Since
the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 4 marked the 20th anniversary
of Garbage Pail Kids, Topps
wanted to do something special for the series. Topps decided to
have artists create "one of a kind" sketch cards.
The sketch cards would only come in the
hobby boxes, and the sketch cards were one of the main things used to
promote the hobby product. The retail boxes were promoted as having
the tattoo cards, but both the hobby product and retail product contained
the tattoo cards, which was misleading since dealers ordered the retail
product believing they were getting items that were not packaged in the
hobby product. The majority of the die-hard Garbage Pail Kids collectors
would supposedly get their boxes from hobby shops, which is why Topps
put the sketch cards just in the hobby product. According to the
odds printed on the hobby packs, you should get one sketch card per hobby
box (i.e., 1 pack out of 36 packs will contain a sketch card). On
rare occasion, the hobby boxes contained 2 sketch cards, or the hobby
boxes did not contain any sketch cards.
There were seven different artists who
worked on the sketch cards. I had asked some of the artists about
their experience with the sketch cards, and my impression was that Topps
wanted them to do an unreasonably high amount of sketch cards in a short
period of time. The artists told Topps how many sketch cards they
thought they could do in the period of time they were given, and each
of the artists ended up doing a different amount of sketch cards, which
in turn made some sketch cards much more difficult to obtain.
The artists had one month (from approximately
February 1, 2005 to February 28, 2005) to complete their sketch cards.
Since I did not hear back from all of the artists regarding how many sketch
cards they did, I could only provide a rough estimate for how many sketch
cards were actually made. Based on what some of the artists told
me and what the odds printed on the packaging were, I would estimate that
approximately 8,600 to 8,800 sketch cards were made. Topps wanted
the artists to create a significantly high amount of sketch cards so
that everyone who purchased a hobby box would be able to get a sketch
card.
The images shown above are sketch card samples
from each artist. It would be too tedious and time-consuming to
try and post all the different designs from each artist, which is why
I decided to just show samples. I also provided a sample of what
the back of the sketch cards look like. The blank sketch cards were
the same for all of the artists.
Some of the artists were reluctant provide
information about how many sketch cards they had created because they
were not clear about what they could tell about them. I am sure
that since Topps had to print the odds of pulling a sketch card by a certain
artist on the packaging that they would legally have provide the exact
number of sketch cards packaged.
I did not find out how many sketch cards
were actually packaged in hobby boxes, and I do not know how many hobby
boxes were produced. I am certain that a significant portion of
the sketch cards were not put into the hobby product. Topps did
save some sketch cards just in case someone received a damaged sketch
card in one of their packs and wanted a replacement. It is possible
that the leftover sketch cards could be used for other Garbage Pail Kids series.
The artists were each sent back 6 of the sketch cards they had created,
and the artists could do whatever they wanted to with them.
Not all of the "one of a kind"
sketch cards were truly unique. I would estimate that just a small
percentage of the sketch cards had a distinctly unique sketch. Since
the artists had to create a high number of sketch cards in such a short
period of time, it would be extremely difficult to make each one unique.
Because there were so many repeated concepts, I felt that Topps stating
that the sketch cards were "one of a kind" was misleading to
collectors.
Tom
Bunk had worked on Garbage Pail Kids since the original series.
He had created 300 sketch cards for the All-New Series 4. I was
surprised that Tom had even created that many because at the time he was
going through chemotherapy, but he definitely wanted to participate on
the sketch cards because he has been such an integral part of Garbage
Pail Kids history. According to what was printed on the hobby pack
wrappers, the odds of pulling one of his sketch cards was 1 in 1138, which
made his sketch cards the 2nd most difficult to pull. Tom Bunk's
sketch cards have sold anywhere from $80 to $400 on auction.
