Found this web surfing at work today...

INQUEST GAMER FANS CROWN VS. SYSTEM™ ‘AVENGERS’ SET AS
‘BEST TRADING CARD GAME EXPANSION OF 2005’


Vs. System Wins ‘InQuest Gamer Fan Award’ Two Years in a Row


CARLSBAD, CA. -- March 17, 2006 -- Upper Deck Entertainment’s (UDE) Vs. System this week continued to receive the highest accolades in the industry, with “The Avengers” earning InQuest Gamer magazine’s 2006 Fan Award for Best Trading Card Game Expansion. InQuest Gamer -- published by Wizard Entertainment (Wizard, ToyFare, Anime Insider) -- presented the award at the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Names of additional winners will be published in InQuest Gamer #133, on sale in April.


“‘World’s Mightiest Heroes’ is a pretty apt description for ‘The Avengers,’” said InQuest Gamer Magazine Associate Editor Brent Fishbaugh. “It came down like (Thor’s) hammer on the rest of the nominees.”


Vs. System artist Aerial Olivetti, who has created more than 140 Vs. System TCG cards – including gamer favorite Spider-Man, Peter Parker (MAV-209), also won an InQuest Gamer Fan Award for Best Trading Card Game Artist.


Every year, thousands of readers vote for their favorite trading card, role-playing, miniature and video games, making the InQuest Gamer Fan Awards one of the leading expressions of popular support in the industry. Last year, the Vs. System’s “Marvel Origins” set honored with the Best New Trading Card Game Award; InQuest Gamer also named Vs. System the “Game of the Year” in its January 2006 issue.


Released last August, “The Avengers” showcases some of the Marvel Universe’s most dynamic characters as they continue their fight against the greatest threats to humanity. Power-packed characters in the set include Captain America, Thor and Iron Man, among others. Signature teams in the set include The Avengers, The Thunderbolts, The Masters of Evil and Squadron Supreme.


The Marvel Trading Card Game incorporates the Vs. System -- UDE’s game engine that represents epic Super HeroÔ battles in a TCG format. In Vs. System, each player begins the game with his or her own team of Marvel Super HeroesÔ or Marvel Super VillainsÔ, and then tries to knock out all of his or her opponents. The game is specially designed to be played at every level of competition, from casual games to professional-level tournaments, and can be played in a variety of formats with any number of players.


For more information on the Vs. System and UDE products, Internet users can log on to www.upperdeckentertainment.com.


About Upper Deck Company

The Upper Deck Company, LLC is a premier sports/entertainment publishing company that delivers a portfolio of relevant, innovative and multi-dimensional product experiences to collectors and sports and entertainment enthusiasts.


About Marvel Enterprises Inc.

Marvel Enterprises Inc. is a leading global entertainment licensing company with the world’s largest character library of more than 5,000 properties that have entertained generations for over 60 years. Principally focused on licensing, Marvel has talented creative teams in its Consumer Products (licensing), Marvel Studios, Marvel Comics and Toy Biz divisions. These divisions support the development of a broad range of entertainment (film/television/DVD), consumer products, toys, comics/trade paperbacks and promotions based on the Marvel characters. Visit http://www.marvel.com for more information.


Marvel, Wolverine, Professor X, Rogue, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc. and are used with permission. Copyright Ó Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. www.marvel.com.



Super Hero(es) and Super Villains are co-owned registered Trademarks.

go Aerial, best artist ever!!!!!1!!!1!!1!1!1!!!

Yeah I agree. Ariel Olivetti is one of the consistently best artists of VS. I always look forward to the cards that he does because I know they'll be good.

Ariel Olivetti is the artist for VS man, he has done soo much along with Andrew Robinson and Cully Hammer, I hope they show up at GenCon this year and Origins, get some more cards signed, that would be awesome, go Ariel.

Not to be a fan boy, but I had a chance to talk with him for a while, and we discussed his artistic magic.

His pencilling is always impressive with great capturing and rendering of his subjects, but his Vs cards are so amazing because he uses photoshop to color them.

He explained that this makes him sad that he has no originals to display of his colored works, since it is all done by computer, but that he loves to do the Vs card art work. He gets to use characters that are well known and some that he doesn't know so well either.

Not that i expect he'll be reading these boards too much, but in case he does :

Congratulations, Mr. Olivetti!

And congratulations Bojo and crew on yet another impressive showing :)

Blech, I'm not an Olivetti fan at ALL. He's an okay penciller, and a decent painter, but he has no composition skill at all. His pictures are dull as sin. Over half his cards are just "[character name] standing around, from the front." Sure, it's a very NICE picture of [character name] standing around, from the front, but that is in itself not a very creative way to render that picture.

The other problem is with contrast-- he uses none. Using paint (or digipaint) gives you a hell of a lot of freedom when it comes to using creative lighting in a scene, but Ariel does not use this. His scenes are all very washed out and homogenous, with nary a pool of shadow to be seen.

The guy is certainly a competent technical artist, but his composition is pretty terrible. I haven't liked more than a handful of his 140 cards, as the vast majority of them are just incredibly dull images.