Bin Laden card to be in Horrors of War II
By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Sports Card Monthly Editor
As people walked the floor of the Industry Summit earlier this month, many stopped at the Famous Fabrics booth looking at what the company has on the schedule.
Then they paused.
Some were taken aback by one card in the showcase – an artistic portrait of Osama Bin Laden, a card that will be included in Horrors of Wars II, due out in late June.
It’s not the first time Bin Laden has been depicted on a trading card. About three weeks before the first Horrors of War was to be released, Bin Laden was killed by American troops. Famous Fabrics stopped printing and added card No. 48 “Obama announces Bin Laden’s Death” to be included with the other case toppers, which included No. 44 “Osama Bin Laden.”
“The big thing is we didn’t create Horrors of War,” said Famous Fabrics product manager Dan Hurst, referring to the original set from the 1930s. “We looked at the history of those cards and they were used as talking aids. There was a lot of controversial stuff about those cards too with the subject matter, but also the images on some of them are graphic.”
The Bin Laden card is part of the insert “Hand-Painted Cards” along with other subjects such as Benito Mussolini, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The first series of Horrors of War from Famous Fabrics also raised eyebrows when a cut signature of Hitler’s was included in the set.
“It was divisive,” Hurst said. “People made the choice to collect the set or not to collect it. There were base cards that featured Nazi signs and things like that, but those were some of the cards where the prices were among the highest. People were angry and people were vocal. But there seemed to be as much people for it as there was against it.”
The first Horrors of War series sold out from the factory quickly after release.
One thing Hurst points out about the base cards is that they do more than highlight terrible actions. The card backs also highlight the heroic sacrifices made to take down some of the subjects depicted.
“You also learn from them, you learn about the people who made incredible sacrifices,” he said. “It’s part of history.”
Each box of Horrors of War II will contain three cards: a base card, a 1-of-1 cut signature card and a special card. The special cards can be a Military Relic card, Military Patch card, Hand-Painted Art cards or original 1933 Horror of War buybacks.
Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Sports Card Monthly. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here. Follow Beckett Media on Facebook and Twitter.
if it has, heroric stuff why did they call it Horrors of war, Why not Faces of war. i think this will sell, but not to me, my take, Some will do anything to make a buck. whats next holicost survival cards, or maybe the slave trade years, maybe we can get used chain pieces. freaking IDIOT
This is disgusting. As a veteran I could think of hundreds of thousands of veterans who deserve a card more than that sorry excuse for a human being. I know he is part of history, but not a part that needs to be put on trading cards.
sick….. just flat out sick
I agree…not good…..using Bin Laden and Hitler for financial gain is disgusting. Whats next? An American Tragedies set with cards of the DC Sniper, Hurricane Katrina and the Sandy Hook Tragedy? This is a new low for trading cards. Im just shaking my head right now!!!!
well … THAT’S disturbing.
James said it better than I could.
I’ll only add, wtF were (the people who decided to have this POS of a card made) thinking???
I like how cards document historical points in time, but this is one of the worst judgement calls (in the card industry) ever.
I have no problem with it. It’s not like the card is praising him.
If there was text on it saying something about him being a martyr or some such, yeah, that would
be a mistake to produce in this market. I imagine that those people who thought of him as
a hero might be upset, but I really don’t care about them and they are not the buyers for this product.
Hitler was in Horrors of war. Osama was a Hitler wannabe.
Awful idea
(Chad), well said!
while i dont not like the fact of profiting from death… i could live with a series
but honestly
do we really need a second series – has so much changed since series 1 ?
I you do not like it, do not buy it–provided you live in free country and no one is forcing you to do something against your will.
Seriously? Why would we make this?
I was offended at 1st, but looking back,I’ve watched alot of movies and stuff about hitler and the holocaust and other horrible things that have happened throughout history.While disturbing i didn’t view them as offensive.The Osama cards hit home a bit tho since it happened recently and touched a lot of folks here in the U.S. and around the world.Poor judgment on their part making this card and it’s not something i would be happy to have in my collection.
Sports and Entertainment are a diversion that are more than appropriate on trading cards.
This REAL life & death stuff, and a group of knuckleheads that lack good judgement should not be allowed to make this.
There’s a big difference between documenting the past in a movie, and doing it on a trading card. (This is ‘messed up’.)
As for this being a ‘free country’, … WAKE UP! :) This country has RULES, always has, and always will. If you want to live in an anarchist state (aka ‘no rules’), then 1. you’re in the wrong place, sorry to inform you, and 2. buy an island, and declare it as ‘free to do anything and everything’, because I don’t know of any other country on the planet as well that is anarchist.
Oh! how I tire of hearing the ‘it’s a free country’ argument.
We’re not THAT free, (and we never have been). Good grief.
Please BOYCOTT all Famous Fabrics products in honor of all of the troops and innocent individuals that bin laden and al queda killed.
These things have been around since the 1930s. They’re nothing new. In fact, I’d venture to guess they’ve been around longer than most people reading this post.
Cards like this have a HUGE cult following, so they’re always going to be produced…Trying to boycott the company, or persuade others not to buy them is pointless.
I relate collections like this to Hitler’s Third Reich Nazi plates…a bit too much on the “macabre” side for my taste.
Here’s their history:
http://prezsez.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/horrors-of-war/
Boycott…….you can’t be serious. I’m a Veteran and have no issue with this at all. I would buy a case of it if I could get my hands on it.