For my money, Wacky Packages were one of the greatest things about being a kid in the mid-70s. As a nine-year-old, I just thought Wacky Packages were the funniest thing ever. So, I couldn't let the debut of a new book
For those unfamiliar...Wacky Packages—a series of collectible stickers featuring parodies of consumer products and well-known brands and packaging—were first produced by the Topps company in 1967, then revived in 1973 for a highly successful run. In fact, for the first two years they were published, Wacky Packages were the only Topps product to achieve higher sales than their flagship line of baseball cards. The series has been relaunched several times over the years, most recently to great success in 2007.
Known affectionately among collectors as “Wacky Packs,” as a creative force with artist Art Spiegelman, (an American comics artist and editor, best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning comics memoir, Maus), the stickers were illustrated by such notable comics artists as Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith, Jay Lynch, and Norm Saunders. This first-ever collection of Series One through Series Seven (from 1973 and 1974) celebrates the 35th anniversary of Wacky Packages.
The Topps Company, Inc., founded in 1938, is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards and other trading cards and stickers. They are also known for Bazooka bubblegum, which was introduced in 1947.
Here's what one Amazon reviewer had to say about the Wacky Packages book:
What a treat to see a little corner of American pop culture get a decent looking book. Normally this sort of title would be produced by well meaning amateurs with no professional publishing experience or put out as just one of a cascade of titles from the American collectors press. Abrams seemed to have timed it just right by celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of Wacky Packs. Art Spiegelman in his intro gives a little background to the origins of the idea and I was interested to learn that artist Norm Saunders painted some of the packs, I had always associated him with the over-the-top lurid covers for the pulp men's adventure magazine market of the fifties and sixties. Spiegelman also mentions his affection for Mad magazine and long before he actually worked at Topps Mad had a stab at their own color product parodies. In their 1959 More Trash reprint a handsome sheet of life-size labels printed on gummed paper was the bonus item (have a look at 'customer images' where you'll see the sheet). Produced to a slightly different criteria than the Topps packs who, after all, had to produce a regular flow of artwork over a short period, the 223 illustrations in the book were issued from 1973 and '74. Looking through the pages it's amazing to think that they are all well-known national brands firmly fixed in everybody's mind because of advertising. I wonder if any brand ever complained to Topps, probably not but we're hardly likely to find out. Missing from the book, I thought, is some trivia about the series: what was the average print run, are there any rarities and why, were any products turned down for whatever reason or stickers printed but junked...
For more details about trading cards, read my ephemera card guide.
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