PRODUCT OVERVIEW

CARD FRONTS

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FUN FACTS & TIDBITS

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GIANT 1ST SERIES KIDS

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GPK HISTORY SECTION

1. The Topps Chewing Gum (T.C.G.) company released the "Nutty Awards" Postcards in 1964 which were completed by Jack Davies. In 1985, the Topps company rendered almost every idea from this set for the 1st series "Garbage Pail Kids" card backs, 20 years later.  Artist Tom Bunk reworked and created new art for the backsides and drew the spiral border while Mark Newgarden rendered the writing as well as creating new material. Out of the 32 "Nutty Awards" card set, 31 of these concepts were used in the GPK series.  Only four of the original names were changed (ex: Idiot Award to Zero Award) and the paragraphs and signiatures are the same (albeit different style).   The Nutty Awards title #12 not used: "Dishonorable Discharge".  The nine new 1st series concepts:  "Allergy Prescription", "Bad Taste Award", "Big Stink Award", "Grouch License","Clumsy Award", "Foulmouth Award", "Reform School Diploma", "Whiners Award", "Garbage Pail Award", and "Busy Body License".



2. The Ribbon Artwork on the backside of the card was created and drawn by Mark Newgarden.

3. In 1967, the Topps Chewing Gum company published the 44 card "Kooky Awards" Stickers set painted by Norman Saunders (and 5 completed by Tom Sutton). The Topps company recycled several ideas from the 1964 "Nutty Awards" Postcards set which in turn were used on the majority of the card backs for the 1985 "Garbage Pail Kids" set. Several of the concepts can also be found in the 1975 "Wanted Stickers" and 1980 "Wanted Posters" Topps sets. The following example for the "Bull Throwers Award" which can be found in all three sets used the same tagline at the end "Cows may come and cows may go - but your bull goes on forever!".



4. During the process of developing a new product, test products are created from existing releases. The first Prototype Wrapper for the "Garbage Pail Kids" was rendered from a "Funny Li'l Joke Books" wrapper. The "Funny Li'l Joke Books" set of 44 was released in 1970 (notice the old Topps emblem and price tag of 5cents) and completed by Art Spiegelman, Jay Lynch, Ralph Reese, Wally Wood, Rich Varisi, and Tom Sutton... the 1st series "Garbage Pail Kids" set of 44 x 2 was released in 1985 (with the new Topps emblem and a price tag of 25cents). Topps apparently went with a drastically different look.


5. An Unpublished Wacky Package concept Titled "Garbage Pail Kids" never made the 1985 release. The term "Garbage Pail Kids" and the unpublished 1984 prototype were created by Mark Newgarden. The idea of a new parody series had been born. The finished art was completed by John Pound who had worked on the 1985 Wacky Package release with other artists. Three artists were assigned to this concept, John Pound, Robert Grossman, and Howard Cruse, out of the three, John Pound was chosen to complete the art for the new parody series. Pound went on to draw and color the card fronts for the first two series and more than half of each series thereafter. Tom Bunk completed the card backs and started card fronts during the 3rd series and Mark Newgarden wrote the card backs. Visit John Pound's website at www.poundart.com. ('click' BACK button to return to this page)


6. During the developmental stages of creating the new product series, the art team created a Mock-Up sticker and Card (pictured below) using a test artwork piece that was created by John Pound (the toys are missing from the early edition) and the curved Cabbage Patch Kids logo banner (pictured above in the unreleased Wacky Package CPK parody sticker). Even though the lettering was drastically changed, the curved logo still remained for the printed product. The die-cut theme was an idea from the beginning, but the name bar idea of "Baby Barfy" was changed to basic names to further parody the CPK dolls. The side notes on the mock up picture suggests using an air-brushed gradation of bright or pastel colors. The use of two different names for each image doubled the set and future sales. The mock-up and finished artwork images for cards 3a "Up CHUCK" and 3b "Heavin' STEVEN".


7. The Original Concept Piece for cards 8a "ADAM Bomb" and 8b "Blasted BILLY" had the character depicted as Ronald Reagan pushing the red nuke button. The character was later used in the 2nd series set placed behind a podium for cards 46a "Rappin' RON" and 46b "RAY Gun"; the original concept piece had him holding a set of guns that were removed for the final artwork.

8. Artwork images for card characters 9a "Boozin' BRUCE and 9b "Drunk KEN" are Reversed; as you can tell by attemping to read the baby booze bottle, "Ol' Rot Gut", which is backwards. The artwork images for this character were corrected for the March 2102 release of the Abrams Garbage Pail Kids book (page 20) which can now be seen in it's original intended state.

9. In 1989, Topps consigned GPK artist John Pound to create four different images for their "Rot 'n Roll" Mini-Cassettes Product, one image depicting characters from the 1st US GPK release. Characters 8a "ADAM Bomb" and 8b "Blasted BILLY" playing the keyboard, 3a "Up CHUCK" and 3b "Heavin' STEVEN" holding the mic and 'singing', 19a "Corroded CARL" and 19b "Crater CHRIS" playing the guitar, and characters 14a "Potty SCOTTY" and 14b "JASON Basin" playing the drums. The label artwork became the mini-cassette insert and the tape case contained a gum-shaped cassette tape. The set was art directed by MAD Magazine co-editor Nick Meglin for the Topps company. The tight pencil, color rough, and final product for "The Barf Boys" cassette tape.


10. During the GPK card production process, blank-backed Separation Proofs are created and printed on thin paper stock for the final printing of the card image. The progressive acetate overlay proof set consists of sheet tones that lay one on top of the other to make up the final version of the sticker card ... the four overlay sheets consist of yellow, cyan, magenta, and black acetate tones. Below is the separation acetate overlay proof sheet of cyan and magenta as auctioned off on eBay through the Topps Vault in 2006 for card 17a "Wacky JACKIE".

11. Uncut GPK Sheets were auctioned off of eBay, through the Topps Vault in the Winter of 2007 (November); A front image for the 1st series GPK set (two "b" sets and one "a" set); Sheet number 4-494-05-01-5.

12. The character image for cards 30a "New Wave DAVE" and 30b "Graffiti PETEY" was used for the GPK Buttons Box Artwork. The original artwork was auctioned off of eBay during July of 2008. Images for 1st series characters 8a "ADAM Bomb" and 8b "Blasted Billy and for the 2nd series characters 42a "PATTY Putty" and 42b "Muggin' MEGAN" as well as 45a "Leaky LINDSAY" and 45b "Messy TESSIE" can be found as the rendered button images.


13. Garbage Pail Kids Chewy Candies were produced in 1986 after the release of the 1st and 2nd series GPK. The candy product used various artwork from the 1st and 2nd series sets as image mascots on the candy wrappers. Three assortment of flavors can be found; cherry, grape and strawberry, along with several GPK characters for each color wrapper variation.


1st Series GPK Characters

2b "RAY Decay", 8a "ADAM Bomb", 13b "Spacey STACY", 20b "Dressy JESSE",
26b "Fat MATT", 27b "JENNY Genius", 29b "Thin LYNN", 33b "Savage STUART", plus more.
(See the 2nd Series section for 2nd Series GPK character information)

COMPREHENSIVE CHECKLIST