Trading Terrorists for Fun & Prophets!
By Kurt Kuersteiner ©2025 Monsterwax
Monster Trading Cards fpr The Wrapper Magazine
There’s nothing funny about terrorism. At least, there is not supposed to be. But sometimes, our efforts to condemn it can get a little-- how should I say it-- nutty? It didn’t used to be that way. In fact, terrorism used to be something we didn’t even think about. Why would we? It only happened often in other countries like Ireland and Lebanon. But then 9/11 occurred, and now we worry about it so much that any time there’re multiple gunshots, an unexplained explosion, or a car runs into a crowd, our first thought is terrorism.
I was reminded of this recently dropping my daughter off at FSU for her violin practice with the youth orchestra. Luckily, she wasn’t there April 17 when a gunman killed two and shot six others. When I first heard it on the radio, my parental paranoia immediately feared a coordinated terror attack against our schools. It turned out to be a 20-year-old student with mental issues. But the grim reality remains that despite school guards, a legion of TSA gropers, and widespread government surveillance, we are all potential targets of terror.
“What does this have to do with trading cards” you wonder? Glad you asked! I wrote about what I thought was a very unique and oddball card series called Terrorist Attack back in Wrapper issue #220 in 2006. It turns out it wasn’t so unique or oddball after all—because I just found another one that is even more obscure and much more bizarre. It surfaced on eBay, a full color photo set of 36 called—what else—Terrorist Trading Cards.
They are unnumbered and measured 2.5 x 3.25 inches. It’s quite an assortment of famous terrorists, ripped from the newspaper headlines going all the way back to 1969 with Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground. Back then, boomers like me were dodging the draft by using a student deferment. (Although I probably would have volunteered for the excitement of war if they would have accepted first graders.) Bill was a self-described communist revolutionary who bombed banks and other buildings to protest Vietnam. Several fellow comrades were killed during the campaign when their bombs prematurely blew up, but Bill managed to avoid conviction thanks to legal screw-ups by the F.B.I.. He went on to become a teacher. (And I bet his class wasn’t as boring as my first grade.)
Speaking of controversial academics, another one in the set is Theodore Kaczynski, aka The Unibomber. Teddy was a mathematics prodigy who gave up his scholastic career to move to the forest and defend the trees by mailing letter bombs to those he perceived were a threat to them. He killed three and maimed 23 others, but was eventually caught after his brother recognized his rants when the New York Times published his Manifesto. How many trees were sacrificed to print his screed may never be known, but Ted traded his 10x14’ log cabin for an 8x10’ cell until hanging himself in 2023.
(Above: Some of the card images have poor resolution. They all feature a flag to show the nationality of the terrorist.)
This set is literally a Who’s Who of terrorists and dabblers of death. Saddam Hussein is here. Muammar Gaddafi is here. Both of the Washington DC “Beltway Sniper” shooters are here. Julian Assange, the Wiki Leaks publisher is here. (Although he didn’t directly kill anyone, his publishing of secret agents and informants led to the killing of numerous government sources.) Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber is here. Tim was the only American on death row who was actually executed in a timely manner. (He waited just four years, instead of the usual 20 to 30 years before facing the music.) Even Major Nidal Malik Hasan is here. Remember him? He was the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 fellow soldiers and shot 32 others at Fort Hood in 2013. The White House refused to call it terrorism, and instead tried to spin it as “workplace violence”, but everyone knew otherwise and eventually, emails between Hasan and terror-guru Anwar Al-Awlaki proved he was an Islamic jihadist.
(Above: The backs have limited information, probably dumbed down for kids. For example, suicides, executions, and targeted assassinations are only listed as "deceased".)
Too bad the cards didn’t include Osama Bin Laden… No, wait, there he is, card #36! (He made it in just under the wire.) Actually, you could say Bin Laden was the patron saint of this series, and the entire reason this set was published. When I mentioned earlier that our anti-Terrorist zeal sometimes crosses the boundries of good taste and goes over the top, wait until you hear how Terrorist Trading Cards were originally packaged. It’s much juicier than with gum inside wax packs within a P.O.P box atop a 7-11 Icee machine. No sir, these were perforated cards, 9-per-page, attached inside a coloring book made for kids. Yes, seriously! As the cartoonish cover proudly proclaims, “The True Faces of Evil-Terror. Tell the Truth - Tell it Often - Tell the Children. Graphic Coloring Novel – Trading Cards”
This 40 page “coloring novel” has it all—line art to colorize all your favorite heroes (like our soldiers, police and firefighters), plus bold outlines of our most hated villains (like Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Presidents of Syria and Iran). Just be sure to keep several brown crayons on hand for your kids to finish the task. They’ll need them to color the over abundance of Muslims depicted throughout.
Yes, its patriotic propaganda, published at the height of the “War on Terror”. Good taste it isn’t, but nostalgic it is. I have no clue where I was when they announced the Oklahoma City bombing, but we all remember where we were and the exact date when we first heard about and watched the twin towers fall on TV. Admittedly, the coloring book is so kitschy, it’s kind of funny. (It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but awkwardly weird and cringe-worthy.) The cartoonish cover sternly declares “We shall never forget 9/11 –Vol. II”. If this is the sequel, just imagine the prequel!.
(Above: Kids are provided some helpful hints on how to treat their new collectible cards... but they left out sticking them between bike spokes!)
The copyright was 2012 by Really Big Coloring Books. How it escaped notice until now is mysterious indeed. The eBay sale sold four sets of the cards for $200. The singles pop up for $12 to $20 each. Ben Laden and McVeigh seem to sell for the most. (Move over Adolf Hitler.)
You gotta love some of the scenes depicted here “for the children” to practice their hand/ eye coloring coordination. There’re battleships, female doctors, male nurses, and George W. Bush sitting on stage with children as an aid whispers in his ear that all hell has just broken loose… The literal show stopper is the last image on page 40: One of our heroic soldiers shoots a cowering Osama as he tries to hide behind his wife in her non-bullet-proof Burqa. You can actually see the bullet leave the muzzle and make its way to his chest. Kids just love a happy ending.
Here’s another happy ending: You can still get this priceless piece of 9/11 swag for just $9 on Amazon.com. No, I didn’t publish it nor do I profit from it, but someone much smarter and wealthier than me probably did. To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, “You’ll never go broke under-estimating the bad taste of the American people.” (Color me guilty!) So say what you will about Osama and his scum bucket buddies, but at least they inspired a neat set of cards.
(Above: 1 of the four uncut pages inside the coloring book, containing 9 of the 36 cards. A complete set is inside each coloring book.)