John Czop had only created two Garbage Pail
Kids paintings up to the All-New Series 4. He created the All-New
Series 2 painting for characters 18a Taylor Tubby / 18b Morgan Organ
and the All-New Series 3 painting for
characters S6a Gaseous Clay / S6b Hot Aaron. Previous to Garbage
Pail Kids, he had done a variety of artwork for comic books, magazines,
and other trading card sets. I did not find out the exact amount
of sketch cards he had created, but I would estimate that he had only
done between 75 and 250 sketch cards. According to what was printed
on the hobby pack wrappers, the odds of pulling one of his sketch cards
was 1 in 3,297, which made his sketch cards the most difficult to pull.
John Czop's sketch cards have sold anywhere from $200 to $1200 on auction.
They did not sell for higher amounts than the other artists' sketch cards
because John Czop did them or because the artwork was better than the
other artists' artwork. The only reason his cards had been selling
for such high amounts is because they were uncommon. I felt it was
wrong that there were significantly uneven amounts of sketch cards used
from the different artists.
Justin Green had not worked on Garbage Pail
Kids previous to the All-New Series 4 sketch cards. While he had
worked on underground comics and other artwork projects for decades, I
did not understand why he was working on the Garbage Pail Kids sketch
cards since he had never been involved with the Garbage Pail Kids before.
I did not find out the exact amount of sketch cards he had created, but
I would estimate that he had done around 1,000 sketch cards for the All-New
Series 4. According to what was printed on the hobby pack wrappers,
the odds of pulling one of his sketch cards was 1 in 164, which makes
his sketch cards the 4th most difficult to pull (he was tied with Don
Perlin and Strephon Taylor). Justin Green's sketch cards have sold
anywhere from $10 to $75 on auction. He had created a limited number
of designs for his sketch cards, but there were a few interesting things
he had done on some of his sketch cards such as using White-Out, using
highlighter, and using his own fingerprints.
Jay
Lynch had worked on Garbage Pail Kids since the original series.
He created around 2,000 sketch cards for the All-New Series 4. Jay's
sketches are very sharp looking because he had used a crow quill pen to
do them. He had also used colored markers on some of his sketch
card designs. When collectors first saw some of Jay's sketch cards,
they could not believe that the sketches were not printed on them because
the artwork looked so clean. On occasion, ink would get smeared
on the sketch cards, and Jay would try to make corrections. But
for one card, Jay had accidentally smeared ink around the character's
mouth, so he added the dialog balloon that said, "This is not an
error. I had spaghetti for lunch". On another card, he
had accidentally drawn the character upside down. The errors were
not done intentionally. Jay had done a very small amount of truly
one of a kind sketch cards, but I am sure these will not be too easy to
come across. Supposedly, Jay submitted his last 500 sketch cards
a little late so that may explain why some of his repeated designs are
more difficult to find than others. According to what was printed
on the hobby pack wrappers, the odds of pulling one of his sketch cards
was 1 in 218, which makes his sketch cards the 3rd most difficult to pull.
Jay Lynch's sketch cards have sold anywhere from $10 to $75 on auction,
and I am certain some of his one of a kind sketch cards and error cards
would sell for significantly more.
Don Perlin had not worked on Garbage Pail
Kids previous to the All-New Series 4 sketch cards. While he had
worked on a significantly large amount of comics and other artwork projects
for several decades, I did not understand why he was working on the Garbage
Pail Kids sketch cards since he has never been involved with the Garbage
Pail Kids before. He had created around 1,000 sketch cards for the
All-New Series 4. According to what was printed on the hobby pack
wrappers, the odds of pulling one of his sketch cards was 1 in 164, which
made his sketch cards the 4th most difficult to pull (he was tied with
Justin Green and Strephon Taylor). Don Perlin's sketch cards have
sold anywhere from $15 to $300 on auction. Garbage Pail Kids collectors
seem to be very interested in Don Perlin's sketches because of the quality
of the artwork. Don's sketches of Adam Bomb / Blasted Billy and
Nasty Nick / Evil Eddie had sold for over $100.
