GPK Blog

In recent years Garbage Pail Kids fans have had a lot more interaction with GPK artists.  A lot of the artists have made themselves available to collectors to draw/sketch/paint custom cards and other art.  If a collector has a concept they would like to see come to life they can simply contact one of the artists and work out all the details.

Here is an awesome Blog dedicated to Custom GPK Artwork.  Check this Blog often to see all the new custom Garbage Pail Kids Artwork…

Custom GPK Artwork Blog

Below is a list of Garbage Pail Kids artists with links to their websites where you can contact them about custom sketch cards and artwork.

• Tom Bunk
• Brent Engstrom
• Mark Pingitore
• Colin Walton
• John Pound
• Jay Lynch
• Strephon Taylor
• Layron DeJarnette
• Luis Diaz
• Fred Wheaton
• Joe Simko

In 2010/2011 several members from the Garbage Pail Kids Underground made a Persian Farsi Garbage Pail Kids Fan Set.  The members responsible were Jimbo, -TCT & tinyTIMMAH.  Jimbo & -TCT came up with the concept, -TCT was the art director and  tinyTIMMAH printed the release.  The set consisted of 81 cards; 80 base cards and 1 bonus card.  The set is numbered 1-80 and the bonus card is numbered B1.  The cards measure 2.5″ x 3.5″.  A total of 47 sets were printed.  The sets were primarily sold to other GPKUG members.  Purchase of the GPK Farsi set was limited to 1 per person.  The phonetic pronunciation of ‘Garbage Pail Kids’  in Farsi is ‘Koodakaneh Ashghaldan’.

Farsi Garbage Pail Kids Examples

The GPK Farsi Fan set consists of GPK characters from Original Series 1 – 6.  To pay homage to the Japanese Garbage Pail Kids release, Bukimi Kun, several card from the GPK Farsi set were censored.

Censored Farsi Garbage Pail Kids Cards

The GPK Farsi Fan set has three different card backs; Standard Back (Cards 1-79), Checklist Back (Card 80) and the Bonus Back (Card B1).  -TCT came up with the concepts and did all the art for the back of the cards.

Standard Farsi Garbage Pail Kids Back

Farsi Garbage Pail Kids Checklist Back

Bonus Card

The Farsi GPK bonus card was added midway through the development process.   The bonus card was developed by -TCT to thank tinyTIMMAH for his hard work printing and cutting the set.  The bonus card was modeled after the UK ANS Sticker Set version of the Garbage Pail Kid Card 216a/b Tiny Tim/Small Saul.  Tiny Tim just happens to be tinyTIMMAH’s favorite GPK character.

Farsi GPK Bonus Card Front & Back

Technical Data

The Farsi GPK set was printed on Kromekote 12pt C1S cover paper on a Konica Minolta C6500 BizHub Pro.

Farsi GPK Cards Full Sheets

The Farsi GPK Cards were cut on a Challenge “Champion” 305 cutting machine.

Farsi GPK Card Cutting

Promo Card – P1

There were 10 P1 promo cards printed to test color, resolution, stock, etc.  The P1 cards were printed on a card stock that was more like plastic than paper.  The plastic stock was not suitable for the Farsi Garbage Pail Kids set as the images came out very pixelated.  The decision was made to print the cards on Kromekote 12pt C1S cover paper.

Farsi GPK Promo Card P1 Front

Farsi GPK Promo Card P1 Back

The below images show the entire 80 card Farsi Garbage Pail Kids Fan set.  Click the thumbnails for larger images.

Farsi GPK Sheet 1	Farsi GPK Sheet 2
Farsi GPK Sheet 3	Farsi GPK Sheet 4

At some point prior to 2009 Topps Europe Ltd. (Merlin) published a set of Russian Garbage Pail Kids in Russia.  The Russian Garbage Pail kids are phonetically pronounced ‘Deti Otbrosy’ in English.  The collation of the set exactly matched the previous 2004 UK All New Series Garbage Pail Kids Sticker Album set.  The Russian set consists of 181 base cards (1-181) and 11 bonus cards (G1-G11).  It is not clear exactly when the stickers were released in Russia.  The first time the cards were seen in the U.S. was in late 2009.  Wayne from WGPKR and  -TCT (world renowned foreign GPK collector) from GPKUG found the stickers on a Russian website.  Wayne and -TCT imported enough Deti Otbrosy to put together approximately 16 sets.  The sets were sold to other GPK collectors.

Russian GPK Card Front

Russian GPK Card Back

Each pack of Deti Otbrosy contained 5 stickers.  The packs are very similar to other Garbage Pail Kids European sticker set releases.  Each pack contained four regular stickers (green border) and one foil sticker.

Russian GPK Wrapper Front

Russian GPK Wrapper Back

The album that accompanied the Deti Otbrosy is seen below.  Again, the album closely matches other GPK sticker albums released in Europe since 2004.  The album has a cardboard front and back cover with paper pages inside.  The pages  have spaces to put every sticker in the set.

Russian GPK Album Front

Russian GPK Album Back

Of the 192 total stickers in the set, 32 of them were foil stickers.  The foil stickers seem to have been picked at random.  The Deti Otbrosy box is seen below.  The box contained 50 packs.  A full box yields 250 stickers (200 green border stickers and 50 foil stickers).

Russian GPK Foil Card

Russian GPK Box

A set of 168 Garbage Pail Kids stickers were released in Japan in 1989.  The Japanese version of Garbage Pail Kids were called ‘Bukimi Kun’.  The Bukumi Kun release used the same characters and numbering as the Israeli ‘Havurat Ha’Zevel’ 1st series release.  The Bukimi Kun release uses GPK characters from the U.S. Original Series 1, 2, 3, and 6.

