As far as I'm concerned, the near-decade-long reign of TOPPS' Garbage Pail Kids stickers back in the mid-1980s were the very first "meme." And on top of that, the original 600+ Garbage Pail Kids laid the groundwork for a formula that I have repeatedly used throughout my career, and probably won't stop doing so, because the formula is ridiculously fun.
As far as I'm concerned, the near-decade-long reign of TOPPS' Garbage Pail Kids stickers back in the mid-1980s were the very first "meme". And on top of that, the original 600+ Garbage Pail Kids laid the groundwork for a formula that I have repeatedly used throughout my career, and probably won't stop doing so, because the formula is ridiculously fun. What is this formula, you ask? Simple. Take something relatable (in this case it was the popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls), make fun of it in some way or another, and then run that joke into the ground as many different times as possible, and push it in as many creative ways as you can until it becomes so overwhelming that it's impossible NOT to want to join in on the fun. I unknowingly ripped off this formula when I created Bunnywith and blatantly did it again when I created my "Hand Turkey" comics. Then, the Internet did it with EVERYTHING. —Alex Pardee
