On Spending the Pandemic Illustrating the Perfect Baseball Card Set
On Spending the Pandemic Illustrating the Perfect Baseball Card Set
By Justin Cousson
There’s something about a trading card that comes with a certain dignity, you know? For something historically made so cheaply, a trading card is oddly culturally validating. From the earliest tobacco cards to the postcard-sized Exhibit cards of the ‘20s to modern sports, gaming, and pop culture cards, you cannot deny being on one designates a certain level of importance.
I’ve always kept this in mind—the joy these little bits of cardboard can bring, the way they make a person feel important. So I make cards often. I put the cat I adopted on a card and sent them out around the holidays to my family. When a friend released his first album, I made him a card with a QR code on the back for him to pass out. I made a 1990s basketball homage set for my brother’s groomsmen and homage cards to 1971 Topps and the 1978 Topps rookie design as giveaways to audience members and performers for comedy shows I used to produce at the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles. I always had trading cards there in my craft arsenal whenever I wanted to add a little extra whimsy to an occasion.
I knew that last summer, with time on my hands and increasingly in danger of being creatively stagnant. I’d been working in live comedy and entertainment since I was a teenager, which had been stalled when God outlawed live performance and audiences. So I started sharing my illustrations online—in Facebook groups for card collectors, on Instagram aided by the hashtags #cardart and #ACEO, on the Twitter account where I was better known for jokes, leftist rants and an earned hatred of the mayor of Los Angeles. I quickly found an audience eager to add my pieces to their collection.
Close to a year, and after a hundred primarily horizontal cards, I feel my style has become remarkably consistent—generally consisting of a hand-drawn, digitally-shaded and colored portrait, and an action pose. I’ve always been a sucker for handwriting, especially as a shortcut to a truly personal touch so I added a signature element later. Each card now only takes about two hours from concept to finished digital piece. Some people are impressed with that speed, but I’m quick to point out none of my portrait faces have individual teeth. Some people can’t draw hands, some people struggle with feet, I can’t separate individual teeth without making a nightmare. So, unbroken white mass it is. I think that saves me about three days on each piece. I can’t be too hard on myself, though—I think I draw some of the best athlete eyelashes in the game.
After spending a decade in an industry that required so much writing, so much being clever on the spot, so much mining for anecdotes, and so much performative behavior, it felt nice to just take a few hours to focus on getting Yu Darvish’s hair just right. I relished the focus, the calm, the precision required. I drew, and I drew, and I drew. I took requests, I took commissions, I took challenges. I drew Jose Canseco and Don Mattingly for the ‘80s kids, Frank Thomas and Sammy Sosa for the ‘90s kids. I drew Luis Robert from Spring Training photos before I ever saw him play live. I expanded my horizons when I realized I could draw whoever I’d like and wanted more things for the desks and shelves of close friends. I drew Bruce Lee because my brother loves him and I could sneak a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar cameo into the background. I drew Joan Jett with the Orioles because she’s a diehard fan and was really nice to me once. I drew Mark Reynolds for me and only me, because I always cheered on the man who struck out more times in a season than anyone in history, then broke his own record twice (but seemed to be a selfless, supportive teammate and also went on a nine-home-runs-in-nine-games tear to carry the Orioles to the playoffs in 2012). Don’t try looking for that one in my shop, though—I never put it into packs or sets.
I could ramble on about favorite cards for longer than it takes to draw one. I drew Joe Morgan specifically for a close friend whose fiancée’s mother—who passed away far too young—adored him. Cody Bellinger got a second card to honor Twitter friends popularizing a meme of the spaced-out looking outfielder’s Deep Thoughts. My Tom Seaver card happened after he passed away and I saw a gorgeous pen-and-ink pitching pose collage piece done by my friend Abigail. I took her piece and added a portrait overtop and a signature, and we both signed the finished card on the back. It’s my only collaborative card by design, although the more accomplished collage guys of the Card Art scene have made some gorgeous pieces cutting up my work.
There’s any number of cards I like for any little detail—the hidden Mexican flag motif in my Ted Williams card, or prominent Puerto Rican flag on my Roberto Clemente, the unexpectedly gorgeous combination of Orioles orange and Yankees blue behind Mike Mussina, sticking the Home Run Derby champ medallion on Pete Alonso, having Tim Lincecum on the phone in homage to his “This Is SportsCenter” commercial (“Big Time Timmy Jim!”), or the fact that I’ve done two entire sets just of the ballplayers from The Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat.” I look at these and think “I made what I wanted to see, I made what I wanted to make for my friends, and I suppose I have more friends than I realized.”
On my Dodgers Mookie Betts card, my Ozzie Smith, and the Ernie Banks card I did for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum fundraiser especially, I contrasted hard—outlined portraits with action shots which are outline-free, appearing somewhere between a cut-paper collage look and a digital painting. They’re soft. I think they look just a little like The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Visually, I think they’re my among my finest works.
