Tuckus Week, Day 2: Vintage Topps

Part 1 here.

This entire week is devoted to an underrated aspect of the card world: card backs. Rumps. Posteriors. Booties. Arses. Badonkadonks. Fannies. Cabooses. The tuckus. Ok I'm done. Baby got back, and so does Red Cardboard.

Day 2 is focused on vintage Topps and their iconic comics on the backs.While not terribly stunning by today's standards, they're quite entertaining and deliciously eccentric. I suppose there weren't very many outlets to check out player stats in the 50's - 70's, so maybe anything that stole from the stat line may have been unwelcome. In 2014, we can access player stats on dozens of different media, and yet most card backs anymore are only stats. Odd.

This won't be a treatise on the subject, replete with examples from every year. This will be a menagerie of my favorite Topps comics from my own Reds collection.

1958 Tom Acker. That fireman looks so proud of himself.

1962 Eddie Kasko. Sweet fielding shot.

1959 Brooks Lawrence, 1975 Terry Crowley, 1969 Jim Maloney. Bull, gopher, bear. Yeah, take that, stupid gopher.

1953 Ed Bailey. I like saying rhubarb.

1966 Bill McCool. Cheerbabe. Aww yiss. I'm sure Mr. McCool had no problem snagging a few cheerleaders.

1958 Birdie's Young Sluggers. Look at all that action.

1969 Dave Bristol, 1970 Johnny Bench AS. I think the '69 portraits were a bit too creepy, so the following year Topps dialed down the artistry.

1965 Jim O'Toole, 1965 Ryne Duren. The heart break pic just looks silly, but the fireball looks friggin sweet.

1972 Darrel Chaney. Yeah, take that, ump! You're worse than that stupid gopher.

1972 Tom Hall. This one is kinda dark, actually.

1957 Gus Bell. Ok, this one is just mean.

1960 Sophomore Stalwarts. Topps coulda gone with white space on the bottom, but instead used a classic comic book motif of telling a multi-part story in a single image. Well done. Probably my favorite of these. Shoulda made yesterday's cut.

Tuckus Week rolls on tomorrow. Go Reds.