John
Pound had worked on Garbage Pail Kids since the original series, and
he is considered to be the most important Garbage Pail Kids artist.
He had created 3,197 sketch cards for the All-New Series 4, which was
by far the most of any of the artists. Topps wanted John Pound to
do the most sketch cards because they knew collectors would want a sketch
card from him. The problem with this was that John had to do so
many cards that he really could not spend much time on the artwork.
He said that he ended up spending less than a minute on each card, and
he had to do so many sketch cards that he had to take forced breaks in
order to prevent him from ruining his arm, eyes, and back. While
it was extremely generous of him to do so many sketch cards for the collectors,
there were many collectors who were disappointed that he had not done
something more than very simple sketches. According to what was
printed on the hobby pack wrappers, the odds of pulling one of his sketch
cards was 1 in 101, which made his sketch cards the easiest to pull.
John Pound's sketch cards have sold anywhere from $5 to $100 on auction.
John had done only five different designs: drool, snot, nail in head,
Adam Bomb / Blasted Billy, and barf. The "barf" design
is the least common and probably would sell for more than his other designs.
Strephon
Taylor had created seven Garbage Pail Kids paintings up to the All-New
Series 4. He created the All-New Series 2 paintings for characters
6a Leakin' Lee / 6b Joustin' Josh, 14a Scarin' Aaron / 14b Corny Cody,
24a Hairy Henry / 24b Wolfman Jack, and B2 Paintball Paul and the All-New
Series 3 paintings for characters S1a Trashy Ashley / S1b Garbage Pail
Kim, S8a Despicable Destiny / S8b Nasty Natalie, and B3 Gator Adrian.
He created around 1,000 sketch cards for the All-New Series 4. According
to what was printed on the hobby pack wrappers, the odds of pulling one
of his sketch cards was 1 in 164, which made his sketch cards the 4th
most difficult to pull (he was tied with Justin Green and Don Perlin).
Strephon Taylor's sketch cards have sold anywhere from $10 to $250 on
auction. Strephon originally started creating unique sketches in
pencil, but as the deadline neared he began repeating concepts and switched
to using black marker.
At the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International,
Jeff Zapata from Topps had brought along some All-New Series 4 sketch
card blanks, so he could draw sketches for Garbage Pail Kids fans at the
convention. Jeff had done around 40 sketch cards at the Comic-Con,
and he wrote "SD 05-" on the cards to show they were done at
the San Diego Comic-Con International. A few examples of his sketches
are shown above. Strephon Taylor had done a very small amount of
sketches at the Comic-Con, also. Jeff's sketches are rare since
he had only done them at the San Diego Comic-Con International and did
not actually do any for the All-New Series 4. Jeff stated that had
used all the sketch card blanks that were left, so he would not be creating
any others on the All-New Series 4 sketch card blanks. Jeff's sketch
cards are not considered to be part of the All-New Series 4 because they
were done exclusively for the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International,
and they were done in an extremely small quantity.
Opinion varies on whether or not the sketch
cards are necessary in order to have a complete All-New Series 4 set.
Some collectors feel a complete set also contains at least one sketch
card from each artist, some collectors feel a complete set also contains
just one sketch card from any artist, and some collectors feel that the
sketch cards are not part of a complete set. It is up to the individual
to decide what they want to collect.
When the All-New Series 4 was released,
collectors found out that the artists repeated most of their concepts
over and over, so then the collectors tried to collect as many different
sketch card designs as they could, which did drive the sketch card prices
up. I feel that over time the prices for many of the sketch cards
will go down, and if someone did pay $600 for a sketch card there is no
chance it will be worth nearly that much in another 10 years. So,
if you are buying sketch cards as a future investment, get a good feel
for the market and think about the sketch card's value over time before
purchasing anything. If you are buying the sketch cards for your
collection, consider collecting the cards like pieces of artwork and only
buy the ones you like instead of trying to buy everything that you come
across. |
