Trading Cards: Boris with Julie

Published by Comic Images in 1996, the cards are the standard 3.5" x 2.5" size, printed with full bleed (colour right to the edges of the cards.) The cards are printed on chromium stock, this being a special format with a layer of (presumably) chromium foil, so thin as to be transparent, with a card backing, the metal foil being embossed and overprinted with transparent ink which give a metallic lustre to the image background, over which are portions printed in opaque ink, this being covered by a transparent layer which seems to be plastic, the whole being covered with a UV-opaque layer. The resultant image gives an illusion of depth and is bright and colourful, but which is difficult to scan with pleasing results.

The set consists of 90 cards, mostly painted by Boris Vallejo, and a small number being painted by his wife, Julie Bell. There are, in addition to the basic set, 6 prismatic Magnachrome cards - this is a printing technique which highlights the edges of the images in a way similar to the embossing on chromium cards - (3 to a box,) 3 Unicorn subset cards (1 to a box,) also prismatic Magnachrome, a 'box' card (one shrink-wrapped to the outside of each box,) and two signature cards, 500 signed by each of Boris and Julie (neither of which have I seen.) A parallel set of Holochrome cards, with refractive backgrounds, was included at two cards per box. These refractive cards in some light have a rainbow glow, and in others will give an opalescent backdrop. The set was published in 1996.

The cards are listed below in numerical order. The images are included purely to give an idea of what's in the card set, and there is no larger image behind the thumbnail. The spelling here is taken directly from the back of the cards, errors included.