Like so many young children in the 80s, I eagerly
hopped aboard the Garbage Pail Kid train. Where was it going? I didn’t
know. Presumably someplace disgusting
that involved a fair amount of word play. And despite having no memory of either playing with or trading them, I
recall my stack of Kids being incredibly precious to me. Therefore, it seems a blog entry would be
fair tribute for an item that I’ve convinced myself gave me a lot of joy.
While conducting extensive research for this hard-hitting
post, I was surprised to learn that the Garbage Pail Kids were the brainchild
of none other than Art Spiegelman (specifically the Art Spiegelman who won the
Pulitzer Prize). Indeed, before skimming
the Wiki page, if you had asked me who created these infamous cards the first
words out of my mouth would have been, “Well certainly not Art Spiegelman.” It just goes to show that I’ll never be able
to get into the mind of the world’s leading graphic/comic artist for all things
Holocaust related.
Anyway, to confirm your suspicions - yes, the Garbage
Pail Kids did hold international appeal as well. And the best part of discovering that fact is
learning how the name translated. In
Italy, they were known as “The Snotlings.” France went with the more genteel “The Filthies.” And Germany, unforgiving as ever, referred to
them as “The Totally Broken Kids.”
Some of the cache they earned aboard obviously stems
from the fact that these cards captured their subjects in the prime of their
youth. Indeed, we bear witness to a time
when they were fresh and full of possibility. I thought it might be a good idea to check in with a few of them and
investigate the direction in which their lives went.
