Guilty Pleasures

Last week Blowout Cards had a 4th of July special with discounted prices on all kinds of products. I've been dying to bust open some packs/boxes, so I did some window shopping. There was a whole row of old school basketball boxes, from as far back as 1992-93. 2018 Topps baseball was available at a reasonable price, and the best deal might have been a 72-card hanger box of 2012 Topps Football ..for $1.76!

All of that caught my eye, but not as much as a pre-order product: 2018 Cryptozic Supergirl cards.

Scheduled to hit stores next week

As some of you know, I've got a side PC of Women on Cards. It would be ideal to place them in my collection based on their abilities in sports or entertainment (even politics) and I do so whenever possible. But...sometimes I like adding cards of attractive women because they're attractive women. I feel a little guilty about that - hence the title of this post.

So, here's the thing...I don't watch Supergirl. I've seen a few minutes of it here and there, because I happen to think that Melissa Benoist is incredibly cute. But I'm not a superhero guy. Never got into DC Comics or Marvel or any of that. The lady at the local comic book shop knows me as the guy who comes in once a month to buy four packs of penny sleeves (75 cents each!), a pack of Topps baseball (the only sports cards they sell), and a Mountain Dew.

But..if I see this item on my next visit to Little Shop Of Comics...do I buy it?

No, of course not. That would be silly. A pack or two..maybe. And even then I'd feel guilty because I could have used that $6 or so to buy baseball cards. 
 
Having said that, I always get excited when I see a celebrity I like on a trading card. It doesn't happen often.

Jennifer Lawrence appears a dozen times in the Hunger Games card set(s) as Katniss Everdeen. I mentioned those in a previous post. Zero guilt here. My wife knows I'm a big J-Law fan, though lately I've had a hard time reminding myself why. Old loyalties die hard I s'pose. If anything, the 'guilty pleasure' here is the fact that I enjoy teen/YA stories.

Kristen Bell is another longtime fave. Wifey rolled her eyes when I first started watching Veronica Mars - she saw right through my excuse. But a few weeks later, we were both fans of the show and Kristen. It was her idea to go see the Veronica Mars movie in theaters, and she probably watches more of Kristen's late-night interviews than I do.

I don't feel guilty for picking out these promo cards on COMC, and I doubt it would be an issue if I plunked down $25 or so on an autographed K-Bell card...which I don't have to worry about, since they sell for about five times that! 

Taryn Southern might have appeared on American Idol cards had she made it farther in the competition. But then she probably wouldn't have done musical comedy on YouTube and I wouldn't have had any interest in her. I didn't feel guilty about asking Corky to make custom Taryn cards for me..sending them to her TTM wasn't a great feeling, though.

I don't consider Taryn a guilty pleasure - for two reasons. One, because she is/was genuinely funny (and I love funny women.) And two, even though she is probably the closest anyone has ever come to my idea of an absolutely perfect woman.. she doesn't produce interesting content anymore. She's all about science and technology and gadgets that will accelerate the downfall of civilization. Plus she's engaged to a gazillionaire who built a fortune on such things. Bye, Felicia.

Aaaand now we're back to guilty pleasures. Allow me to explain how I became a (casual) Katherine McNamara fan. I was writing a young adult novel a couple years ago when I found a discussion topic called "Make Your Mock Cast" or something similar. I didn't know any teen actors but I knew what my characters looked like. And my female protagonist looked a lot like Kat. So I went with it. I browsed her IMDB page, saved a couple pics in a "Mock cast" folder (along with some male actors such as Logan Lerman and Alex Pettyfer) and that was that.

Until she did Shadowhunters. I decided to check her out in the first episode. It wasn't my thing - too supernatural I s'pose. So I didn't watch another episode.. until an article on ESPNW caught my eye. It discussed her training for the show. Is that the same girl? I thought. She looks buff!

I'm a huge fan of gingers anyway (Molly Quinn comes to mind) and now that Kat was a little more grown-up I decided to give Shadowhunters a second chance. And I dig it.

Wifey watched a minute of the first episode with me, after I explained why I wanted to see it. She knew Kat was on my radar a bit - for creative purposes only - and she, too, dismissed Shadowhunters as too weird. 

I never told her I started watching it again. I feel guilty about that. (Btw, Shadowhunters and Supergirl were on at the same time during the spring.)

One more thing...there is a trading card set for Shadowhunters:The Mortal Instruments.

The movie version. No disrespect to Lily Collins but I'm not chasing these any time soon. If the TV series gets its own card set however...I'm going to buy a box. I'm going to chase a KatMac auto, and I'm going to tell my wife it was a box of Stadium Club baseball ;-)



Do you watch any "guilty pleasure" TV shows? Do you have any "guilty pleasure" cards in your collection? Share with the group - we're all friends here!


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