The wait to watch Solo: A Star Wars Story in the comfort of your own home is over; as it the wait for over 100 new images from the film. Manager of Star Wars Authentics, Mark Von Ohlen, gave us some time to talk about his work at Topps, a look into the new images and reveal the newest Solo signer to be available to collectors on the website.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Mark, Topps is celebrating the digital download release of Solo: A Star Wars Story by adding over a 100 new official photos from the film to Star Wars Authentics and the reveal of a new autograph signer. Before we get into those details, could you tell us a bit about your role with Topps and how it has evolved since we first met?

Mark Von Ohlen: I’ve been with Topps now almost four years. I started as the brand manager of Star Wars in November 2014 just as we were getting ready to enter the Journey to The Force Awakens time period. As brand manager I oversaw all product development on trading cards and collectables. We had a fantastic 2015 with several new products for the TFA film. The following year I was put in charge of the entire entertainment portfolio which included Star Wars, Doctor Who, WWE, Garbage Pail Kids, and Wacky Packages. During that time we kept the momentum rolling on Star Wars with even more new brands and products for Rogue One plus we took on new entertainment licenses including The Walking Dead. After two years in that role overseeing all of entertainment, I took over Star Wars Authentics. I’ve been in this role now for almost a year though it’s been my passion project of mine for longer. I helped us win the license from Lucasfilm and being on the card side, I coordinated with our talent management team to determine the first wave of SWA signers and guests for Celebration 2017. I’m now running the day to day business which includes official photos and autographs sold on our website – www.StarWarsAuthentics.com – and working behind the scenes on Celebration 2019.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Many autograph collectors are curious about the change that took place several years ago when the official photo license went to Topps. It was a major change for many of us.  What can you tell us about that process and the birth of Star Wars Authentics?

Mark Von Ohlen: As you might already know, Topps has had the trading card license for Star Wars since the very beginning in 1977. Since then we’ve expanded into other blind bag collectibles including dog tags, danglers, and stickers and albums. Lucasfilm approached us about a marketplace need for Star Wars as they were trying to bring some structure around autographs. As you know, that market (not just Star Wars, but in sports and entertainment) is riddled with fraud. As part of our trading card license, Topps regularly works with the Star Wars actors and has them sign autographs and we guarantee the authenticity. Going a step further, we knew we would bring authenticity to the Star Wars autograph market through our partnership with Major League Baseball’s Authenticators Inc. They are the industry standard in autograph authenticity as all autograph signings are witnessed by trained law enforcement officers. With the partnership with MLB AI and Topps’ experience working with the talent, we knew we would help achieve Lucasfilm’s goals of removing fraud from the marketplace. That’s our very simple mission. Along with the autograph component came the official photo license. Topps is already very familiar with the Star Wars imagery as we make several trading card sets a year and have been for 40 years. Plus we are a printing company so this was an easy fit for us to print photos.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Star Wars Authentics has run some great sales, most recently buy one, get one 50% off all autographs in the store.  How important is it to Topps to offer these deals to customers and is there another sale on the horizon?

Mark Von Ohlen: We try to keep the deals interesting by varying the content or discount type and limiting them to every other month or so. If there’s something exciting happening on the Star Wars calendar – like May the 4th or the Rebels finale – we tap into that and offer either something new or something discounted or sometimes both. We want shoppers to come to the site regularly so we’ve been adding new official photos every week for the past 10 weeks. We’ve added over 1,000 new photos from across all the films and TV series. We also added our first autographed non-photo item with Adam Driver signed Funko Pop figures. We also added several new signers this year – Paul Bettany, Ben Mendelsohn, James Arnold Taylor, Stephen Stanton, and Laura Dern – plus we added new items from Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega and Felicity Jones. Basically we want shoppers to come back often and see what’s NEW.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: How does Authenticators Inc and your hologram program protect collectors who purchase from Star Wars Authentics?

Mark Von Ohlen: Authenticators Inc. launched in 2006 and since then they have become known as the standard for authentication in sports and entertainment having authenticated over 6 million items. Each autograph that is signed is witnessed by one of the AI law enforcement officers. After witnessing the signing, they affix a tamper-proof hologram to the autograph that has a unique code on it. You can enter that code into our website and see who signed and when it was signed to guarantee it’s authentic. You can read all about AI HERE.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: I love collecting Topps autograph cards from the various sets that have been released over the years.  What should collectors be looking out for in the near future to add to their collection?

