The biannual,
Yearly, sequential sets turned into a thematic collection of subsets for the 2015
Series 2, aka ‘2015S2’, for short, special 30th Anniversary, GPK set released
by Topps, Inc. in the summer of 2015 and distributed in July—only ~four months
after the 2015S1 set that was released in March of that same year. This would
change into the whole set being a united theme starting in 2016, but the releases
would still keep a yearly moniker for development & announcement. This particular
themed set celebrates everything great and nostalgic from the 80’s and throws
the card numbering system into a tailspin and drops all writing and artwork from
the reverse card backs.

The GPK release
includes all-new artwork or contributions by artists Tom Bunk, John Pound, Brent
Engstrom, Layron DeJarnette, Joe Simko, David Gross, Mark Pingitore, Peter Bagge,
Katie Cook, Shannon Wheeler, Dean Haspiel, JungHwa Im, Miran Kim, Jay Lynch and
Colin Walton, whom also played the role as editor, art director, writer and brand
manager, along with several additional artists that assisted with autograph and
sketch cards along with conceptual ideas. For the first print run, each foil or
plastic pack, with a suggested retail price of $2.49, contains ten sticker cards,
except for the Hobby Collector Edition box which packs contain six stickers per
pack with exclusive premium content.

MOCK-UP
BOX IMAGE w/ PEGHOOK PACKS — MAIN BOX + WRAPPER ARTWORK : JOHN POUND

220
CARD SET : SUBSETS BASE CARDS
SUBSETS : 50 ’80s
Spoof Cards + 20 Artistic Influence Cards + 20 Don’t Push My Button Cards + 20
Garbage Pail Pets Cards + 20 Garbage Pail Presidents Cards + 20 GPK Kids Cards
+ 10 Zoom Out Cards + 14 Comic Book Covers Cards + 12 Lost Alternate Art Cards
+ 10 Artistic Interpretations Cards + 10 Cutting Room Floor Cards + 4 Title/Checklist
Cards

TOTAL BASE + CHASE INSERT
CARDS
2740 Total Cards = 220 Base Card Stickers
+ 220 Black Parallel + 220 Green Parallel (Retail) + 220 Brown ‘Poop-allel’ (Retail
Gravity) + 220 Pink Parallel (Collector) + 220 Blue Parallel (Wal*Mart) + 220
Silver Parallel (Hobby/Collector) + 220 Gold Parallel + 220 Metallic Red Cards
(Collector) + 220 Sepia Cards (Collector) + 220 Character Backs (Collector) +
220 Blue Character Backs (Wal*Mart) + 18 Poster Bonus Cards (Jumbo) + 15 Giant
Set Bonus Cards (Value pack) + 15 Famous Movie Scene Cards (Hobby) + 10 Foreign
Legion Bonus Cards (Hobby) + 10 Barf Bag Top Loaders (Hobby) + 6 Medallion Cards
(Collector) + 5 Horror Movie Cards + 5 Super Fan Tattoo Cards + 2 Foil Cards (Wal*Mart)
+ 2 Binder Bonus Cards + 1 Foreign Stamp Relic Card (Collector) + 1 Buyback Card
(Hobby) + 1 Artist Relic Cards (Collector) + 1 Autographed Pen Relic Card (Collector)
+ 1 Sketch Card + 1 Dual Autograph Card (Collector) + 1 Triple Autograph Card
(Collector) + 1 Artist Autograph Card + 1 Die-Cut Artist Sketch Card + 1 Printing
Plate + 2 Promos

