Wayne's Garbage Pail Kids References

Introduction

The creation process of the Garbage Pail Kids required many designs and ideas. A basic model for a character could be drawn or painted, and then that design would be reviewed. After the review, the model would either be approved, reworked, or rejected. If the model was approved, the artist would work on creating the final painting. If the model needed to be reworked, some changes would be made before the artist would work on creating the final painting. If the model was rejected, it would not be used for the current project or series being worked on, but it could possibly be used later on. There were many steps in the evolution of a simple sketch to the finished Garbage Pail Kids product. Even the non-card Garbage Pail Kids products were modeled before the final designs were to be in production. In this section, you will be able to see and learn about some of the models used by the artists and manufacturers.

Garbage Pail Kids Model Sheets

These are some very rare Garbage Pail Kids collectibles. These model sheets were created right after Topps had settled their lawsuit with Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. regarding Garbage Pail Kids looking like Cabbage Patch Kids. They were original distributed to the artists in a 3-ring binder, and the pages measured around 11" x 17". The model sheets describe to the artists how the new Garbage Pail Kids characters should look like they have a hard plastic body (not soft cloth), have jug ears, have four fingers on each hand, and have round eyes. Tom Bunk was the artist who had created these drawings. The Garbage Pail Kids artists disliked being told how to do the paintings. John Pound was still able to create new Garbage Pail Kids characters that incorporated the changes but continued to have a vibrant and comical style.

Garbage Pail Kids Reworked Painting

On the left is a Garbage Pail Kids painting done by James Warhola. On the right is the finished Garbage Pail Kids card. The painting on the left was sent to John Pound, so he could rework it. The W with the circle around it in the bottom-left corner stood for wait, which meant they should hold off on using it unless it was needed. The word "rework" was written on the back of the painting. The 14 with the circle around it meant 14th series, but the painting ended up being used in the 9th series for card numbers 346a and 346b. The four names written on the painting are: Raw Roy, Curt Shirt, Inside Otto, and Peeled Payne. The Garbage Pail Kids cards used the names Peeled Paul and Skin Les. The finished painting was completely worked. The concept was pretty much the same, but the clarity; facial expression; style; and color palette are very different. The finished painting was significantly improved over the original.

Garbage Pail Kids Rough Drawing

On the left is the rough drawing created by Jay Lynch for the 9th series Garbage Pail Kids number 343a/B. On the right is the finished Garbage Pail Kids card. The rough drawing was very plain and simple, but it was good enough to convey the general idea to the artist. The finished image has depth and texture that really jumps out at you. Jailhouse Rick might have been a name idea to use for the drawing, but Con Vic and Al Catraz were the two names used on the cards.

Garbage Pail Kids Toy Cartoon Figures

Here are the models made by Galoob based on the characters of the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon. These figures were fantastic but were never produced because the cartoon never was aired due to parental pressures. I asked Mark Newgarden about the cartoon, and he said, "It's very very bad and totally innocuous -almost unrelated to the cards. It was worse than the GPK movie and that movie was one of the worst films ever made!" He mentioned at least 6 episodes of the cartoon were made. The people who were involved with the Garbage Pail Kids card creation had nothing to do with the cartoon, which is probably why it turned out so bad. Still, the toy figures for the cartoon look very interesting.

Garbage Pail Kids Unused Drawing

This 5" x 7" Garbage Pail Kids drawing was done by one of the Garbage Pail Kids artists, but it was never used for any of the series. Supposedly, it was to be used for the 14th series. This is just one of many great ideas that Topps passed up.

Garbage Pail Kids Wacky Package

This is an unreleased Wacky Package and was the birth of Garbage Pail Kids. John Pound had created painting, but the concept of Garbage Pail Kids was a collaboration of ideas by several artists. Garbage Pail Kids were supposed to be a parody of everything, and this allowed the character concepts to be very diverse. John has this image plus a few other unpublished images posted on his website.

Garbage Pail Kids Wrapper Proof

     The image on the top is of two waxpack wrapper proofs.  As you can see, both proofs used the same drawing for the background. The drawing was done by Art Spiegelman. Art Spiegelman also worked on the Garbage Pail Kids. Besides these two wrappers, the same drawing was used for other test issue humor sets.

     The wrapper proof on the top left is from a 1970 release called "Funny Li'l Joke Books." Funny Li'l Joke Books were 8 page comic books printed on newsprint. The image on the bottom is of a couple joke books from the set of 44. The Funny Li'l Joke Books wrapper states that the packs were only 5¢, and the packs contained "1 Stick Bubble Gum." On the left side of the wrapper is a camera offer, and on the right side is the ad description for the camera. At the top of the wrapper is the list of ingredients, wrapper code, and copyright information.

     The wrapper proof on the top right was designed for test release packs of Garbage Pail Kids. It would have been used very early in the development of the product, which would have been before the first series was finished. The wrapper states that the packs contained "5 Stickers • 1 Stick Bubble Gum." The top side and right side of the wrapper do not have any additional information like the Funny Li'l Joke Books wrapper does, but the left side has the list of ingredients and copyright information. The copyright on the proof is 1985. The Topps logo was done in a different style compared to the logo on the Funny Li'l Joke Books wrapper.

     According to Jay Lynch, there would only be a few cards done for a test release. Topps would print up or Xerox those cards and wrap them in the mock wrappers. Then, the packs would be shown to kids in focus groups. If the kids liked the series, Topps would spend more money to make the rest of the cards and the official wrapper. Topps then would either release the series or test-market it. Sometimes, they would regionally test-market the series in Brooklyn. The test releases were printed up in very small quantities, which would probably be around a thousand packs. It is unknown to what extent the test issue of Garbage Pail Kids was produced. Possibly, only the artwork for the mock wrapper was created, but this does not mean that it was used for a test issue. To date, there has not been any other evidence of a Garbage Pail Kids test release, but it seems logical that the Garbage Pail Kids went through the same development procedures as the other sets produced by Topps.