Now this is weird. Last week I was browsing the Dark Knight section of Australia's aptly named pop culture website Popcultcha and I stumbled across this anomaly. It's a whole case (24 packs) of something called The Dark Knight Collectible Stickers and Figurines and it was marked down to the ridiculously low make-our-storage-problem-your-storage-problem 90% off price of SEVEN DOLLARS. That's a bargain in anyone's language, and seeing as how I was already making an order I added it to my cart even though I didn't really know what it was.
How about we find out together?
That's a pretty big box! This is kind of like finding a treasure chest in an attic! Let's crack it open and see what seven dollars can buy you these days... after the jump!
I did my little darnedest to collect full sets of trading cards as a kid, and you always fantasized about what it would be like to open up an ENTIRE CASE of them. That would be totally awesome, right? Nope! Turns out it's really tedious. Although these are apparently all stickers - which are far more useful and full of mayhem - as well as figures, which... well... that's cool but kind of weird. I'm not expecting much in that regard.
It doesn't fold up into an elaborate counter display - you just open up the top...
And that's 24 individual packs which seems like a hell of a lot. They're pretty big too, no doubt because of the figures...
So at a seven dollar investment, each of these packs is worth about 30 cents each. Whether they're worth even that is yet to be seen. What can we expect to find inside?
Well it sucks that there are only six different figures to collect for a start. But there are 180 stickers including 144 standard, 12 holographic foils stickers, 12 kiss-cut stickers - whatever that means, and 12 PVC stickers whatever that is. Do you think kids know this stuff? And this was a pretty shit-scary movie anyway so I don't know if kids even want to stick hellish clowns to their stationery. What the hell do kids know anyway? Most of them act like they're drunk. Do they even have feelings? I think they probably have more in common with birds.
So here are the contents of the first pack.
It looks like you get eight stickers per pack, which breaks down to two of each of the wacky varieties that I listed above. This has to be the least impressive "figure" of the bunch too, a rider-less Batpod...
Looks like half a rollerskate. The least they could've done is had a Batman straddling it so that we know what it is. Maybe things will get better. But how about this?...
Look kids! Gary Oldman stickers! I am going to stick Gary Oldman all over everything possible! Seriously! You're going to make breakfast, go to get an egg, and see that Gary Oldman's face is on every single one of them! I've stuck one under each of my eyelids so that I can see him every time I blink!
And now for the holographic stickers...
Which let's face it are as ugly as all shit. Who thought holographic stickers were a good thing? "Mr. Nolan? The Dark Knight is such a beautifully shot film. We were hoping that we could perhaps take some beautiful stills from it and replace the backgrounds with a hideous, psychedelic sixties nightmare vomit. Would that compromise you as an artist?" Awful. And I have nearly 50 of these now.
And these are the nice normal stickers that show stills from the film and make up the vast bulk of the set...
Except there are 144 of these standard ones to collect. And you only get 2 per pack. And there's 24 packs in the case. So assuming no doubles, that's only 48/144 in an entire case. And meanwhile the others sets have 12 card each so you can a billion of those. THIS IS A FOOL'S ERRAND. Even for seven dollars!
And look at these crazy, ugly cards too...
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The shadowy piece of crap on the left is either Batman running from the law or a filthy factory worker's inky thumbprint. It's has a perforation around Batman so you can remove just the figure and stick it somewhere. The sun doesn't shine. The other sticker is one of those annoying things were you have to collect a ton of them to make a single picture, like a big rectangular jigsaw puzzle. Nobody wants to do that - not even kids - and it never works out and just makes everybody agitated. You're supposed to stick these stickers in an album (which I don't have) so I'm just going to stick it on a fence, or a bucket, or a cat.
So that was a loss. Let's look at more figures...
Not exactly the scary Heath Ledger joker now is it? This is more joy-buzzer than pencil-to-the-eye. Did these guys even see the movie?
Looks like the source material I suppose, but it's still not going to win any awards.
And now our first Batman figure! Here's the Dark Knight detective, himself, taking a sneaky shit...
There's three versions of the Bat. Here's the second which features a great action pose best described as "walking"...
Oh! I like this one! I DO believe in Harvey Dent!
And then our final Batman figure. This time he's planking...
And these stickers are cool too... I like the more artsy ones. I might stick these on my forehead...
WTF is with this one?
Can you imagine if that guy was Batman's most feared villain? That would be an entirely different movie. He would be played by Alan Cummings.
And here is the full set of six figurines, assembled together for scale...
And because there were 24 packs, here are three more full sets of unopened figures that I can sell to get my seven dollars back!
I ended up with full runs of the 12 card subsets too, but am still about 100 short on the standard cards. Which means that poor little Johnny with his sticker album would have had to buy around four or five cases of these things to build a set. And it would have cost him a whole lot more than seven bucks.
BUT, for us bargain hunters, seven bucks is probably the sweet spot. That's less than I paid for lunch today and look at all the fun we just had. Plus, this means that if I ever have to send you a letter for any reason you can be rest assured that the envelope will now have Batman stickers in it. If I have to write to a government agency I will include Batman stickers in it. I have so many goddamn Batman sticker to give away that it's disheartening.
What's the best seven dollars that you ever spent?
For some reason I bought two of these at their warehouse sale years ago and always see them whenever I'm in the store or see them at a thing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, two of those boxes wasn't enough to actually complete the sticker book.