RETAIL:
Black Parallel (1:4), Green (1:2), Gold (1:72), Printing Plate (1:1,516), Poop-allel
Brown (1:12), Famous Movie Scene (1:4), Horror Movie (1:8), Super Fan Tattoo (1:12),
Sketch Card (1:288), Autograph Card (1:244).
RETAIL BONUS
BOX: Black Parallel (1:4), Green (1:2), Gold (1:72; 85 per subject), Printing
Plate (1,516), Poster Sticker (1:4), Famous Movie Scene (1:4), Horror Movie (1:8),
Super Fan Tattoo (1:12), Sketch Card (1:288), Autograph Card (1:244), Panoramic
Sketch Card (1:79), ’80s Sticker (1:1).
RETAIL JUMBO
SINGLE PACK: Black Parallel (1:2), Gold (1:36?; 85 per subject), Printing
Plate (1:758), Famous Movie Scene (1:2), Horror Movie (1:4), Super Fan Tattoo
(1:6), Sketch Card (1:144), Autograph Card (1:122), ’80s Sticker (1:1).
RETAIL
BLISTER PACK: Black Parallel (1:4), Green (1:2), Gold (1:72), Printing
Plate (1:1,516), Famous Movie Scene (1:4), Horror Movie (1:8), Super Fan Tattoo
(1:12), Sketch Card (1:288), Autograph Card (1:244), Blue Character Back (1:21)
[Wal*Mart exclusive].
HOBBY: Black Parellel (1:2),
Silver (1:48), Gold (1:72; 85 per subject), Printing Plate (1:1,516), Foreign
Legion (1:24), Famous Movie Scene (1:4), Horror Movie (1:8), Super Fan Tattoo
(1:12), Die-Cut Sketch Card (1:237), Autograph Card (1:244) Stamped Buyback (1:24),
Barf Bag Top Loader (1:24).
HOBBY COLLECTOR
PREMIUM EDITION: Black Parallel (1:4), Silver (1:48), Gold
(1:72), Metallic Red (1:2), Pink (1:48), Sepia (1:48), Printing Plate (1:1,516),
Character Back Black (1:2), Foreign Legion (1:24), Famous Movie Scene (1:4), Horror
Movie (1:8), Super Fan Tattoo (1:12), Die-Cut Sketch Card (1:144), Loaded Sketch
Card (1:831), Autograph Card (1:96), Dual Autograph (1:1,017), Triple Autograph
(1:2,712), Autograph Pen Relic (1:2,543), Manufactured Medallion Card (1:92),
I Mitici Sgorbions Relic (1:115), Artist Relic (1:28), Stamped Buyback (1:24).
[NOTE: Several numbers appear to be doubled)

—
The following GPK and non-GPK contributors signed several different types of Artist
Autograph Cards for the new set, including artist autograph cards, double
autograph cards, triple autograph cards and pen relic autograph cards (Collector
pack only): Brent Engstrom, Joe Simko, Layron DeJarnette, Mark Pingitore, David
Gross, Fred Wheaton (Pen Relic), Pat Barrett (writer), Jay Lynch (writer), Miran
Kim, JungHwa Im, Art Spiegelman (co-creator), Len Brown (co-creator), Katie Cook
and Adam Goldburg (celebrity). Double autographs have been found for Pound and
Bunk, Spiegelman and Brown, Engstrom and Simko and Gross and DeJarnette. Triple
autographs have been found for Pound, Bunk and Lynch, Pound, Bunk and Brown and
Spiegelman, Brown and Lynch.

—
The Twelve Base Subsets within the new set are: the
4 title card ‘checklists’, 50 ’80s Spoof cards, 20 Artistic Influence cards, 10
Artistic Interpretation cards, 14 Comic Book Covers cards (from the IDW GPK comic
book license), 10 Cutting Room Floor cards, 20 Don’t Push My Button cards, 20
Garbage Pail Pets cards, 20 Garbage Pail President cards, 20 GPK Kids cards, 12
Lost Alternate Art cards and 20 Zoom-Out cards. Minus the many different Sketch
and Autograph cards, the three easy-to-obtain Chase card sets include: 15 Famous
Movie Scene cards, 5 Horror Film cards and 5 Super Fan Tattoo cards.

—
There are several returning insert Chase Cards for
the 30th Anniversary set and a slew of all-new Chase cards. The harder-to-complete
Chase card sets from the Hobby and Collector boxes include: 6 Medallion cards,
10 Foreign Legion cards, 10 Barf Bag top loaders and a plethera of Parallel cards
(green border, black border, silver border, gold border, brown ‘Poop-allel’ border,
pink border, metallic red border), not to mention the ADAM Bomb character back
cards and the Sepia fronts. A collector also has a chance to come across an Artist
Relic (shirt) card, a Printing Plate card and a Buyback card (an original OS cards
stamped with ’30 YEARS’). NOTE: The promotional mock-up
base cards do not contain the ’30’ logo next to the GPK header.

—
The Checklist Cards no longer have a blue border
outline as previous sets; it is now a reddish color, and really not-so-much a
checklist, since there’s nothing to ‘check’, but more of a guide that lists the
subsets on ‘A’ and ‘B’ cards. This is the fifth GPK set checklist to detail artist
and writer inclusion for the Topps set; this hasn’t been seen since the Trash
Can Trolls in 1991 (and Wacky Packages this year). The set chase cards subsets
are listed within the checklist guide.

