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Garbage Pail Kids
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Shortly after they debuted in June 1985, Garbage Pail Kids became the hottest item on the playground. The sticker trading cards took the concept of the popular, cutesy toddler dolls known as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and gave them horror-film-type...
Shortly after they debuted in June 1985, Garbage Pail Kids became the hottest item on the playground. The sticker trading cards took the concept of the popular, cutesy toddler dolls known as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and gave them horror-film-type physical deformities or repulsive, adult personalities; made them into human-animal mutants; or subjected them to cartoonish deaths. Each image would be paired with a silly name to complete the gag, like "Fryin' Brian." Every card had an A and B version, with the B version simply featuring a different name—"Fryin' Brian" became "Electric Bill." The cards could be saved and traded, or the stickers could be peeled off and affixed to bikes and Trapper Keepers. Card no. 8 in the first set ("Adam Bomb"/"Blasted Billy") became the most iconic "GPK" image—a toddler in a suit presses a big red button to explode a mushroom cloud from his own head.
The combination of simple gross-out jokes and sense of access to subversive humor usually reserved for adults made the cards instantly appealing to 10-year-olds—unless the image hit a little too close to home. Many cards in the Original Series (1985-'87) were completely over-the-top and surreal with doll stuffing pouring out of the injured "Kid." Other contained racial caricatures, as well as jabs at obese kids, gay and transgender kids, and kids with disabilities, illnesses, or other abnormalities. Imagine if you didn't already have a schoolyard nickname and some bully decided you reminded them of "Itchy Richie" or "Hairy Mary."
The Kids' origins go back to the '60s: In college, young cartoonist Art Spiegelman—who would become a legendary underground comix artist and Pulitzer-winning graphic novelist—took a freelance gig at the Topps bubblegum card company, and in 1966, when he was 18, Topps promoted him to creative consultant. Spiegelman, with artist Norman Saunders, developed the concept of Wacky Packages, or Wacky Packs, which were sticker cards that parodied popular consumer products and advertisements, turning them into undesirable, offensive—and sometimes gruesome—things like "Ratz Crackers" or "Choke Wagon for Dogs." Wacky Packs and his other Topps creation—Garbage Candy, or candy that came in a plastic miniature trash bin—would support Spiegelman's art career for almost a decade, as he experimented with edgier, explicitly sexual, and avant-garde comix, as well as his more somber comics about alcoholism and depression.
In the mid-1980s, Spiegelman—collaborating with artist Mark Newgarden—struck gold again with the Garbage Pail Kids, which would allow him to finish "Maus," a serious graphic novel depicting his father's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp as mice being tormented by cats. The first 1985 Garbage Pail Kids series, which was inspired by a discarded Wacky Pack card concept, included 41 images painted by John Pound for 82 cards. The backs, drawn by Tom Bunk, featured jokey certificates and passes like "Permit to Stay Up Late" and "Stupid Student Award." After the success of the initial release, other artists and writers like Jay Lynch, Mae Jeon, Luis Diaz, and James Warhola were hired to create more Kids. Later sets had backs that served as puzzle pieces that could be arranged to form a larger GPK image.
In total, 15 Original Series sets were published between summer of 1985 and the end of 1988, featuring 620 numbered images. In that time, Topps also produced two large-format editions of the cards and a set of fold-out posters. Licensed version of the GPK cards were offered in Japan, Spain, Israel, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and other parts of Latin America—and those international cards are particularly collectible today. The wild popularity of the cards inspired a 1987 live-action film, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie." Meanwhile, teachers, parents, and school administrators around the globe banned the cards. Coleco, the company that owned Cabbage Patch Kids, sued Topps for trademark infringement, and an out-of-court settlement forced Topps to alter the general appearance of the Kids as well as the logo. By 1988, Garbage Pail sales had slowed significantly, which meant the drawn-up 16th set was never produced.
