The Night Just Got Darker … and Trading Cards More Fun?

Non-Sport Update
Vol. 16, No. 5
October-November 2005

Francis Lee wants trading card collecting to be more fun.

“I think at this stage, what I really want to try and do is just get the basic fun back into card collecting,” says Lee. “And I think we’ve kind of lost sight of that a little bit in the industry, where we just automatically seem to assume that people want, you know, lots and lots of complex stuff put into the card set. And that isn’t necessarily so…. Trading cards. That’s the name and that’s what the game should be. I want to bring back that fun element.”

Who is Francis Lee? And how does he plan to bring the fun back to trading cards?

A comic book store owner from the United Kingdom with a background in the music and computer games industries, Lee is the creator, publisher, and marketer behind Tales of Midnight, a British comic book with a seemingly worldwide internet fan base. Originally self-published by Lee and sold through his comic book store, Tales of Midnight is currently available online (www.TalesofMidnight.com) and monthly in PlayTime magazine, the urban vinyl and toy design magazine distributed by Play Imaginative. According to Lee, a US version of series two of Tales of Midnight is also available through Diamond Comics beginning in September, 2005.

Tales of Midnight has a growing licensing program, spearheaded by Lee himself, which includes statues, posters, clothing, lunch boxes, and bar and giftware, and greeting cards. Through New Image Reproductions, the British manufacturer of the greeting cards, Tales of Midnight is adding trading cards to its catalogue of licensed products.

Tales of Midnight is the story of three people: Midnight, described as a police detective by day and masked crusader for justice by night; Sarah, an intelligent and independently wealthy woman FBI agent; and Raxton, once a government sanctioned assassin and now the head of a vast secret organization with ties to both the underworld and government. The tales begin with the death of Sarah’s mother under highly suspicious circumstances connected to Raxton and his organization. Sarah is determined to uncover the truth and, in her quest, discovers Midnight’s secret identity. She decides to don a “Midnight” costume of her own and blackmail him into helping her topple Raxton and his evil empire.

And so, as the Tales of Midnight website pronounces: “As this dark tale of revenge and redemption unfolds, one thing becomes clear – the night just got darker.”

Will darker nights make for more fun trading cards? Lee thinks so.

“What I love about trading cards, and specifically the sets that we’re going to be doing, is the fun of opening that pack,” he explains. “The basic love of the imagery and the joy of trying to complete a set. But more importantly, the joy of not really knowing what you’re going to get in that next pack that you open. I’m trying to go back to that. There’s something about the look and feel of the Tales of Midnight characters that just seems to have captured the imagination on a purely aesthetic level – they’re sexy, they’re attractive, they’re dynamic, and that seems to resonate with people. On one level, that should be enough to get people to want to collect cards. But on a second level, what I’m trying to do also is to stimulate the interest in the story behind the characters, so the first 30 cards in each set will actually be a story. Each story card will be the page of a comic book, reduced down so that you get the whole page. You get that element of ‘trying to complete that set,’ to get card number 17 so you can find out just what he said when the gun was pulled on him.”

Including the 30 story cards, the first series of cards will have a 100 cards base set with cover art cards and personality cards, as well as artwork cards depicting the comic book art in various stages, from pencil drawing to finished art, and cards showing pictures of the licensed statues in various stages of production

Lee stresses that the trading cards are story driven and not art driven, however.

“My belief is that artists themselves are not necessarily what drive a set. The danger is that you get hung up on any one particular artist whereas what you should really be promoting is the overall brand, because then people feel inclusive about the whole thing. Tales of Midnight is what it’s about. Trading cards is what it’s about. The story driven aspect is what I really, really want to get across.”

For this reason, the first series of Tales of Midnight trading cards is “not your standard card set,” he says. “Essentially, series one will be like a jumping off point. It’ll be an easy access point to find out about Tales of Midnight. In as broad strokes as possible. To introduce people to Tales of Midnight and hopefully let them have some fun along the way.”

According to Lee, the most fun part of the Tales of Midnight trading cards is the redemption program.

“The really exciting thing for me is the redemption aspect of it. Collect a subset of [eight] trading cards and you get a free limited edition statue, making the redemption cards real chase cards.”

Lee describes 24 redemption cards in the first series: an eight-card subset for the statue, a four-card subset for a signed poster and three different four-card subsets for autograph cards. Lee also promises there will be no deadline or expiration date for the redemption program. “That’s wrong. That’s just plain wrong,” he says.

Lee envisions at least two series of trading cards, with the first series being different in the US and UK, perhaps with a different redemption program.

The Tales of Midnight fun, series one, is scheduled to begin in September in the UK and in October in the US.

Graphics by Cher Williams