Wacky Packages by The Topps Company (book review)

Andrew Shuping, Reviewer

Wacky Packages
The Topps Company (Author), Art Spiegelman (Introduction)
240 pages
Abrams (June 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 081099531X
ISBN-13: 978-0810995314
http://tinyurl.com/4c6uyk

Topps Company is most well known for its continued production of sports related cards, such as baseball and football. However, at various points in its history Topps has branched out into other creative arenas, such as the famous Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky
Packages. Wacky Packages was born out of more creative era of advertising where design helped sell the product. Wacky Packages were spoof cards/stickers of real products where the name and packaging changed into more creative formats for the young at heart. The cards were the brain child of Woody Gelman, Lee Brown, and Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer prize winner author of Maus. Wacky Packages has run
several different times since 1967 the latest series coming in 2007.

The introduction is written by Art Spiegelman, where he discusses how he came to be involved with the Topps Company and how they helped give him a creative outlet to practice and hone his artistic skills. Art leads us into the journey of how Wacky Packages were born, how the ideas were developed to market them, and the creative process into
creating the spoof cards. The first hand insight that Art is able to offer gives the reader an in-depth look at the creative process that was undertaken. The afterward is written by Jay Lynch, a writer and artist who also worked on Wacky Packages, who examines the history and possible sources for where Wacky Packages was born.

The majority of the book, however, is filled with reproductions of images from the seven series. Each of the cards is reproduced in large and easy to read, with bright vibrant colors. The reproductions make it easy to determine which product the artist spoofed and to examine the level of detail created for the cards. Like everything
some of the cards are better than others, such as "Mrs. Klean will up the floor with Mr. Klean if she can find him," a clever parody on Mr. Clean. Other parodies, such as "6up," are clearly not as creative (even Art admits that this was probably one of the worst gags.)
Readers will enjoy examining the large illustrations and determining how the parody differs from the reality. This is a book that can easily be enjoyed by all ages.

Some samples of images can be located here:
http://tinyurl.com/4zaswd
http://tinyurl.com/4zaswd
http://tinyurl.com/4zaswd

Available at libraries and bookstores here.

Andrew is a Librarian and artist with a background in Art Education & Art History.

An archive of Andrew's articles is located here.

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