But that was not the end of the Garbage Pail Kids: 15 years later, in 2003, when those 10-year-olds who purchased the first Garbage Pail Kids were 20-somethings with disposable incomes, Topps debuted the Garbage Pail Kids All New Series (ANS), mostly with art that was made in the '80s but never published. In 2004, the second ANS, which didn't include gum in the packs, featured snotty, puking, farting Kids created in the new millennium (contemporary jokes include "Justin Timberleg," "Taylor Tubby," "Downloadin' Logan," "Pete Achoo" dressed as Pikachu) by Pound, Bunk, Warhola, Strephon Taylor, Jeff Zapata, and Pat and Sean Glover. In this set, insert cards included "Scratch 'N Stink" cards and foil cards printed with numbers that could be used on the Garbage Pail Kids web site for fans to create and "gross out" their own Kid. To celebrate the 20 years of Garbage Pail Kids, in 2005, ANS4 included insert cards with original sketches by Pound, Bunk, Jay Lynch, Strephon Taylor, John Czop, Don Perlin, and Justin Green. The last All New Series set came out in January 2008.
To mark the series' 25th anniversary in 2010, Topps produced a "Flashback" set that included reprints of Kids from the 1985-'87 sets, as well as six "lost" characters from the '80s and 10 "Where Are They Now" cards showing what became of some of those '80s gross-out characters as adults. Inserts included lenticular "Loco Motion" cards and sketch cards, but the rarest inserts were actual metal printing plates used to print GPK cards. Two similar Flashback sets were produced in 2011.
In 2012, Topps announced yet another new Garbage Pail Kids line that it asserted would be more in line with the spirit of the '80s original called Brand New Series (BNS). These Kids were less reliant on potty humor and more surreal than the ANS characters. "D. Jay"/"Dee J." scratches a record spinning on top of his head; "Nate Inflate"/"Balloony Bart" makes balloon animals from his own intestines. Inserts included Loco Motions, artist sketches, "Mix and Match" cards with stickers of disembodied GPK parts to be assembled in any way the card owner chose, the very rare printing plates, and cards offering the opportunity to be drawn as a Garbage Pail Kid. Two more BNS sets were made in 2013.
After that, Topps produced new sets named after their year of release including 2013 Mini, 2104S1, 2014S2, and 2015. Sets from this period introduced art and C-card name variations, comic-strip cards, "baseball cards," and cards with cloth patches attached, as well as "Texture Relic" cards with tactile features, cards signed by Major League Baseball players, and fake "Olym-Picks Medals." In 2013, Topps re-published Original Series 1 on metallic chromium cards with 14 previously unreleased Kids, and this set was known as Chrome Series 1; a similar Chrome Series set for OS2 was published in 2014.
When the Kids' 30th anniversary arrived in summer 2015, Topps released 220 cards with 110 A/B images for the 30th Anniversary Series, starting with four riffs the '80s classic "Adam Bomb" card. The series has multiple subsets, including a "Don't Push My Button" subset with classic characters exploding their own head bombs. Other subsets include "'80s Spoof," "Artistic Influence," "Cutting Room Floor" with rejected '80s concepts, "Famous Movie Scenes," "Foreign Legion" featuring international cards, "Garbage Pail Kids' Kids," "Garbage Pail Pets," "Garbage Pail Presidents," "Horror Film," "lost" unpublished '80s artwork, buyback '80s cards stamped with "30 YEARS," and "Zoom-Out" cards showing what was happening behind the scenes of classic characters. Cards were even made of fans' GPK tattoos. Inserts included barf bags, autograph and sketch cards, rare printing plates, and "Relic" cards attached to pieces of things used by the GPK artists like shirts and pens.
SInce the 30th anniversary, Topps has put out only "themed" Garbage Pail Kids releases, including "American as Apple Pie" and "Prime Slime Trashy TV" in 2016, "Adam-Geddon" and "Battle of the Bands" in 2017, and "We Hate the '80s" in 2018.
Continue readingShortly after they debuted in June 1985, Garbage Pail Kids became the hottest item on the playground. The sticker trading cards took the concept of the popular, cutesy toddler dolls known as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and gave them horror-film-type physical deformities or repulsive, adult personalities; made them into human-animal mutants; or subjected them to cartoonish deaths. Each image would be paired with a silly name to complete the gag, like "Fryin' Brian." Every card had an A and B version, with the B version simply featuring a different name—"Fryin' Brian" became "Electric Bill." The cards could be saved and traded, or the stickers could be peeled off and affixed to bikes and Trapper Keepers. Card no. 8 in the first set ("Adam Bomb"/"Blasted Billy") became the most iconic "GPK" image—a toddler in a suit presses a big red button to explode a mushroom cloud from his own head.
