10 QUESTIONS FOR TOM BUNK

10 QUESTION FOR TOM BUNK



1.) One quick silly question... if you had to put these five items in order starting with the funniest, how would it go? Snot, Vomit, Poop, Zits, and Farts.

One quick silly answer: Somit, Znot, Fits and Parts. Voop is not funny, even if some connoisseurs will tell you otherwise.

2.) This is a tough one. Out of all the Garbage Pail Kids you helped bring to life, which ones still remain your all time favorites?

Hippie Skippie, Beth Death, Eerie Eric, Ashley Can, Mick Dagger, , Blue Boy George, Modern Art, Momma Mia, Barnyard Barney, Jack Splat...well, I think I like them all. They all are my babies.


Eerie Eric card Tom signed for me (my fave)

3.) In your opinion, what is it about the Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages trading cards that keeps bringing us back (even as adults) for one more dunk in the toilet?

They are funny and disgusting, cute and cruel. Real fans come back because they want to be again as excited as they were as kids. Its like drugs.

4.) Like Alfred Hitchcock you seem to always weasel yourself into a cameo in your work. Sort of like Waldo you seem to blend right in. What do you think a classic psychologist would have to say about this?

A classic psychologist would say I want to impress my mother and annoy my father. Or was it the other way around?
In any case, I like to put myself into my art. That’s where I feel most at home.



5.) What do you think about the "new generation" of artists working on the ANS series GPKs? Do you ever feel bad about using up all the good ideas before they took the reigns?

Around the time all the new artist entered the stage I was pretty sick with cancer ( the doctors practically gave me up)--and couldn't really pay much attention to what was going on with the GPKs. I still worked on a lot of cards, because work helped me to recover and get back on my feet. Today I have to say I am glad there are new and excellent artists continuing, but for me the most exciting time was then, in the 80ies, when I would work with Mark Newgarden and Art Spiegelman in the old TOPPS building in Brooklyn. My studio was not very far and I would drive there once or twice a week to deliver the pics and get new assignments. It was much more personal.


Tom and Mark Newgarden back in the heyday of Garbage Pail Kids

6.) At the time of this interview the GPK Flashback set is less than a month from the shelves. It's been two years since the fans have had new cards. Any predictions about the response this set will get?

We'll find out. I like the idea to show how some of the GPKids look 25 years later.


Tom working on one of the new flashback cards

7.) Is there any chance we can get a peek at your studio space or personal collections? Maybe a couple photos I can post?

Sure, I'll send some stuff.









8.) You recently started a new blog showcasing a lot of never-before-seen illustrations you've done. http://bunkart.blogspot.com. How much stuff do you have up your sleeve?

I have here a lot of works to show, some really great stuff . The whole idea of the blog is to show art that most people haven't seen, even if it was published. But that was a long time ago. I am really grateful to this global communication system nowadays, that makes it possible to reach so many people, who appreciate it and have some fun seeing it. When we did the GPKs in the 80ies nobody knew who was painting them, it was like Disney. But now , thanks to computers, fans know the artists and there is a much more close relationship. It makes it all more exciting. I like that a lot. So the blog a great showcase to stay in touch and god knows, this world needs more fun.

9.) This is a fantasy question, just for fun. You have access to a time machine and can spend one afternoon having a "sketch meet" with one of the masters. Who would you choose to visit?

I would love to meet the old MAD gang in the early 50ies, Harvey and Elder, Jaffe and Jack (they are still around) and work with them. I think that must have been even more exciting than working for Topps in the 80ies. I still was very lucky to get to know Harvey Kurtzman in the late 80ies and even to work with him on one story. I also met Elder a couple of times. Both wonderful people.

10.) Finally, the big question. Anything you are working on presently. What can we expect from you in the future?

I work mostly for MAD, sometimes TOPPS GPKs and WPs, a lot for a school book publisher. My works are being seen from thousands of students all over this nation, and there is probably going to be a show in Germany showing my Quantoons, that I did for a science magazine in the 90ies (These I will post on my blog soon). Then I did some comics for a major German newspaper last year. Some of it is shown in Comic Exhibitions there, and in April this year they will be shown in the new Jewish museum in Berlin. Then there are some very interesting projects, but I can't talk about them yet. I basically love to work and so I will always come up with something.


Quantoons

Thanks Tom once again for sharing and you can be sure I will be posting much more of your work here on Mr. Potter's Funtime Blog!

WACKY PACKAGES STICKER ALBUM (1982)

A few summers ago I bought this Wacky Packages sticker album for ten cents. I stashed it away in my studio until just recently I pulled it out for a second look. It's a bit larger than my scanner so I only scanned a couple pages but I wanted to share it because I think it's really neat. There isn't any stickers stuck inside it but I used photoshop to cut/paste the sticker images onto one of the scans to give an example of what the completed page would look like. The pages have scenes that fit with the stickers such as a supermarket for the food related stickers and a bathroom for the bath items etc. and there is a spot for 120 numbered stickers. It took me forever to find out who did the artwork for the inner pages (read below) but I'm still dying to know who illustrated the inner/outer front and back cover. There is no signature so if anyone knows PLEASE tell me!

Here is the front and back cover:





Here are a couple scans of the inside covers and pages including the sticker checklist:




This guy looks like Jay Lynch without his specs! A possible model?





