TVSquad

"I'll trade you my extra Brian Dunkelman cards for your EJay Day. I'm so close to completing my Season One run and I've got like a hundred of these damned Dunkelmans." -- me, April 22, 2009

The American Idol empire hasn't quite expanded its reach enough so it's going to go into the once vast but now slightly less impressive trading card market. That's right, American Idol trading cards are coming your way starting April 21, 2009. The set promises "chase cards" like autographed cards by past Idols as well as face time for rejected favorites like William Hung and even this season's Nick (Norman Gentle) Mitchell.

In the show's eight seasons, we've had six Top 12s, one Top 10 and this year's Top 13, meaning it'll take 95 cards just to spotlight each finalist at least once. Give one to each of the four judges and Ryan and you're down to 38 cards up for grabs in the 138-card set. I wonder if we'll get any of the quirky side shows like Crying-Girl, Super-Clay-Aiken-Fan or David-Hasselhof-Fanatic? Maybe a bonus set of Simon's weird faces and inadvertently rude gestures.

NBC Universal and Topps have joined forced to create trading cards for the hit show Heroes. The first set is in stores now and second set will be in stores in July. Ninety cards are included in the first round, which features cast members and scenes from season one. Also, the set will contain special foil cars, flip motion cards that show before and after character morphs, swatches of costume material, and original sketches from Heroes illustrators like Tim Sale.

The first card set will include the following characters: H.R.G., Micah Sanders, Matt Parkman, Ando Masahashi, Hiro Nakamura, Claire Bennet, Nathan Petrelli, Mohinder Suresh, Sylar, and Peter Petrelli.

Remember Garbage Pail Kids, those gross little trading cards featuring such classic characters as Shaggy Aggie and Eaten Ethan, among many, many others?

Well, if you loved those icky little kids, you might also like a new series from Topps called Hollywood Zombies. The cards are probably a little too sick for some tastes, but they were designed by some truly amazing artists, including Jay Lynch, Mark Stutzman and many others.