35th Anniversary

Thirty-five years after the brand first arrived in stores in 1985, Topps marked the milestone in late October 2020 with 2020 Series 2, ending a nine-month drought for collectors at retail. Released amidst a wider surge of interest in trading cards during the pandemic, the print run expanded dramatically, reaching an estimated production run of over one million packs that made it the most heavily printed set from the company in ten years. The rollout experienced a month-long postponement from its intended September release date, and distributor GTS announced that Topps had reduced Collector box production by sixty percent because of manufacturing issues. Retail packs still arrived across Walmart and Target shelves.

The base checklist returned to a single continuous numbering system from 1a to 100b, giving collectors a two-hundred-card set organized into five separate themes. Four artists divided the original paintings evenly, with Brent Engstrom, David Gross, Joe Simko, and Joe McWilliams each turning in twenty-five pieces. Across the sequence, the illustrations showed original characters as grown adults, leaped ahead to an imaginary hundred-and-thirty-fifth anniversary, and paired older icons against modern ones on cards like Clashing CLARK and LONDON Brawling. A few paintings dusted off ideas that had waited years for an assignment, including Engstrom's unused concepts from the All-New Series era for Feeding TIM and Waxy WESLEY, but Topps made its own editorial tweaks, replacing Simko's original naming choices for U.F. OWEN and TP PETEY.

Packaging formats were divided between retail shelves and hobby tins shaped like miniature garbage cans, with different box types carrying dedicated inserts and border colors. Blaster boxes yielded three Midlife Crisis cards per box alongside panoramic sketches of Double HEATHER, with Phlegm Yellow borders dropping once per box despite printed odds indicating a longer wait. Fat packs delivered Jelly Purple parallels and Fan Favorites, whose roster Topps assembled after asking collectors on social media to vote for their favorite characters. Spit Blue borders stamped to ninety-nine copies shifted over to retail display boxes alongside No Regerts temporary tattoos. Collector tins provided their own run of distinct hits, packing in GPK Wacky Packages, Bruised Black borders at one per pack, Blood Nose Red cards numbered to seventy-five, and Location Relics limited to two hundred and fifty copies.

Outside the base set, Topps included a variety of sketch cards, unannounced inserts, and redemptions across the release. Fifty-two sketch artists drew original cards for the series, including the GPK debut of Karl Jones, working across standard Adam Bomb sketches, loaded sketches composed of four standard cards, and die-cut cards cut into garbage cans and piles of dung. Topps slipped unannounced Artist and Employee cards into packs without fanfare, featuring creative staff such as David Gross depicted on New Wave David, while a promotional card for an R.L. Stine book also turned up in packs. Several retail parallel odds were overstated on wrappers by roughly double, leading cards like Booger Green to appear in every pack rather than the listed one in two. The release marked the brand's thirty-fifth anniversary as the largest set Topps had printed since introducing pack odds.