Coolest Proxies Ever

Back in August I was trying to finish off my Spidey Stall deck, but I was having trouble coming up with copies 3 and 4 of Spider-Man, Ultimates. As you probably know, this card is very hard to come by. It's a great card, and there weren't many printed, so you rarely see them on the market. I scored two from coolstuff early in the summer, then my luck ran out. Finally I decided that I might as well just create nice proxies of them and use those instead, so I contacted Joey Tufo about having some made, as I explained back in August. Little did I know at the time that I would become obsessed not only with other people's custom cards but with making my own. Four days ago, that obsession bore its first fruit, when I received a shipment of custom proxies that I had ordered from Joey.

The cards arrived in the box shown above. Like everything else I received, the box was hand made by Joey, and sealed with a sticker that says "Kansashoops Kustom Kards Via the Proxyc Avenger." The box was not treated kindly by the US Postal Service, but it's charming nonetheless, and it did its job admirably. Inside the box were 16 packets of cards, each wrapped in wax paper and marked with the same sticker used on the box. Very nice.

But I was blown away when we actually started opening the packets. Apologies in advance for the atrocious quality of the pictures that follow; they do not come close to doing the cards justice. These cards are so shiny that they reflect light like crazy, and I was too impatient to set up a proper photo-taking operation with my SLR and studio lights. So these crummy pictures were taken with my point and shoot with its mediocre flash.

First, here are the sliders. These are pairs of cards that combine to show a much larger picture.

All of them are stunningly beautiful. The least among them is far cooler than any Vs. card ever printed by UDE. I couldn't pick a favorite, but the Alex Ross Crisis on Infinite Earths card is hard to beat.

Next are some cards I had made for my son's Insanity deck.

The two Joker cards are especially awesome.

There is also a small group of Guardians of the Galaxy cards.

The four Mobilizes with more Alex Ross art are of course amazing, but I love the Cover Fires with Skottie Young's Rocket, too.

Lots of attack pumps.

You gotta love the Puny God version of Savage Beatdown, and the Flying Kick with Black Canary.

 Some miscellaneous plot twists.

You can't see the first Have a Blast! at all because of the flash, but it's amazing in the flesh. Bryan Hitch's artwork really pops here.

Some more plot twists, and a few locations.

The Slaughter Swamp is especially cool.

Also some more tutors.

I especially like these Mobilize and Enemy cards, with artwork by Bryan Hitch and David Finch.

A whole bunch of cool character cards.

The Poison Ivy at the top left is stunning. I also love Stuart Immonen's Mystique and Michael Turner's Wonder Woman on the bottom row, but unfortunately they are both washed out by the camera flash.

Finally, the Spidey Stall cards that started this whole thing.

The Ultimates Spidey with art by Mark Bagley is no longer my favorite custom card, but it will always have a soft spot in my heart, because if not for it, I probably would have never gone down this very interesting path. Huge thanks to Joey Tufo for his incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail. Great work, my friend. A follow-up order is forthcoming.