—
The seven card Comic Book Cover Subset can be found
with a few changes & errors. The three Engstrom characters within the set
are IDW bonus cards and not comic book covers; these are actually images based
off of the three deluxe comic book covers found within the Artistic Interpretations
subset. The group of cards in both subsets should be swapped with each other.
Pingitore’s 3a NAT Nerd is printed as Nat NERD; the character forename being in
small font and the word found in large font. Simko’s popular Comic Con Kid 1a
Comic CONNER & 1b Fan BOYD can be found as four promo + jumbo cards at various
cons & card shows in 2014 (see the GPK Comics section for further details);
as characters P1 & CC1a Comic CONNER, P2 & CC7a Fan BOYD, P3 & CC1b
Cosplay CODY and P4 & CC7b Geeky GUY. Engstrom’s image for 2a Comic-Con RON
can be found as an IDW promo card SP1, as Topps jumbo card CC10a & as jumbo
card CC10b Bonus JONAS; whose nomenclature does not find itself into the set,
the name 2b Cosplay CARL is used instead. Lastly, card 5b Brutal BRIDGETTE is
spelled slightly different than the orginal OS2 card 56b Brutal BRIDGET.

—
As with the 2014S2 and 2015S1 sets, this series contains no nostalgic PEEL
HERE arrow on the card fronts or die-cuts in order to reduce production
costs; the entire card is now a sticker. The ‘PEEL HERE‘
arrow was put up to a vote at Topps and it was found that kids would not want
the arrow on their stickers; no matter the direction. It should be noted that
international releases of yesteryears without a die-cut often had the arrow pointing
towards the card edge.

— The
unofficial 30th Anniv. GPK ‘special’ Promo Cards
can be located within IDW’s fourth and fifth GPK comics titled Gross Encounters
and Go Hollywood released in June and August of 2015, respectively. The
characters ‘SP4’ Over KILLIAN and ‘SP5’ Methane MAX were painted by artist Brent
Engstrom based off of the deluxe comic cover by Hilary Barta and Sam Kieth. A
rare ‘PEEL HERE‘ arrow can be located on the backside of
the cards.

—
There are no Puzzle Preview cards within the set
because there are NO puzzles for this release. The backside of the cards have
the familiar Chase, Bonus or Promo card backs with the star formation that often
describes the subset, portrays a picture of historic GPK characters and has the
card number near the bottom. Due to this new format, there are also no comic back
or new written material on the back sides.

—
Although Garbage Pail Kids in general is a parody series, and the set contains
a major spoof subset, the Artistic Influence Subset
theme mimics the works of art of old, from artists of yonder yesteryears, to a
brilliant level of parody. Mark Pingitore’s version of Girl with a Pearl Earring,
created in 1665 by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, comically portrays cards 2a
Pearled PATRICIA & 2b Dutch DEBRA with a large oyster shell earrings. Brent
Engstrom’s version of Triple Self-Portrait, created in 1960 by American
painter Norman Rockwell, humorously portrays cards 4a Nerdy NORMAN & 4b Illustrate
TOR with a broken mirror. Other humorous differences include the Roman helmet
replaced with a Viking helmet, the American eagle replaced with a GPK bat, a picture
of ADAM Bomb GPK character, and an image of Van Gogh replaced with a self portrait
of the GPK artist; sadly artist was not able to sign the sketch artwork!

—
The third female GPK artist Miran Kim worked on the
Artistic Interpretation subset card 5a Loony LEONARD & 5b Trekkie TRAVIS,
an ‘Astronaut (floating) in Space’-esque artwork piece reminiscent of John Pound’s
ANS6 card 40a LEONARD Nimrod, 40b Trekkie TREVOR & P2 Alien ALAN; Kim’s mock-up
image can be seen below titled ‘VULL Can’. The Trekkie image can also be found
as a 2-card Foil set located within the exclusive Wal*Mart blister packs where
the GPK header is red and the nameplate is magenta, rather than the blue header
and red nameplate. The other artwork of Kim’s found within the set, or rather,
outside of the set, is an exclusive Topps Online bonus card mini set that comes
in two different 30th Anniversary binders, a parody of Marie Antoinette; Kim’s
mock-up image can be found below titled B1a MARIE Baguette & B1b Let Them
Eat CATE can be seen above in the Product Overview with the mock-up name ‘Let
Them Eat KATE’. Not only is Miran Kim the third female artist to work within the
GPK franchise, along with Mae Jeon and JungHwa Im, coincidently, they are also
all South Korean and all have artwork within the 30th Anniversary set. Kim contacted
Topps through IDW in order to work on the Garbage Pail Kids set; Kim had previously
completed the box-of-chocolates Kid for the ‘Love Stinks’ issue (pictured further
below).

