These images come from Garbage Pail Kids, by the Topps Company, a collection of the first five series of the popular parody cards. The text is excerpted from the introduction by Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who worked on GPKs, as well as many other projects, in his 20 years working for Topps.
When Cabbage Patch Kids became a phenomenon in the mid-80s,Topps knocked on the door (along with a lot of other potential licensees), but the knock didn’t come early enough to get a cheap license—and cheap is the bottom line when we’re talking bubblegum.
I recall sitting in a meeting one day with Len Brown, Topps’ creative director, and Stan Hart, who worked in new product development. We were trying to figure out whether it was worth pursuing a Cabbage Patch Kids license, when Stan said, “Well, let’s just do a parody.” I’m sure Len and I looked at each other, our lives flashing before our eyes, and one of us asked, “But how do you do more than one sticker?” “I don’t know,” Stan said, “but we’ll figure it out.” And by “we” he meant me and Len.
These images come from Garbage Pail Kids, by the Topps Company, a collection of the first five series of the popular parody cards. The text is excerpted from the introduction by Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who worked on GPKs, as well as many other projects, in his 20 years working for Topps.
I don’t think I even remembered that we had already done a Cabbage Patch Kids parody called “Garbage Pail Kids” as part of an upcoming Wacky Packages series, although Mark Newgarden, who had been responsible for writing and drawing a rough for it, brought out John Pound’s rendering.
Unpublished Wacky Packages sticker, 1985. Painted by John Pound, based on a sketch by Mark Newgarden. Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
We took one sketch: a kid literally going nuclear, with a mushroom cloud coming out of his head. It eventually became Adam Bomb (No. 8a). We knew from experience that if we could find two examples, we could find 200. But if we could only come up with one, we were in trouble.
8a, “Adam Bomb,” from Series 1, 1985. (8b: “Blasted Billy.”) Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
Maybe it was No. 29a, the skeletal Bony Joanie, or maybe the kid climbing out of the toilet bowl (potty humor, short of depicting actual turds, was a natural) that became the second prototype. One way or another, we stumbled to the starting line and were on to something that we could turn into a series.
29a, “Bony Joanie,” from Series 1, 1985. (29b: “Thin Lynn.”) Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
Throughout, Len was the friendly voice of reason, saying, “No, you can’t show a tampon!” After a while we started to get punchy. We’d go into a trance trying to figure out, say, what we could do with some poor kid’s ears that would be graphically compelling. Or how the kid would react to being stabbed.
167a, “Mick Dagger,” from Series 5, 1986. (167b: “Slayed Slade.”) Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
We’d have these sessions in which we would all sit around this tiny imitation-wood table in a small room with junk all around it, coming up with jokes about somebody crawling out of a toilet looking like he just ate something.
14a, “Potty Scotty,” from Series 1, 1985. (14b: “Jason Basin”) Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
We all worked anonymously, since Topps didn’t want the work publicly credited, presumably so we could easily be replaced by other hands. I was annoyed at the time, but my book publisher, Pantheon, was very relieved. The first volume of Mauswas being prepared for publication while the GPKs were near the height of their popularity.
141a, “Ashley Can,” from Series 4, 1986. (Note the mouse in the garbage bag.) (141b: “Greta Garbage.”) Copyright the Topps Company, Inc.
In 1986 it was challenging enough to get people to accept the idea of a serious work about the Holocaust in comic-book form without having to reveal that the artist also created those notorious stickers for the prepubescent set. “Please keep it quiet,” my editor insisted. “If this gets out, they’ll review your book and call it ‘Garbage Pail Jews!’ ”
42a, “Patty Putty,” from Series 2, 1985. (42b: “Muggin’ Megan.”) Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
Eventually, Garbage Pail Kids became as big a phenomenon as Cabbage Patch Kids. Garbage Pail Kids offered something that was not so benign and parent-friendly; rather, it provoked: “Oh, my god, what is that? Where did you get those? Your allowance is cut off! And you’re grounded!”
44a, “Sy Clops,” from Series 2, 1985. (44b: “One-Eyed Jack.”) Copyright The Topps Company, Inc.
The dolls were pricey and had to appeal to adults. The stickers were available for chump change and appealed to the inner beast in all kids. This was Topps, after all.