Editing Topps (section)

==Non-sports products==
[[File:X-Files comic 5.jpg|thumb|right|170px|Topps Comics' ''[[The X-Files (comics)|The X-Files]]'' #5 (May 1995), cover art by Miriam Kim]]
Originally, Topps was purely a gum company, and its first product was simply called "Topps gum". Other gum and candy products followed. In imitation of Bowman and other competitors, Topps eventually began producing humor products unrelated to sports. This included stickers, posters (Wanted Posters, Travel Posters), media tie-ins (''[[Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In]]''), book covers (Batty Bookcovers) and toys (Flying Things), plus offbeat packaging (Garbage Candy). More recently, the company published comic books and games.

===Candy and confectionery items===
The longest-lived Topps product line remains [[Bazooka (chewing gum)|Bazooka bubble gum]], small pieces of gum in patriotic red, white, and blue packaging. Bazooka was introduced in 1947 as a bar of gum that sold for five cents. Unlike the gum sold with baseball cards, it was of better quality and capable of selling on its own merit. In 1953, Topps began selling smaller penny pieces with the ''[[Bazooka Joe]]'' comic strip on the wrapper as an added attraction.

Even though baseball cards became the company's primary focus during this period, Topps still developed a variety of candy items. For quite a few years, the company stuck within familiar confines, and virtually all of these products involved gum in some way. Sales declined significantly in the 1970s, however, when this relatively hard gum was challenged by [[Bubble Yum]], a new, softer form of [[bubble gum]] from [[Life Savers]].

Later, Topps added more candy items without gum. One particular focus has been [[lollipop]]s, such as [[Ring Pop]]s. However, Topps has noted that increasing public attention to childhood nutrition undercuts its candy sales. Under pressure by shareholders, the company considered selling off its confectionery business in 2005, but was unable to find a buyer to meet its price and decided to cut management expenses instead.

Other brands include [[Push Pop]], [[Baby Bottle Pop]], and [[Juicy Drop Pop]].

Discontinued products include the Vertigo lollipop, that consisted of a creamy lollipop with a chocolate half and the [[Wazoo bar]].

When the Topps name was sold with the trading card business and entertainment properties to Fanatics, the confectionary business was spun-off as Bazooka Brands, which remains owned by the previous owners.

===Non-sports trading cards===
[[File:Little Richard 1957.JPG|thumb|upright|A 1957 Topps trading card for recording star [[Little Richard]]]]
As its sports products relied more on photography, Topps redirected its artistic efforts toward [[non-sports trading card]]s, on themes inspired by [[popular culture]]. For example, the [[Space Race]] prompted a set of ''Space Cards'' in 1958. Topps has continued to create collectible cards and stickers on a variety of subjects, often targeting the same adolescent male audience as its baseball cards. In particular, these have covered movies, television series, and other cultural phenomena ranging from [[the Beatles]] to the life story of [[John F. Kennedy]].  The many ''[[Star Wars Trading Cards|Star Wars]]'' card series have done well, with a few exceptions.  Future screenwriter Gary Gerani ("Pumpkinhead') joined the company in 1972 and became the editor/writer of almost all movie and television tie-in products, most notably the numerous ''Star Wars'' sets, while also creating and helming original card properties such as 1988's ''Dinosaurs Attack!''.

Many Topps artists came from the world of comics and continued to work in that field as well. The shift from sports to other topics better suited the creative instincts of the artists and coincided with turmoil in the comic book industry over regulation by the [[Comics Code Authority]]. Beginning at Topps when he was a teenager, [[Art Spiegelman]] was the company's main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years. Other staffers in Topps's Product Development Department at various times included Larry Riley, [[Mark Newgarden]], [[Bhob Stewart]] and Rick Varesi. Topps's creative directors of Product Development, Woody Gelman and Len Brown, gave freelance assignments to leading comic book illustrators, such as [[Jack Davis (cartoonist)|Jack Davis]], [[Wally Wood]] and [[Bob Powell (comics)|Bob Powell]]. Spiegelman, Gelman and Brown also hired freelance artists from the [[underground comix]] movement, including [[Bill Griffith]] and [[Kim Deitch]] and [[Robert Crumb]]. [[Jay Lynch]] did extensive cartooning for Topps over several decades.

Drawing on their previous work, these artists were adept at things like mixing humor and [[horror fiction|horror]], as with the Funny Monsters cards in 1959. The 1962 ''[[Mars Attacks]]'' cards, sketched by Wood and Powell and painted by [[Norman Saunders]], later inspired a [[Tim Burton]] movie. A tie-in with the ''Mars Attacks'' film led to a 1994 card series, a new 100-card ''Archives'' set reprinting the 55 original cards, plus 45 new cards from several different artists, including Norm Saunders' daughter, [[Zina Saunders]].

Among Topps's most notable achievements in the area of satire and [[parody]] have been ''[[Wacky Packages]]'', a takeoff on various household consumer products, and ''[[Garbage Pail Kids]]'', a parody of the [[Cabbage Patch Kids]] dolls. Another popular series was the ''[[Civil War News]]'' set, also with Norman Saunders' artwork.

