INTERNATIONAL GARBAGE PAIL KIDS

After I got done collecting all of the U.S. Garbage Pail Kids I thought it might be fun to start collecting cards from all over the world. Last year I added G.P.K.'s from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Peru, and Spain to my collection. In Canada the cards are the same except for the wrappers/gum and in Italy the cards are just smaller, but in the other countries the cards look much different and have totally different names. Here are some scans from my collection:


Italian (Sgorbions)


Spain (La Pandilla Basura)


Israel (Havurat Ha'zevel)


Germany (Die Total Kaputten Kids)


France (Les Crados)


Australia (The Garbage Gang)


Brazil (Gang Do Lixo)


Argentina (Basuritas)


Peru (La Pandilla Basura)

Pretty much the only foreign Garbage Pail Kid I couldn't get a hold of for my collection is a ultra rare "Bukimi Kun" from Japan. These cards are the "Holy Grail" for collectors and when one pops up from time to time on Ebay one card can go from $140-500+.
Here is what they look like:

POPCAP SERIES 1

A few months ago the college kids across the street from my mom moved out and left a bunch of garbage out by the curb. I was over there one day so I wandered across the street to see if they threw anything neat away. There were two boxes with hundreds of bottle caps that it looked like they had saved up and I figured I might be able to make an art project out of them so I took them home and stashed them in my studio.



I wanted to make something similar to my matchbook series art where I cut out pictures and glue them to the inside covers but I knew it would be more difficult to cut out small circles that would fit on the inner or outer side of the bottle caps. At first I thought I could find a circular paper punch and just punch them out that way and I figured that with all the scrapbooking tools they have out there I could find one in the perfect size. My aunt is a big scrapbook/craft person so I asked her first but she didn't have anything to help me. I went to the Hobby Lobby and they had a punch that was almost perfect (a little larger than a nickel) but the only problem was you couldn't see what you were punching out or if things were lined up the way you wanted. Plus, it was almost $9.00 and if I'm going to make artwork out of garbage it doesn't make sense to spend a bunch of money on tools. The last person I asked was my landlord who runs an antique store in the country and has the biggest workshop I've ever seen and about every tool or object you can imagine. He suggested a few metal punches that you hit with a hammer but since I usually use a lot of "retro" images from old magazines and books that it might be a bit of "overkill" for old paper. Finally I decided to bite the bullet and just cut them out with scissors by hand.
When I was a kid I was always spellbound at how a grade school teacher could cut paper with the smoothest precision. I tried so hard when I was young to emulate their craft. Since I am left-handed when it would come time to buy school supplies my mom would always buy me those green handled "lefty" scissors every year but the thing is, my right hand is actually my dominant hand and the one I use for cutting so I'm sure that didn't help. I've spent years since those days perfecting my style so I've mastered the ability. I can cut the smoothest most intricate curves and angles but it still takes time and my original plan was to create 400 perfectly round little images to glue on the pop caps. After that I would mount them on a large board or canvas. Just choosing the images, cleaning the sticky pop caps, finding the right board, and gluing it all together so it would be sturdy was already a large enough task.
I spent quite a few evenings measuring and cutting out the little circles one by one and gluing them in place. By the time I got 60-70 of them done I decided to settle on a more reachable hand-cramping goal of 100.
I did 50 pop caps with the images on the inside of the cap, and 50 with the images on the outside. I also used a variety of different colored caps and matched the color with the pictures. When I got finished with those I got a piece of masonite from my landlord that was the perfect size to mount them. I painted it with a coat of white gesso and used red/blue alternating stripes for a plaid effect to create the squares to place each cap. I alternated the caps face up/down for a checkerboard effect, for the face up caps I cut 50 little cubes out of thick foamboard which I hot-glued into the center of the inside of the caps to secure them without having to glue the thin edges. Once everything dried I used a paintbrush to coat the entire front with Mod Podge making sure to seal up all the spaces between the caps and the board and giving it a neat glossy look. Here are some photos of the finished piece:









The only thing left to do is attach brackets for hanging and sign/date the revese side. This artwork titled "Popcap Series 1" will be up for sale with other works at the S&C Gallery downtown Cedar Falls within the next couple of weeks.

