The Fan City Trivia Card Collection (1984)

 

Note: The Fan City Trivia Card Collection (1984), a set of 12 cards, followed The Brileys later the same year. Like all five of my card sets this one came packaged in a small transparent Ziplock bag. However, after the Brileys series I didn’t include a piece of bubblegum in the package again. 

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Stemming from The Brileys card set’s notoriety, I was enthusiastic about finding more ways to sell my cartoons directly to the public. As Trivial Pursuit was a popular game then, I decided to see if I could play with that trend.

With my second effort at producing collectible cards, the back of each card had a trivia question. On the reverse side the answer and an illustration appeared. For outlets I used the same network of a dozen or so retailers that I had created to market The Brileys cards.

A year later that same basic list of locations would be what I used to launch The SLANT. The first two issues  in 1985 were 16-pagers that sold for a quarter per copy. But the history of that periodical is fodder for another project. Anyway, here are the questions and answers for Fan City Trivia, along with some of the art:

Card No. 1: At the 1982 "Atomic Cafe" handbill trial, who was the art professor who testified as to the difference between random soup cans on the street and Warhol's art?
Answer: [Jerry] Donato

Card No. 2: What year did the experts change Grace Street to allow for two-way traffic?
Answer: 1981

Card No. 3: On Mar. 19, 1974, Franklin St. was witness to a riot in which 17 were arrested. What campus fad triggered the melee?
Answer: Streaking

Card No. 4: Billy Burke's late-'70s, Kennedy assassination newsletter was named after a place. What was it called?
Answer: The Grassy Knoll Gazette

Card No. 5: Name the [expatriate] jazz guitarist who wrote a song called "Grace Street" and recorded it on the Kicking Mule label.
Answer: Duck Baker

Card No. 6: Name the erstwhile and notorious umpire who called most of the Fan League's softball games in 1977 and hasn't been seen since.
Answer: Leo Koury

Card No. 7: The last Sal Special was burned to a crisp. Name the eatery that served [that signature dish] until a summer blaze in 1983.
Answer: The Capri

Car No. 8: With the heat lightning flashing on a 1970 summer night, Bruce Springsteen’s group knocked ‘em dead on top of a downtown parking deck. Name the band.
Answer: Steel Mill

Card No. 10: Who plays lead guitar (and the sax) for the Memphis Rockabilly Band?
Answer: Bill Coover

Card No. 11: On an Indian Summer day in 1968, the FBI seized a Yippie petition from what Ryland Street head-shop?
Answer: The Liberated Area

Card No. 12: On April 2, 1982, the Cha-Cha headlined a mud-wrestling bout. Name the two contestants.
Answer: Dirtwoman vs. Dickie Disgusting

Card No. 13: Name the fashionable, underground bi-weekly that documented the campus scene of RPI’s last gasp.
Answer: The Sunflower

The Fan City Trivia Card Collection edition didn't take off anything like the previous set had. On top of that, I wasn’t happy with all of the art. Plus, I was pissed off at myself for one particularly grievous careless mistake I had made in the copy -- I spelled “expatriate” wrong.

Such is one of the problems with working alone. This was the beginning of the time in which I came to realize much more fully that having a staff of smart proofreaders, like I had enjoyed all that time at the Biograph, had been more valuable than I had known then. I also realized the overall production had been rushed because I needed money.  

When I stopped selling the Fan City Trivia cards, not all that long after their release, I did so with the idea I would make a few new cards to replace the ones that needed it. Then I would re-release the deck, maybe with a total of 15 cards.

It never happened, but I did recycle two of the same characters into a subsequent edition of cards called SLANT Legends (1993), which was the third of the five sets I have produced.

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