The combination of simple gross-out jokes and sense of access to subversive humor usually reserved for adults made the cards instantly appealing to 10-year-olds—unless the image hit a little too close to home. Many cards in the Original Series (1985-'87) were completely over-the-top and surreal with doll stuffing pouring out of the injured "Kid." Other contained racial caricatures, as well as jabs at obese kids, gay and transgender kids, and kids with disabilities, illnesses, or other abnormalities. Imagine if you didn't already have a schoolyard nickname and some bully decided you reminded them of "Itchy Richie" or "Hairy Mary."
The Kids' origins go back to the '60s: In college, young cartoonist Art Spiegelman—who would become a legendary underground comix artist and Pulitzer-winning graphic novelist—took a freelance gig at the Topps bubblegum card company, and in 1966, when he was 18, Topps promoted him to creative consultant. Spiegelman, with artist Norman Saunders, developed the concept of Wacky Packages, or Wacky Packs, which were sticker cards that parodied popular consumer...
Shortly after they debuted in June 1985, Garbage Pail Kids became the hottest item on the playground. The sticker trading cards took the concept of the popular, cutesy toddler dolls known as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and gave them horror-film-type physical deformities or repulsive, adult personalities; made them into human-animal mutants; or subjected them to cartoonish deaths. Each image would be paired with a silly name to complete the gag, like "Fryin' Brian." Every card had an A and B version, with the B version simply featuring a different name—"Fryin' Brian" became "Electric Bill." The cards could be saved and traded, or the stickers could be peeled off and affixed to bikes and Trapper Keepers. Card no. 8 in the first set ("Adam Bomb"/"Blasted Billy") became the most iconic "GPK" image—a toddler in a suit presses a big red button to explode a mushroom cloud from his own head.
The combination of simple gross-out jokes and sense of access to subversive humor usually reserved for adults made the cards instantly appealing to 10-year-olds—unless the image hit a little too close to home. Many cards in the Original Series (1985-'87) were completely over-the-top and surreal with doll stuffing pouring out of the injured "Kid." Other contained racial caricatures, as well as jabs at obese kids, gay and transgender kids, and kids with disabilities, illnesses, or other abnormalities. Imagine if you didn't already have a schoolyard nickname and some bully decided you reminded them of "Itchy Richie" or "Hairy Mary."
The Kids' origins go back to the '60s: In college, young cartoonist Art Spiegelman—who would become a legendary underground comix artist and Pulitzer-winning graphic novelist—took a freelance gig at the Topps bubblegum card company, and in 1966, when he was 18, Topps promoted him to creative consultant. Spiegelman, with artist Norman Saunders, developed the concept of Wacky Packages, or Wacky Packs, which were sticker cards that parodied popular consumer products and advertisements, turning them into undesirable, offensive—and sometimes gruesome—things like "Ratz Crackers" or "Choke Wagon for Dogs." Wacky Packs and his other Topps creation—Garbage Candy, or candy that came in a plastic miniature trash bin—would support Spiegelman's art career for almost a decade, as he experimented with edgier, explicitly sexual, and avant-garde comix, as well as his more somber comics about alcoholism and depression.
In the mid-1980s, Spiegelman—collaborating with artist Mark Newgarden—struck gold again with the Garbage Pail Kids, which would allow him to finish "Maus," a serious graphic novel depicting his father's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp as mice being tormented by cats. The first 1985 Garbage Pail Kids series, which was inspired by a discarded Wacky Pack card concept, included 41 images painted by John Pound for 82 cards. The backs, drawn by Tom Bunk, featured jokey certificates and passes like "Permit to Stay Up Late" and "Stupid Student Award." After the success of the initial release, other artists and writers like Jay Lynch, Mae Jeon, Luis Diaz, and James Warhola were hired to create more Kids. Later sets had backs that served as puzzle pieces that could be arranged to form a larger GPK image.
In total, 15 Original Series sets were published between summer of 1985 and the end of 1988, featuring 620 numbered images. In that time, Topps also produced two large-format editions of the cards and a set of fold-out posters. Licensed version of the GPK cards were offered in Japan, Spain, Israel, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and other parts of Latin America—and those international cards are particularly collectible today. The wild popularity of the cards inspired a 1987 live-action film, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie." Meanwhile, teachers, parents, and school administrators around the globe banned the cards. Coleco, the company that owned Cabbage Patch Kids, sued Topps for trademark infringement, and an out-of-court settlement forced Topps to alter the general appearance of the Kids as well as the logo. By 1988, Garbage Pail sales had slowed significantly, which meant the drawn-up 16th set was never produced.