Mark Von Ohlen:  We’ve got a few really interesting trading card sets out now and few more on the way this year. Topps Star Wars Archives Signature Series just came out a few weeks ago and features buyback Topps Star Wars trading cards foil stamped, signed by the talent and encased. Cards go all the way back to 1977 and the signer list includes classic saga all the way through The Last Jedi. Main cast signers include Harrison Ford, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Felicity Jones, Ben Mendelsohn and new signers include Mads Mikkelsen, Simon Williamson, and Howie Weed. Topps Star Wars Masterwork 2018 is out now and contains 1 hit per mini box. Hits include on-card autographs, multi-signed autographs, sketch cards, source material costume fabric relics, UK Royal Mail stamp cards, and patch cards. We have some big name signers like Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Hayden Christensen and new signers to collect including Samuel L. Jackson, Andrew Kishino, and Brent Spiner.  In October you’ll find the much anticipated return of Topps Star Wars Galaxy which features newly commissioned artwork by Topps artists. Then later this year we’ll release Topps Star Wars Finest, our first Chrome Star Wars release since 2016 followed by Topps Star Wars Stellar Signatures 2018 which will feature on-card signatures from the main actors and characters in the saga.

StarWarsAutographNews.com:  We first met several years ago at New York Comic Con.  What does a typical convention look like from your side of the booth and what do you enjoy most about attending?

Mark Von Ohlen: I love going to conventions and attend about a dozen shows a year from big shows like SDCC and NYCC to very small events like Chiller. Whether I’m working a show or just attending, my favorite part of the experience is meeting the talent and meeting the fans. It’s always great to run into your Twitter mutuals IRL or talk with fans about upcoming Star Wars products. I’m a big autograph collector so I enjoy meeting actors at shows and adding to my autograph collection. When working a show like SDCC this year, I’m most excited to tell fans what we have coming up at Topps and Star Wars Authentics and taking them through the products as well as talking Star Wars theories. The best moments though are those crazy shared experiences you can only get at cons. I was working at the booth during The Clone Wars panel and then trailer dropped and a crowd started forming and we were all huddled around a few phones to watch. We were screaming with excitement! It was one of those fandom bonding moments with likeminded people you’ll always remember.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: While we are talking about conventions, Star Wars Celebration returns this April in Chicago.  What will be some of your responsibilities leading up to the show and at the show itself?

Mark Von Ohlen: I can’t believe Celebration 2019 is so soon! I’m very excited for Celebration next year especially since we brought in such big name new talent last year with Felicity Jones, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Topps is diligently working behind the scenes getting ready for the show. We can’t announce anything yet though. For all communication regarding Celebration, expect there will be official posts on StarWars.com or an announcement on The Star Wars Show. Once any news is officially released by Disney we can then comment on it. Until that point, assume everything you read is just a rumor.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Star Wars Authentics has been preparing for the release of the new official Solo photos over the last several weeks by releasing 100s of new images from all the previous films and animated series.  It’s been a very long time since collectors have had this many official photos to choose from. Can you tell us a bit about what went into that process?

Mark Von Ohlen: I set a goal for the first half of the year to get new signers and items up on the site (which we did with Mendelsohn, Bettany, JAT, Stephen Stanton, Laura Dern and new items from Ridley, Boyega, Driver and Felicity Jones). Most importantly we had to get new photos out there for The Last Jedi home video and the Solotheatrical releases. Once those goals were achieved, I was able to focus during the second half of the year on going back and get official photos from the other films and TV series. I started with the classic films and Rebels since classic was the most fan-demanded and Rebels had just ended, which opened up a ton of imagery for us to use. From there I created a calendar where each week we would have a new photo collection released. We added over 1,000 photos in the last 10 weeks from across the original trilogy, the prequels, The Clone Wars and all four seasons of Star Wars Rebels. We have 100 new Solo photos going live Thursday 9/13 to celebrate the release of the Solo digital home video release. After that we have over the next few weeks additional images planned from The Clone Wars, Forces of Destiny, and Rogue One. We are also trying to get a small collection up for the premiere of the new cartoon Star Wars Resistance.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: From an autograph collecting perspective, many of the photos are of actors who are deceased or unlikely to sign autographs.  Does Topps look into those factors when deciding which images they select to make available on the site?