The artist who did the illustrations for the inside pages is Ron Barrett. He's gotten recent attention for his artwork in the popular book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs". They just released a movie based on it last year.



I really enjoy the humor in this album. I'll have to scan some of the other pages to share in the future.


This is the order form from the inside of the back cover. The kid in this is priceless. It really reminds me of Spumco's "Jimmy the idiot boy".

Even though I despise sticking stickers in books, I would probably break down and buy two copies if Topps came out with something like this today.

RECENT GPK ARTWORK 2/10

Just a few of my recent GPK illustrations I've done lately.


FRYIN' BRIAN/ELECTRIC BILL from Series 1


The original card done by John Pound


I colored a black light version with photoshop. I photographed it under a black light several times but with the flash off it didn't turn out.


This version was done in ballpoint pen with the details/shading




This is my final photoshop colored version of HARRY armpits. I felt it was appropriate for Valentine's Day and all.


This one is Nervous Nigel from the 1st series. I did this one in colored pencil.


This is my final photoshop drawing of tied Di

FRED WHEATON GPK FLASHBACK SKETCH CARDS

These are a handful of the new sketch cards done by GPK artist Fred Wheaton for the flashback series.


FRED WHEATON

*UPDATE*
I just saw after work today that Fred posted 200 of his new sketch card images to his Facebook page. They are excellent!! I may post them in the future but holy hell there are a lot. If Fred is a Facebook friend check them out, if not I suggest adding him if you are seriously interested in taking a look at them. Fred is not only an amazing artist but a really nice guy.

1967 TOPPS BLOCK HEADS

I thought these were really neat and had quite an interesting story behind them to boot.




THE BLEECH


SOMEONE WEARING "THE BLEECH" BLOCK HEAD

BLOCK HEADS was another ingenious "ugly monster" novelty item invented by Woody Gelman, the creative art director at Topps. He assigned the project to his crack team of freelance artists; Wally Wood, Basil Wolverton and Norman Saunders. The same artists that had previously created UGLY STICKERS.


THE GREEN MONSTER


THE MOON CREATURE


THE APE


THE GIANT FLY


THE HIPPIE


THE MARTIAN


THE PIRATE


THE SKULL


THE WITCH DOCTOR


THE THREE-EYED MONSTER

Wally Wood designed 10 of the 12 images. He was eager for work, very fast and energetic, and he was the world's greatest cartoonist of playful alien monsters. Wally was a big fan of Basil Wolverton, but Topps had difficulty working with Wolverton because he was slow, expensive and exceptionally intent on retaining copyright, but Wally insisted that Topps hire Wolverton to create as many of the images as possible in the short amount of time that was available to produce the set. In the end, Basil Wolverton only created two images: #4 - WITCH DOCTOR and #10 -THE BLEECH. Norman Saunders was also fast and eager for work. He took the preliminary drawings of THE PIRATE and THE SKULL, and made full scale paintings on white cardboard boxes. Wally Wood had made his preliminary drawings on brown paper bags, and Norman Saunders had to translate those "roughs" into working schematics, that would fold together into square cardboard boxes, and which kids could pop open and slip over their heads. Norman's son was enlisted to wear the prototype-mask in order o determine the correct placement of each child-sized eye-hole. When Norm brought these first masks into Topps for approval, Woody Gelman was disturbed by the results. He felt that Norm's typical style of realistic painting made the images more frightful than playful. Topps preferred a cartoon look for this series, like a full-color comic book cover, in order to retain the sassy joy of Wally Wood's monsters, so Norm was assigned to simply color-in the "cartoon" drawings. This was also faster and cheaper. Norm was invited to work at the Topps art department offices in order to experiment with spraying colored inks though an "air-brush" connected to a small air compressor. Norm later reported that the "air-brush" was fast and fun to use, but it created only limited effects, so he was not going to buy one for use in his own studio. Norm said, "Topps already has a low-paid air-brush artist on staff, so why should I invest in the equipment to compete for his minimum wage jobs! Topps is always trying to pit their artists against each other to get the lowest price!" The series had an exciting creative start, but it was soon bogged down with complex problems. At first there were architectural questions about how to construct the actual box and lay-out the artwork for printing in order to make the assembly process fool-proof. Later on, the legal advisors at Topps became opposed to the whole idea because of their concerns about lawsuits from the parents of a suffocated kid or a blinded kid who walked off a rooftop, or a deafened kid who was run over by a bus, or worst of all, a little kid running around with a flaming paper box stuck on his head! So Woody Gelman began to consider printing the series on special "fireproof paper" that was a starched cheese-cloth fabric that kids could see through, breathe through and hear through. After researching the materials, Ben Solomon rejected the whole idea as too expensive and complicated. At which point Topps decided to drop the whole idea of masks. They released the set as "posters" instead, and retitled the series "3-D MONSTER POSTERS." The unfolded artworks were visually appealing and there was a big fad at the time to sell posters from old monster movies for kids to hang up in their rooms, so the poster market had a longer life span than a novelty Halloween mask. These revisions solved Topps' legal concerns, and avoided the financial risk of using experimental "fabric" materials with unpreditable production costs, but they also took a lot of the fun out of the original idea for the set, which had limited distribution in October 1967 and are today exceptionally rare collector's items.