Bukimi Kun Card #40

Bukimi Kun Card #62

For some reason or another several of the Bukimi Kun stickers were censored.  The cards were censored with three large black bars.

Bukimi Kun Censored Card #66

Bukimi Kun Censored Card #168

Until September 2010 all that was seen of the release were single cards and an open wrapper.  It was not uncommon for single Bukumi Kun stickers to fetch upwards of $500.00 in auction or private party sales.  An album was rumored to exist but no pictures ever surfaced.

Bukimi Kun Wrapper – Front

Bukimi Kun Wrapper – Back

On 22 September 2010 a new member of GPKUG claimed to have three Bukimi Kun albums.  The poster claimed to have one album that was complete with all 168 stickers, one album that was empty and another partial album.  The new forum member claimed to have purchased the Bukimi Kun items at the Chicago Comic Convention in approximately 2000 for $40.00 or $50.00.  He posted pictures and videos of the albums.  Some members of GPKUG even met with the forum member in person to examine the cards.  There were some differences between the stickers in his album and the stickers that had been previously seen.  None of the stickers in the full album were censored.  This leads some collectors to believe that there were multiple print runs of the Bukimi Kun cards.

On 4 October 2010 the full album and empty album went up for auction on eBay.  The full album sold for a little over $2700.00.  The empty album was bid up to $455.00 but the reserve was not met.  The empty album later sold privately for an undisclosed amount.  The partial album was also never auctioned and was sold privately.

After the Bukimi Kun album auctions ended the forum member also came out with 110 more Bukimi Kun stickers.  These stickers had been previously stuck onto paper (not in an album).  The forum member cut the stickers out and sold them for approximately $20.00/each.

Trimmed Bukimi Kun Cards

Shortly after the Bukimi Kun album fiasco some pictures of a Bukimi Kun box surfaced.  The picture was found on a Japanese website.

Bukimi Kun Box

Bukimi Kun are still considered by many collectors to be some of the rarest and coolest foreign sets of Garbage Pail to ever be made.

Below are full scans of every page of the full Bukimi Kun Album that was sold on eBay.  Please click the images below for the full size scan.

Bukimi Kun Album Front Cover

Bukimi Kun Album Inside Cover

Bukimi Kun Album Page 1

Bukimi Kun Album Page 2

Bukimi Kun Album Page 3

Bukimi Kun Album Page 4

Bukimi Kun Album Page 5

Bukimi Kun Album Page 6

Bukimi Kun Album Page 7

Bukimi Kun Album Page 8

Bukimi Kun Album Page 9

Bukimi Kun Album Page 10

Bukimi Kun Album Page 11

Bukimi Kun Album Page 12

Bukimi Kun Album Page 13

Bukimi Kun Album Page 14

Bukimi Kun Album Page 15

Bukimi Kun Album Page 16

Bukimi Kun Album Page 17

Bukimi Kun Album Page 18

Bukimi Kun Album Page 19

Bukimi Kun Album Page 20

Bukimi Kun Album Page 21

Bukimi Kun Album Page 22

Bukimi Kun Album Page 23

Bukimi Kun Album Page 24

Bukimi Kun Album Page 25

Bukimi Kun Album Back Cover

Original Printing Plates were inserted into the Garbage Pail Kids Flashback packs that were released in 2010. The printing plates are metal and come in four colors; Yellow, Black, Cyan and Magenta. Each sticker used all four printing plates during the printing process. According to Topps, the plates were placed into packs at a ratio of 1:1790. There is some controversy surrounding the stated ratio however. No more than two colors of any one character’s plate has been found. This leads some people to believe that two plates for every character are still held in the Topps Vault. Additionally, no ‘b’ plates have been found. It appears only ‘a’ plates were put into packs. It is unclear if ‘a’ & ‘b’ plates were necessary to print the cards. All the plates that have been found to date have stickers on the back with ‘a’ on them. If there are no ‘b’ plates then why put the ‘a’ on the plates?

Yellow GPK Flashback Printing Plate Example

12a GPK Printing Plate Front - Yellow

12a GPK Printing Plate Back - Yellow

Cyan GPK Flashback Printing Plate Example

22a GPK Printing Plate Cyan - Front

22a GPK Printing Plate Cyan - Back

If only ‘a’ plates were used to make the GPK Flashback set, there would be a total of 320 plates (4 colors x 80 cards = 320 plates). If only two colors of every printing plate was placed into packs, then a total of 160 GPK Flashback plates were put into packs. If this is the case, the actual ratio of plates to packs would be 1:3580.

There were also some errors made with the plates. The stickers on the original Bony Joanie plates were mixed up with the stickers on the Where Are They Now (WATN) Bony Joanie plates. The original Bony Joanie Flashback card is 7a. The WATN Bony Joanie card is 76a. However, the stickers on the original Bony Joanie card printing plates are 76a; the stickers on the WATN Bony Joanie card printing plates are 7a.

Flashback Card 7a

Flashback Card 7

Above you see the Garbage Pail Kids Flashback 7a and 76a cards.  Below is the GPK Flashback Printing plate for 7a Bony Joanie but the back of the plate has the sticker for 76a Bony Joanie WATN.  I believe all 7a/76a plates have the incorrect stickers on them.

7a GPK FB Black Printing Plate

Back of 7a plate with 76a sticker

If anyone comes across images of other 7a or 76a printing plates please contact me so I can post them.

Additionally I challenge anyone to show photographs of more than 2 colors of any one character’s plates.

Magenta GPK Flashback Printing Plate Example

73a GPK FB Plate Magenta - Front

73a GPK FB Plate Magenta - Back

Black GPK Flashback Printing Plate Example

73a GPK FB Plate Black - Front

73a GPK FB Plate Black - Back