Mark Von Ohlen:  There are a few ways in which we choose which official photos to launch. First off we always include main characters from the movies. That’s why you’ll see lots of Carrie Fisher, Kenny Baker, Alec Guinness, and other deceased actors. It’s important to have all those characters represented even if they’re not going to be signing as not all photo purchases are for autograph hunting. In fact, Carrie Fisher is our #3 top selling photo subject this year. Working with the assets provided by Lucasfilm we try to get a few images of each secondary character so there are options for them to use at conventions or for people to purchase from the site if they plan to meet them. Usually we’ll add lots of selects for an actor who is doing the con circuit and whose agent requests images from us. We also try to include any direct requests from fans. The easiest way to request an image is to contact our customer service HERE.  We can’t promise that all requests can be done. Our depth of images in most properties, especially the older saga, is more limited, though our breadth of offerings across the saga has rise dramatically.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Now on to the Solo photos!  What can collectors expect to see with these new images?

Mark Von Ohlen: We have 100 new official photos from Solo: A Star Wars Story featuring some exciting reveals that we couldn’t release until the home video. Most spoilery is the reveal of Maul in the final moments of the film. We have a few images of him. We also have Enfys Nest unmasked, played by the awesome Erin Kellyman. There are also individual shots of several of the Cloud Riders and even Warwick Davis unmasked as well! We also finally have some shots of Rio Durant and a new stack of images of Val. The Dryden Vos options are much more plentiful with several shots of his face lines all lit up in red. We even have some pics of his duel with Qi’ra along with more images of her in general. And of course there are some new Han, Lando and Chewbacca who were already pretty well represented in the last update. You can see all the new Solo images HERE.

StarWarsAutographNews.com:  You’ve been teasing us with a new signer from Solo which will be available today.  We’re dying to know.  Who is it?

Mark Von Ohlen: Our new Star Wars Authentics signer is none other than Star Wars voice actor extraordinaire Sam Witwer! Aside from being the infamous voice of Maul on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, he also voiced the Mortis Son and of course had that awesome cameo at the end of Solo where he voiced Maul in a live action movie for the first time. We have 9 different autographed photos of his to collect, which you can see by clicking HERE.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Excellent!  Few people understand Star Wars on the same level as Sam.  It’s always a joy to hear him talk about his views on the saga.  I know many collectors will be eager to add this one to their collection.

I’ve been wanting to ask you this for some time, do you have a favorite Star Wars autograph or collectible in your personal collection?

Mark Von Ohlen:  I’m a big Star Wars nerd and have been collecting since before I started working for Topps so I have quite a few. I got to meet Carrie Fisher at her one-woman Broadway Show Wishful Drinking and I have her autograph on the Playbill. I was also lucky enough to meet Erik Bauersfeld at Rhode Island Comic Con in 2015 and he signed an awesome Admiral Ackbar photo that I also had signed by Tim Rose making it complete. I also have a David Prowse and Clive Revill signed photo. And finally at Celebration 2017 I got to meet Sarah Michelle Gellar, one of my all-time favorites as I’m a huge Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan. She signed my Rebels poster along with most of the cast, including the awesome Dave Filoni, and I got a photo with her and Freddie so mission accomplished.

StarWarsAutographNews.com: Mark, I want to thank you for your time today, I know how busy you must be.  Before we let you go, what are the best ways for collectors to keep up to date with Topps Star Wars Authentics?

Mark Von Ohlen: You can keep up with us in a variety of ways.

Visit www.StarWarsAuthentics.com to see all the products we have available for sale. We’re constantly adding new photos and signed items.

Follow @Topps on Twitter and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Topps for the latest news on Topps Star Wars cards and Star Wars Authentics.

You can also find me on Twitter at @DarthVonOhlen

Thanks so much for talking with me today. MTFBWY!