The History of Lost Wackys Series 1

• Many titles were proposed which never made it to be actual wackys. Most of these did not get past the stage of being roughs, however some titles were painted as finished products but were nixed, for whatever reason, before actual final release. These finished wackys have become known as "Lost Wackys".
• Very many unpublished pieces of Wacky Package original art have surfaced. Several of these pieces came from the Guernsey auction, while others have appeared on proof sheets or from private collections. The production of all of the ANS series starting in 2004 also resulted in a great number of additional lost wackys.
  • Every lost wacky has a colorful story behind it. Here are a few:
    • In 2004 Topps attended the San Diego Comic Convention in San Diego. I was there and noticed they had displayed in their glass display case a partially finished title Janitor in a Slum that nobody had ever heard of before. It was an awesome Saunders title. I took a picture of it and posted it on the forum. From that picture somebody finished the background in photoshop and voila that's how that lost wacky title was born.
  • The original Garbage Pail Kid was itself a Wacky Package that was painted by John Pound but never used. At the time Cabbage Patch Kids were not all that popular, but a while later they became huge and Topps decided to make an entire parody series about them based on the GPK original. This eventually led to a nasty law suit between Topps and CPK. At some point the CEO of Topps was so aggravated by the whole thing that he demanded the very first original GPK be brough to him so he could burn it - and that's exactly what he did. All that remained was a modest photograph. This was included in the LW1 series and was eventually remastered to high resolution and printed again in LW3.
• By the early 2000's collectors had amassed enough titles to make a whole lost series. The logistics of actually printing a lost series was a daunting project involving the coordination of many people, not all of whom always got along. But after much wrangling and disagreements, a series finally started to come together in 2003. That was interesting timing becuase that is exactly when Topps suddenly announced they would release new wackys starting in 2004. Until that point Topps couldn't care less about Wackys or what the collectors did. Now suddenly they cared very much. That therefore added a whole additional logistic to overcome in order for a real Lost Wackys series to materialize. After much discussion, collectors got the nod to print a very limited very underground run of the Lost Wackys series for the die-hard collectors to trade amongst themselves. So in 2004 at long last Lost Wackys finally say the light of day. A total of 120 sets was printed.
  • Unbeknownst to the entire Lost Wacky syndicate, one member snuck in variations on about a dozen titles. The rest of the members discovered this only after the entire run had been printed and half had already been distributed. This basically started WWI in the Lost Wacky underground. Eventually replacement titles were printed for all modified titles and offered in a third green pack, with some bonus titles. Originally people had to trade in their bastardized titles to get the green pack. But unscrupulous members eventually put all variations back on the market. They are now a fact of life. One of the modified titles was Garbage Pail Kids, the baby was changed to be giving the middle finger. This variation has now become legendary and very hard to come by.
• There are 30 titles in the series, they were packaged in two packs with 15 stickers in each.