Earlier, particularly in the early and mid-60s, Topps thrived with several successful series of parody and satire cards for a variety of occasions, usually featuring artists who also worked at ''[[Mad (magazine)|Mad]]'' magazine.  There were several insult-valentine card series, plus a series of insult epigram cards called Wacky Plaques, several series of well-known-product advertising parody cards, a set of cards featuring the 'mad car-driver cartoons' of artist [[Ed Roth|Big Daddy Roth]], and a card-sticker series of fanciful bizarre 'rejected aliens' from other planets, among other semi-subversive outrageous over-the-top concepts designed for the semi-rebellious adolescent boomer market.

Although baseball cards have been Topps's most consistently profitable item, certain fads have occasionally produced spikes in popularity for non-sports items. For a period beginning in 1973, the ''Wacky Packages'' stickers managed to outsell Topps baseball cards, becoming the first product to do so since the company's early days as purely a gum and candy maker. ''[[Pokémon]]'' cards would accomplish the same feat for a few years starting in 1999. In the absence of new fads to capitalize on, Topps has come under pressure from stock analysts, since its sports card business is more stable and has less growth potential.

In 2015, Topps started to expand its non-sports category by adding more TV shows, as well as sci-fi with its brand-new ''[[Star Wars]]'' line (expanding into its own Topps virtual card app, similar to [[Topps BUNT]]), as well as ''[[Doctor Who]]'', with regular autographs as well as vintage cut autographs, screen-worn relics, and more.<ref>{{Cite web |title=2015 Topps Star Wars Illustrated: The Empire Strikes Back Trading Card Box |url=https://www.steelcitycollectibles.com/i/2015-topps-star-wars-illustrated:-the-empire-strikes-back-trading-card-box |access-date=2022-05-17 |website=Steel City Collectibles |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=2015 Topps Doctor Who Hobby Box |url=https://www.steelcitycollectibles.com/i/2015-topps-doctor-who-hobby-box |access-date=2022-05-17 |website=Steel City Collectibles |language=en}}</ref>

===Disney Channel===
Topps worked together with the [[Disney Channel]] to create trading cards of ''[[High School Musical]]'',<ref>[http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/HighSchoolMusical/HighSchoolMusical.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102232814/http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/HighSchoolMusical/HighSchoolMusical.html|date=January 2, 2010}}</ref> ''[[High School Musical 2]]'',<ref>[http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/HSM2-Update/HSM2Update-Web.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081002020817/http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/HSM2-Update/HSM2Update-Web.html|date=October 2, 2008}}</ref> ''[[High School Musical 3]]'',<ref>[http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/hsm3/hsm3.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080926201046/http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/hsm3/hsm3.html|date=September 26, 2008}}</ref> and ''[[Hannah Montana]]''.<ref>[http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/HannahMontana/HannahMontana.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090204160755/http://www.topps.com/ent/brands/HannahMontana/HannahMontana.html|date=February 4, 2009}}</ref>

===Comic books===
{{main|Topps Comics}}
Drawing on its established connections with artists, in 1993, Topps created a division of the company to publish comic books.  Known as Topps Comics, its early efforts included several concepts from retired industry legend [[Jack Kirby]], known collectively as the "Kirbyverse". Topps Comics particularly specialized in licensed titles with tie-ins to movies or television series, though it also published a few original series. Its longest-running and best-selling title was ''[[The X-Files (comics)|The X-Files]]'', based on the [[Fox Broadcasting|Fox]] TV show.

These comic books featured former [[Marvel Comics]] editor [[Jim Salicrup]] as its editor-in-chief. Apart from ''The X-Files'', some of the more famous titles included ''[[Lone Ranger]] and [[Tonto]]'' by [[Timothy Truman]], ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess (comics)|Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', ''[[Mars Attacks]]'', and ''[[Zorro]]'', which introduced the famous comics character [[Lady Rawhide]]. With sales stagnating, the company decided to pull out of the comics business in 1998.

===Games===
The Topps Pokémon cards were purely for entertainment, pleasure and collecting, but a new niche of [[collectible card game]]s was also developing during this period (a [[Pokémon trading card game]] was produced simultaneously by [[Wizards of the Coast]]). Topps made its first foray into the world of games in July 2003 by acquiring the game company [[WizKids]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Topps Acquires WizKids |url=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/2950.html |work=icv2.com |publisher=ICV2 |date=June 23, 2003 |access-date=August 12, 2009}}</ref> for $29.4 million in cash, thus acquiring ownership of the rights to the well-known gaming universes of ''[[BattleTech]]'' and ''[[Shadowrun]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Topps Reveals WizKids' Price |url=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/2956.html |work=icv2.com |publisher=ICV2 |date=June 23, 2003 |access-date=August 12, 2009}}</ref> By inventing yet another niche, the [[constructible strategy game]] ''[[Pirates of the Spanish Main]]'', this unit managed to reach profitability.  Topps shut down Wizkids operation in November 2008 due to the economic downturn.<ref>{{cite web |title=Topps Shuts Down WizKids |url=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13701.html |work=icv2.com |publisher=ICV2 |date=November 10, 2008 |access-date=August 12, 2009}}</ref> The brand was acquired by [[National Entertainment Collectibles Association|NECA]] in September 2009.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.necaonline.com/article/detail/278 |title=NECA Acquires WizKids Assets from Topps |access-date=September 22, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090922214350/http://www.necaonline.com/article/detail/278 |archive-date=September 22, 2009 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref>