Man, they made trading cards out of everything in the '90s, didn't they? Case in point: Written by Dennis Bernstein and Laura Slydell and illustrated by Elektra: Assassin genius Bill Sienkiewicz, the Friendly Dictators Trading Cards set from 1990 represented a rogues' gallery of tyrants who were on good terms with the good ol' U.S. of A. Okay, so Hitler's a bit of a stretch. But from Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti to Augusto Pinochet in Chile to Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, there's no shortage of creeps, goons, and outright monsters with whom America traded the occasional Christmas card and/or oodles of military and monetary aid, and Sienkiewicz brings them all to ghoulish life. I particularly appreciate the "CANCELLED" stamp applied to the autocrats who eventually fell out of our favor. Poor Manuel Noriega, he never saw it coming.

(Via John Barber)