—
The Bonus Cards for this release are quite different
than previous releases; none of the cards contain the ‘B’ naming process. The
retail value boxes contain the 1986 GPK Poster images on regular sized (2.5 x
3.5) card stock with the back showcasing the original wrapper image numbering
‘Poster Sticker # 1 of 18’ thru ‘# 18 of 18’ and having the 2015 copyright message
on the bottom of the card—the GPK logo has been replaced with the GPK banner
on the back and on several card fronts. The retail jumbo packs contain the fifteen
1986 Giant Stickers card set images on regular sized (2.5 x 3.5) card stock with
the back showcasing the original card backs calling the cards ‘Mini Giant Sticker’
and having the 2015 copyright message located on the bottom of the card —the
GPK logo has been replaced by a different colored straight GPK banner.
Previously, the card front and backs were reprinted as card backs for the Flashback
1 set in 2010 for cards #1 through #12 (front) and the Flashback 3 set in 2011
for cards #12 (back) through #15.

—
The bonus cards for this release are quite different than previous releases; none
of the cards contain the ‘B’ naming process. The hobby boxes contain the 10-card
Foreign Legion Stickers set with 10 different images
for characters released in 10 different countries over the past 30 years, but
mainly in the late ’80s; the ten characters being: OS1 ADAM Bomb, OS1 GuilloTINA,
OS3 Hurt CURT, OS3 Mugged MARCUS, OS4 NICKY Hickey, OS5 Handy RANDY, OS5 Diaper
DAN, OS8 Explorin’ NORMAN, OS10 ANN Chovie & OS13 Toilet BO; and the 10 countries
being The U.K./Australia/New Zealand/etc.—The Garbage Gang, Argentina/Chile—Basuritas,
Brazil—Gang Do Lixo, France—Les Crados, Israel—Havurat Ha’zevel,
Italy—Sgorbions, Japan—Bukimi Kun, Spain—La Pandilla Basura, Germany—Die
Total Kaputten Kids, & Russia—Deti Otbrosy. The Topps company released
an exclusive Jumbo (5 x 7) card set at the San Diego Comic Con in July of 2015
with 5 different characters from the same 10 different aforementioned countries
each, for a total of 50 cards; the five characters being: OS1 Nasty NICK (pictured),
ADAM Bomb, JASON Basin, New Wave DAVE & Spacey STACY. The Topps company also
released an exclusive Jumbo (5 x 7) card set at the New York Comic Con in October
of 2015 with 5 different characters from the same 10 different countries each,
for a total of 50 cards limited to 100 sets (52 cards including two misprints);
the five characters being: OS1 Boozin’ BRUCE, JAY Decay (pictured), KIM Kong,
Bony JOANIE & Mean GENE. All sets have the ’30th’ logo on the backside of
the card with the Foreign Legion title.

—
’80s Spoof Subset card 24a Mad MIKE has the same Nomenclature
as OS1 card 33a Mad MIKE.

— The
main 30th Anniversary Mascot painted by GPK artist
Joe Simko was used for various packaging designs and advertising for Topps licensing
program for products by Funko (POP! toys), IDW (comics), Mighty Fine (apparel),
Trick or Treat Studios (Halloween masks) and Steve Jackson Games (games). The
artwork also finds itself as the first two title/checklists cards within the base
set for cards 1a ADAM Bomb & 1b Blasted BILLY III; for those new to GPK collecting,
the orginal 8b Blasted BILLY (I) character can be found within the OS1 set, and
260b Blasted BILLY II within the OS7 set. Sadly, 40b Blasted BILLY with the ANS7
set was not renamed for the 20th anniversary.

—
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Garbage Pail Kids, the Topps
Company licensed its GPK brand to several companies to manufacture which
included: Funko (POP! toys), IDW (comics), Mighty Fine (apparel), Trick or Treat
Studios (Halloween costumes; 4 masks—ZEKE Freak, Creepy CAROL, Bony TONY
& ALI Gator plus a Hallowe’en prop – Glowing AMBER) and Steve Jackson Games
(dice games). The range of items varied in popularity drastically, but Funko seems
to have hit it out of the park with their POP! vinyl figures and the Steve Jackson
Games appeared to be very promising, at least for the first Super Snot Shots game
that was released, but the Disgusting Dice game was eventually CANCELLED.
IDW also started out with high hopes in regards to their GPK comic (I was
hoping for a Meanie Babies ‘GUFF!’-like comic by John Pound and Jay Lynch), but
the guest artists took over and the poor storylines only weakened the property
to the point the planned micro comics were then CANCELLED.

—
The twenty-third series to contain cards with the GPK Acronym
(or initialism) found within the artwork for Cutting Room Floor card 2a Vamp IRANIA
& 2b Evil ELVIRA on the tombstone, ’80s Spoof card 12a King of KONNER &
12b DON Key on the necktie and ’80s Spoof card 20a Hey U. GUY & 20b Lethargic
LOTNEY on the t-shirt.