Editorial Notes

I really can’t say much about this cartoon without giving away the "punch line".

The title implies that it has something to do with trading cards. I remember my elementary school days when my friends and I made a tradition out of stopping at the dime store on the way home from school to buy trading cards. Back then we had a choice of football, baseball, and basketball cards. I bought a few packages of each, and I have them to this day, pack-rat that I am.

Today there seems to be an infinite variety of trading cards. The sports cards are still around, fancier than ever. Then there are cards based on TV series and the cards that comprise role playing games. Trading cards can become an obsessive and expensive hobby.

The common thread among all trading cards is that they provide an escape into an alternate reality. We can idolize our favorite sports heroes and wonder what it’s like to have so much talent. We can jump into future and far off worlds and pretend we’re something that we’re really not. And we can do this without lugging around a television or computer. Trading cards never have technical problems.

Trading cards let our fantasies become a portable alternate reality, but what happens when what should be our reality becomes the fantasy? That’s what this episode is about.

Web Shepherd