BOOK MEMORIES: DANIEL COHEN

Beginning as early as elementary school I found myself obsessed with mysteries and the unknown. While most kids were checking out books on sports heroes and dinosaurs, I was searching for anything dark and creepy. Every time I visited the school library you could find me at the card catalog looking up Ghosts, Bigfoot, Vampires, Bermuda Triangle, Loch Ness Monster, U.F.O.'s, E.S.P., Mummies...etc.
One thing you could count on when looking up books on any of these subjects was the author Daniel Cohen.
Daniel Cohen is an American non-fiction writer who has produced over one-hundred books, mainly for young audiences. Cohen is best known for his paperbacks about UFOs, ghosts, psychic phenomena, cryptozoology, and the occult. Though Cohen is a self-described skeptic and onetime member of CSICOP,(Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) his books on paranormal phenomena take a more light-hearted, open-minded stance and tend to avoid dogmatic debunking. (Wikipedia).



Here is a list of his supernatural/mystery titles:

America's Very Own Ghosts 1985
America's Very Own Monsters 1982
The Beheaded Freshman and Other Nasty Rumors 1993
Bigfoot: America's Number One Monster 1982
Ceremonial Magic 1979
Civil War Ghosts 1999
A Close Look at Close Encounters 1981
Creatures from UFOs 1978
Cults 1994
Dangerous Ghosts 1996
Dealing with the Devil 1979
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts 1984
The Encyclopedia of Monsters 1982
ESP: The New Technology 1986
Everything You Need to Know About Monsters and Still Be Able to Get to Sleep 1981
Famous Curses 1979
Frauds, Hoaxes, and Swindles 1979
The Ghost of Elvis and Other Celebrity Spirits 1994
Ghostly Animals 1977
Ghostly Tales of Love & Revenge 1992
Ghostly Terrors 1981
Ghosts of the Deep 1993
The Ghosts of War 1990
The Great Airship Mystery: A UFO of the 1890s 1981
Great Ghosts 1990
Great Mistakes 1979
The Headless Roommate and Other Tales of Terror 1980
Horror in the Movies 1982
How To Test Your ESP 1982
Into the Darkness: Nineteen Tales for Telling After Midnight 1994
The Manhattan Project 1999
Masters of Horror 1984
Missing!: Stories of Strange Disappearances 1979
Monster Dinosaur 1983
Monster Hunting Today 1983
Monsters You Never Heard Of 1980
The Mummy's Curse: 101 of the World's Strangest Mysteries 1994
Mysteries of the World 1979
Phantom Animals 1991
Phone Call from a Ghost: Strange Tales from Modern America 1988
Prophets of Doom: The Millennium Edition 1999
Railway Ghosts and Highway Horrors 1991
Raising the Dead 1997
Real Ghosts 1977
Real Magic 1982
Real Vampires 1995
The Restless Dead: Ghostly Tales from Around the World 1984
Science Fiction's Greatest Monsters 1980
Southern Fried Rat & Other Gruesome Tales 1983
The Tomb Robbers 1980
UFOs: The Third Wave 1988
Werewolves 1996
The World of UFOs 1978
The World's Most Famous Ghosts 1978
Young Ghosts 1978

To say the least I contributed to running every one of his books in the library ragged. The school library had a great selection to begin with.
Nowadays I have stacks of similar themed books shelved in my studio but I still grab a Daniel Cohen book often to sit and read on the toilet. When I was a kid they didn't have wonderful T.V. shows like "Ghost Hunters" or "Paranormal States" on and the best we could home for was a rare "Unsolved Mysteries" episode to creep us out. Here are some scans of some of the Daniel Cohen books I own:















If I find more of his books at the thrift stores you know I've got to buy them.

A few different years around Halloween Lincoln elementary had a storyteller named Duane Hutchinson come to our school to read ghost stories from his book. The children would fill the cafeteria and sit on the floor listening to him read. He had a book called, "A Storyteller's Ghost Stories" which had thirty two ghost stories collected from oral tradition in Nebraska and Iowa and adapted for storytelling. The book came out in 1987 and he was probably doing a school promotion but I guess since we all liked it, he kept coming back every year.

With Halloween coming up you can bet I'll be posting more ghosts and goblins posts.

BUMPER STICKER MADNESS

I found these bumper stickers in the recycling bin. It's O.K. if you are a garbage digging loser as long as you share, share, share!!