Since completing my second packet last week, and annotating from the phenomenal "MAUS", I learned that its creator, Art Speigelman, not only was part of the "underground comix" movement during the late 1960s. He also was responsible for "Garbage Pail Kids"©. For the Millenials, they may be scratching their head and saying "What Is That?". Well, for us 80s kids that grew up on Cabbage Patch Kids© dolls, there was a horrific twin made by way of trading cards - I'm just grateful they didn't make the dolls! - and these became the hot button item of the mid-to-late 80s. Hot-button because many parent groups found the artwork disturbing, but the children still bought them under the adults' noses. Here's where I was on this debate: I was literally rendered sick, not able to stomach solid foods for almost a week. My classmates, at the Catholic school I attended when 10 & 11, were avid collectors of these pictures, and as a young artist, I had learned a few years earlier, that certain artwork rubs me wrong. Especially in the nausea department. To make a long story short, after spending an afternoon watching others trade Garbage Pail Kid© cards, I came home figuratively SICK to my stomach! Because I was a sickly child, my mom thought I was coming down with something, even tried spicing up what was already a delicious-looking meal - my mother's cooking is exemplary! - but, to no avail. I couldn't eat my dinner. Thanks, Mr. Spiegelman, for a superlative graphic novel "Maus", but no thanks for Garbage Pail Kids©! You ruined my appetite! I still get a slight squirming whenever I see reference to those cards. I'm getting sick now, writing this post.
