League of Extraordinary Bloggers: First Time

Welcome to another League of Extraordinary Bloggers post! What's the topic this week? Let's have a look shall we? 

It feels like the first time… 

Write about your first experience with something. 

I believe it would have been late 1985. That would have made me 7 years old at the time. I was at a birthday party being held for a kid I didn't like very much... but our Mom's were friends, so it was a sort of obligation to attend. At 7 I didn't really care one way or another I guess, as long as I got some cake and some party favors... But I just REALLY didn't like the kid who's party we were at. 

I hope your f**king Birthday cake sets your
f**king face on fire you a**hole.

I was ready to write the entire party off as a loss until we got to go sit at the table to watch him open his presents (I remember he got a Prince Dargon with Dragonflyer which I was insanely jealous about. A**HOLE!!!) and on the table there were these wax-wrapped packages of trading cards: 

This and ALL other GPK images in this post are from Baron Aaron's GPKWorld site.
He has an incredible archive of GPK and you should check it out.
Click on any of his pictures to go there.

Garbage Pail Kids!!! 

This was the very first time I had ever even HEARD of GPK, much less actually laid hands upon them. The kids around the table all seemed to know all about these things already, so I was the only one who was struck dumb by the cards inside:

     

I remember them well. These five images were my very first introduction to Garbage Pail kids. CYClops, DOUG Plug, Brainy BRIAN, JANET Planet, and Bad Breath SETH. 

      

Out of all the GPK's I would eventually own, these 5 stand out as my very FIRST. I was immediately struck by how detailed the artwork was. At 7 years old I thought these were almost eerily beautiful (although I wouldn't have had those owrds in my vocabulary to describe them). And looking at them subjectively as an adult, I honestly do find the artwork kind of beautiful. The artistry is there. You can tell artist John Pound put a lot of love into each piece. 

From those hideous wrinkle's around Seth's mouth there, or the multi-colored shading on Janet's skin... can you blame me for falling in love at first sight? After that birthday party, I would walk a couple of blocks down to the local convenience store any time I found enough loose change to buy another pack. I remember tearing those packages open on the way home and poring over every detail carefully, almost trying to memorize every character's features. I never had binders and card sheets to keep them protected in (and probably wouldn't have done so even if I had them...) but I did keep them in one of these:

An old zipper bank bag that my grandmother gave me to keep them in. I lugged that thing around everywhere!

And so started a life-long romance with GPK, from:

I've talked a bit in the past about how much I love this little guy. 

"Garbage Pail Kids Cheap toys with Crummy Candy" to:

         

The Garbage Pail Kids movie!!! And there was a magazine they put out that I ALSO dragged around EVERYWHERE when it came out. I LOVED this movie and the magazine when I was a kid!!!

And of course Garbage Pail Kids were simply a gateway item... leading to obsessions with things like:

MadBalls! (those Characters from Cleveland were another HUGE love of mine as a kid) And... 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (The weirder and grosser the villains were, the better in my opinion, and Play-Mates was feeding that need!). And it indirectly got me started on the path to comic books by getting me interested in magazines like: 

          

Cracked and MAD!!!

So it's pretty obvious that the Garbage Pail Kids had a pretty heavy influence on my development after that first exposure. 

Let's see what the rest of the League is Blogging about!

- Chrisloc1701 from Random Nerdness takes us on a tour of his first memories of the Happiest Place on Earth!

- GI Jigsaw shares TWO incredibly cool memories. First trips to two of the most formative locations in ANY self-respecting geek's life. I love his choices!

- But I think Erik Johnson, Illustrator shares some of the most personal and beautiful "firsts" so far.

- The Trash Man over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture features an old comic that I WANT. 

That's it for me today kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!