Screen Monsters #4: Limited Trading Card Edition (Zone, 1993)

This comic is so rare, you'll be hard pressed to find it listed in any online comic databases, and this "Limited Trading Card Edition" of it is apparently even more so.  It's identical to its non-limited counterpart, but by raising the cover price four bucks more (in 1993 mind you), the publishers included a strip of uncut trading cards. Apparently, there were four cards for the subject of each issue of SCREEN MONSTERS, as the backs of the cards say that there would be 28 in the set.  I'm not even sure that the comic ran to seven issues, so the set was probably never completed.  I did find one website which mentions 4 cards in the set that featured monsters from "The Outer Limits," so those exist. (Also, you can see the Frankenstein cards at this site, thanks to a kind comment by Ray Robinson below: In Search of the Lost Card.)

These have got to be some of the rarest Godzilla cards out there.  The artwork isn't awesome (most of them look like painted-over stills), but points for the effort, especially in January of 1993.  It goes without saying that Godzilla is ridiculously bright green, and I think the model for Hedorah was one of those Japanese vinyls (Bullmark I believe) that are purposefully done in bright colors...I know I've seen a yellow and green one.  The Kong one obviously ISN'T a traced-over still, because Godzilla is his "1985" incarnation, and Kong appears to be based on his 1933 one!

The text on the back keeps it simple, and tells you almost nothing that you wouldn't already know, but again, huge points for the effort, and I was delighted to discover their existence! I need to review the comic and/or scan it sometime...it was kaiju information in a pre-internets time of darkness!