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What is Dinosaurs Attack! anyway?
DINOSAURS ATTACK! is a 1988 collector card series from Topps containing 55 cards and 11 Stickers.

A Short History...
The United States Civil War Centennial Celebration was still going strong in 1962 when Topps produced a set of cards titled THE CIVIL WAR. The cards were the idea of Len Brown and Woody Gelman. Gelman recalled an earlier series of cards from the 1930's called HORRORS OF WAR that had made a large impact because of the graphic violence that was shown. They felt that boys would react strongly if they did a combination Civil War Chronicle with the feel of the old Horrors of War cards. Because of the title of the "newspaper-like journal" on the back the set has become known as the CIVIL WAR NEWS. The cards were graphic, bloody and extremely successful.

In 1962 the MARS ATTACKS bubble-gum card set was produced by "Bubbles, Inc." (an alternate company name for Topps). Due to Brown and Gelman's earlier success with their historical card set called "Civil War News" that the kids loved, they knew they had the formula for a smashing success. They would combine the sci-fi Martian scenario with the graphic gore of a kind of interplanetary civil war. Instead of North vs. South, it would be the Martians vs. the Earthlings. The cards, which sold for 5 cents a pack in 1962, were quickly denounced by parents who were shocked by the bloody, gory, graphic pictures, and were pulled off the market after a very short time.

Three years after MARS ATTACKS, in 1965, Topps produced a set entitled BATTLE. The World War II card series didn't sell particularly well and that ended the Topps/Brown/Gelman trilogy of great painted card sets.  

However, Topps tried once more with the DINOSAURS ATTACK! cards that came out in 1988.. At that time there was a lot of interest in Dinosaurs and Brown and Gelman thought a blood and guts series like the old ones would be unusual enough to be sucessful again. But it never broke through as a card series in a big way. Just hard core collectors seemed to love them. The series was certainly inspired by Mars Attacks. When Tim Burton had Warner Bros. acquire the rights for the Mars Attacks film, they also bought the rights to Dinosaurs Attack.

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