Gum With The Wind

I use the term "warped" in the most complimentary way possible, since GPK exposure at an impressionable age apparently generated cartoonists with appealingly perverse comedic outlooks as copiously in its day as did exposure to the Kurtzman-era Mad magazine a generation earlier.

If you want to see what the creative upshot has been for Jeaux, pay a visit to his Jeauxland website or watch him chat about the orphaned pirate spawns in his Peg-Leg Orphanage. But Jeaux’s charming work is not really the topic of the day. Instead, let me clear something up about me and those Garbage Pail mutants spawned by Topps Chewing Gum.

In his first email Jeaux complimented me for being a card-carrying contributor to the GPK phenomenon. He is far from the first to do so, and I am not above basking occasionally in the reflected glory that comes with that history. But I really should put this matter into perspective once and for all.

My involvement in the GPK scene was truly marginal and brief. Other cool cartoonists (including my friend and fellow underground comix veteran Jay Lynch) also had a hand in the GPK series before it ended. They did themselves proud and we all had fun.

But that being said, the true glory for GPK illustrations should rightly and almost exclusively go to John Pound, whose brilliant paintings (as exemplified by the sample card on the left below) set the standard for the series and merit comparison to the hilarious work that Will Elder did with Kurtzman in their best collaborations.

This is not to denigrate my own drawings. They are perfectly good Howard Cruse drawings that I don’t at all disown. I’m especially fond of the certificate border that I drew for these cards — inspired as it obviously is by the manic Kurtzman borders that wrapped around the first few issues of Mad after it metamorphosed from comic book to magazine.

But let’s face it, I’ve never pretended to have the painting chops called for if you’re going to play in John Pound’s playground.

Still, I was happy to have the gig, which was the last of a string of cartooning assignments that came my way during the early days of my career, beginning shortly after I moved from Birmingham to New York City.

Maybe I’ll talk about some of those other Topps jobs (including my stint drawing Bazooka Joe comic strips) in some future installment of this blog.