But that was not the end of the Garbage Pail Kids: 15 years later, in 2003, when those 10-year-olds who purchased the first Garbage Pail Kids were 20-somethings with disposable incomes, Topps debuted the Garbage Pail Kids All New Series (ANS), mostly with art that was made in the '80s but never published. In 2004, the second ANS, which didn't include gum in the packs, featured snotty, puking, farting Kids created in the new millennium (contemporary jokes include "Justin Timberleg," "Taylor Tubby," "Downloadin' Logan," "Pete Achoo" dressed as Pikachu) by Pound, Bunk, Warhola, Strephon Taylor, Jeff Zapata, and Pat and Sean Glover. In this set, insert cards included "Scratch 'N Stink" cards and foil cards printed with numbers that could be used on the Garbage Pail Kids web site for fans to create and "gross out" their own Kid. To celebrate the 20 years of Garbage Pail Kids, in 2005, ANS4 included insert cards with original sketches by Pound, Bunk, Jay Lynch, Strephon Taylor, John Czop, Don Perlin, and Justin Green. The last All New Series set came out in January 2008.
To mark the series' 25th anniversary in 2010, Topps produced a "Flashback" set that included reprints of Kids from the 1985-'87 sets, as well as six "lost" characters from the '80s and 10 "Where Are They Now" cards showing what became of some of those '80s gross-out characters as adults. Inserts included lenticular "Loco Motion" cards and sketch cards, but the rarest inserts were actual metal printing plates used to print GPK cards. Two similar Flashback sets were produced in 2011.
In 2012, Topps announced yet another new Garbage Pail Kids line that it asserted would be more in line with the spirit of the '80s original called Brand New Series (BNS). These Kids were less reliant on potty humor and more surreal than the ANS characters. "D. Jay"/"Dee J." scratches a record spinning on top of his head; "Nate Inflate"/"Balloony Bart" makes balloon animals from his own intestines. Inserts included Loco Motions, artist sketches, "Mix and Match" cards with stickers of disembodied GPK parts to be assembled in any way the card owner chose, the very rare printing plates, and cards offering the opportunity to be drawn as a Garbage Pail Kid. Two more BNS sets were made in 2013.
After that, Topps produced new sets named after their year of release including 2013 Mini, 2104S1, 2014S2, and 2015. Sets from this period introduced art and C-card name variations, comic-strip cards, "baseball cards," and cards with cloth patches attached, as well as "Texture Relic" cards with tactile features, cards signed by Major League Baseball players, and fake "Olym-Picks Medals." In 2013, Topps re-published Original Series 1 on metallic chromium cards with 14 previously unreleased Kids, and this set was known as Chrome Series 1; a similar Chrome Series set for OS2 was published in 2014.
When the Kids' 30th anniversary arrived in summer 2015, Topps released 220 cards with 110 A/B images for the 30th Anniversary Series, starting with four riffs the '80s classic "Adam Bomb" card. The series has multiple subsets, including a "Don't Push My Button" subset with classic characters exploding their own head bombs. Other subsets include "'80s Spoof," "Artistic Influence," "Cutting Room Floor" with rejected '80s concepts, "Famous Movie Scenes," "Foreign Legion" featuring international cards, "Garbage Pail Kids' Kids," "Garbage Pail Pets," "Garbage Pail Presidents," "Horror Film," "lost" unpublished '80s artwork, buyback '80s cards stamped with "30 YEARS," and "Zoom-Out" cards showing what was happening behind the scenes of classic characters. Cards were even made of fans' GPK tattoos. Inserts included barf bags, autograph and sketch cards, rare printing plates, and "Relic" cards attached to pieces of things used by the GPK artists like shirts and pens.
SInce the 30th anniversary, Topps has put out only "themed" Garbage Pail Kids releases, including "American as Apple Pie" and "Prime Slime Trashy TV" in 2016, "Adam-Geddon" and "Battle of the Bands" in 2017, and "We Hate the '80s" in 2018.
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