We’ve entered the half-way point of the month and also this year’s countdown to Halloween! Continuing with a mini sub theme of Mad Scientists, today’s Garbage Pail Kid features one of my favorite gory pieces of Tom Bunk artwork…
401a&b, Viv E. Section and Disect Ed (again with the misspellings, why not call him Dissect Ed?) is a little like a nightmare version of Operation! These stickers hail from the 10th series released in the fall of 1987. These later sets really started to amp up the gore and disturbing imagery to keep the “wow” factor of the series alive and this one really did the trick when I pulled it from a pack back in the day. This was around the time I stopped collecting actively, but I couldn’t help myself and would pick up a wax pack here and there when I had spare change. Some things to note, the 10th series was the turning point in the aesthetic of the GPK after the court case ended with the Cabbage Patch Kids folks. Note the logo change from a CPK-esque parody to a more standard banner design, and there are some slight tweaks to the look of the kids in this set. Gone are the half-moon eyes and soft plush bodies, replaced with wide circular eyes and hard plastic bodies that would usually feature some sort of crack to show the texture. There are some collectors that draw a line right before this set, siding with the earlier series as their favorites, and for a number of years I was one of them. I’ve since opened up to the later sets as there are some really fun concepts buried in this these cards…
Once again, I’m also helping to organize the annual Countdown to Halloween alongside the tireless and super cool monster kid John Rozum. So if you like what I’m doing over here, you might want to head on over to the Countdown site and check out the huge list of other sites participating in this year’s spooky festivities. There’s also a like-minded sister collective called Blog-O-Ween being put together by my pal Cody, the Crooked Ninja Turtle Sensi. Be sure to check them out as well.
