A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2010 Abrams ComicArts and Topps Company When Topps Chewing Gum reintroduced Wacky Packages to the public in 1973 after a short mid-1960s  production run, I was 10 years old and still re-assimilating to American culture after living abroad for six years. I was picking up the language in leaps and bounds, and my reading comprehension skills were above the fourth grade level. I was a spirited, fun-loving kid then, and like many of my peers, I loved the irreverent "Wackys" that poked fun at name-brand products and, by extension, America's consumer culture. When I was a lad of 11, I thought that this parody of Cheer detergent (a brand my mother often bought) was the epitome of hilarity. (C) 1974 Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. Of course, at that age I didn't think in terms of Oh, Topps is satirizing America's consumer culture. Adult-style analyses such as that would only occur to me years later. 10-year-old me thought the parodies of products one would find at...

This is the cover of the second printing from October 2008. It differs from the first printing thusly: instead of "interview with Art Spiegelman,"  the credit reads "introduction by Art Spiegelman." The bonus pack of rare and unreleased stickers is also different. I own a copy of the first printing from June, 2008. (C) 2008 Topps and Abrams ComicArts If you were a kid in the early 1970s, you probably remember Topps' Wacky Packages, a long-running series of stickers that parodied the packaging of  well-known consumer products, including packaged foods, personal hygiene items, and (in later series) nation-wide publications. In the hands of such artists as Art Spiegelman, Jay Lynch, and other comic book artists of the Sixties and Seventies, familiar brands were ripe targets for spoofing as Wacky Packages. Here, Quaker Oats' Cap'n Crunch is transformed into Cap'n Crud. (C) 1973 Topps Chewing Gum Company.  In the summer of 1973, I was a ...