On the other hand, I think I drew Christian Yelich too early and call his portrait “rat boy,” despite our apparent physical resemblance. I’m re-drawing Juan Soto right now because I love the action poses (him carrying the bat to first base during the 2019 World Series, and also his “Soto Shuffle” intimidation move in the batter’s box) but feel the portrait of him is the wrong color. Jaun(dice) Soto. I hate my Bryce Harper card because I think I got dumped in the middle of illustrating it. Unclear. I should probably call them, but I won’t.
While I strive not to make anything which too closely resembles a mainstream trading card—which to me means no borders, no player names on the front, no defined backgrounds, no stats on the back—there is a respect and love for iconic cards scattered throughout designs. One could even argue a portrait/action shot/signature motif is nothing more than a minimalist reinterpretation of 1955 Topps (but for legal reasons, I absolutely wouldn’t). Look at my Barry Bonds and you’ll see my visual inspiration for his younger portrait was his 1987 Fleer issue, or glance at Bo Jackson and find a mash-up of his portrait from 1986 Topps and a pose inspired by his football pads and bat on his shoulders BO card from 1990 Score. My Derek Jeter features visual shoutouts to both his first Topps and Upper Deck issues, my Mark McGwire grabs inspiration from his 1985 and 1987 Topps poses, and while Mike Trout’s 2011 Topps Update pose has quickly become an instantly-recognizable pose—my Wave Two Trout card lets you know what his feet look like where that rookie card’s crop ends. Even casual collectors will recognize the pose from the definitive ‘50s card in my Mickey Mantle, but it’s more important to me they recognize the care I took in classing up the infamous 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken card where “FUCK FACE” is prominently written on the knob of his bat. The background of that card features not only a cameo from brother Cal (who I absolutely believe wrote the obscenity himself, setting up his little brother to unconvincingly cover for his saintly older bro for decades since) but visual references to the way Fleer covered up the profanity in card variations—a prominent white circle, a blacked-out box, and an element of black scribbling. They’re ostensibly trading cards, but I consider them more trading card-inspired artwork. I revel in being pretentious about a 2 ½ x 3 ½ illustration of Oakland A’s first baseman Matt Olson. I like that one. I got to draw an elephant.
As for the future, for breaking into the sports art industry more legitimately, with as much pride as I take in the portfolio I’ve created, I have no clue. There has been recognition and opportunities, both positive and significantly less so. Blake Jamieson, who has become one of Topps’ most popular artists, featured my work and interviewed me on his livestream show and was a delightful and kind conversation—if I recall correctly, I was glitchy. I heard Max Scherzer was pretty impressed with the card depicting him with the World Series trophy and I’m especially grateful with how selling some signed ones sent back to me raised hundreds of dollars for Safe Shores—a DC-based children’s charity I hold especially dear.
It’s been incredibly rewarding getting my work out into the world. My favorite thing has probably been the variety I’ve seen in orders. I just love that there are people out there browsing and shopping and making up their mind that they want a Ken Griffey Jr, a Bo Bichette, an Al Kaline, a Sandy Koufax, a Homer Simpson, a Dottie Hinson, and Spider-Man playing for the Mets—and they want each card taken equally seriously. I’ve gotten a real kick out of the response to the surprise packs, where I’ll just throw ten, 25, or 50 cards into a plastic case randomly, including 1-of-1 cards I’ll sign in gold, test prints, and the occasional card I messed up on along with any number of designs from the site. Seeing people excited to just get a bunch of my cards at once? Still weird. They’re weirdos. They have great taste, but they’re absolutely weirdos.
Ultimately, I think I may have created the most beautiful bootleg trading card set ever made—a distinct curio with immense variety, bright colors, dynamic action poses and expressive portraits with enough of a limited supply (most cards have under 50 copies, and the latest release—a Francisco Lindor card with a retro-holographic finish—is limited to 17) to create a challenge for future card enthusiasts, made without any particular intention but with genuine affection for its subjects and the people who have made those depicted beloved characters in their lives. I look forward to the last of these cards finding their way to collectors, to their friends, to auctions, to be cherished, to be forgotten, to be found again and enjoyed and wondered about. I love these cards dearly, but I want them out of my house the most.
I heard in the early ‘60s, Topps threw a bunch of unsold 1950s boxes into the Atlantic Ocean to clear warehouse space. Worst-case scenario, I’d love to do that in homage, if it weren’t so environmentally reckless. Maybe I’ll let someone else do it when my back is turned. It’s fine, I won’t tell them where I stashed the Mark Reynolds cards. Ka-ching.
Justin Cousson is a comedian, writer, illustrator and comedy producer from Maryland and Twitter. His work online and onstage has been featured in the Washington Post, Billboard Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Food and Wine Magazine, among others for various reasons which are no longer relevant. His cat, Tito, was a member of the 2020 World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers stadium cutouts. You can visit his store at justincousson.com/trading-cards.