieson.  It also features a border by Ben Baller, one of the most popular artists on the Project.