Sick & Silly

Nostalgic creative inspiration from Garbage Pail Kids.

Garbage Pail Kids were launched in 1985. I was 7 years old and living in a suburb of Houston, Texas.

Cabbage Patch Kids had been insanely popular and these trading cards were an irreverent, gross-out, middle finger to the consumer establishment. I now know they were like a sneaky intro to underground comics with a punk rock attitude.

Of course, at the time I just thought they were hilarious because I was a nerdy little kid and there was nothing more ‘1980’s boy’ than a pack of Topps baseball cards from the neighborhood Circle K, complete with chalky, inedible gum and the surprise of which disgusting characters you’d get.

Snot, pimples, exploding heads - Garbage Pail Kids had it all.

This is a snapshot of a figurine my daughter gave me a few years back. My next book will have the attitude of Garbage Pail Kids - sick and silly for the win.

No title yet for my work in progress, but a nice stack of short story drafts are coming together. The general idea is Raymond Chandler meets Shel Silverstein, a rogues’ gallery of noir characters.