Do you go back and look at your own work often?
I did when I was working on this book. I'm always aware of it, but it's not like I'm like, 'Oh, gosh, what am I gonna read tonight? I know! I haven't read Maus in about three days. But I'm aware of it, it's not like I have amnesia when it's finished, and I do refer back to things to see if I did what I thought I did and [whether] the idea I'm thinking of is new, or if it's something that's already been expressed. So, to that degree.
So, is Maus still the big rodent that follows you?
Or the big monument that casts a shadow? Well, sure. Maus was something like a blues musician getting an A.M. hit.. And the result is that no matter what else happens, you're always going to be known for that one three-minute song. Except this was a 13-year song. So I take it happily, and with grace that the book gets to be alive. But it means that I know that the first sentence of my obit will be "Pulitzer Prize winning...Maus" — so in a way it leaves me free to pursue whatever else I need to do, because my obit's there, and it has a first sentence.
Garbage Pail Kids. I gotta ask.
Yeah. I'm sure more people have seen Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids than have ever seen Maus. I'm wondering if Wacky Packages ever made it to the Middle East. Because I know Maus didn't.
Were you in charge of coming up with the names?
I was kind of functioning as the editor, art director, and co-creator of the series, but I didn't paint a single one. And I didn't write all the stuff. With Wacky Packs gathered like a guild of Garbage Pail makers. John Pound being the most important. painter who did it. Who kind of hit the right G-spot, so the garbage could float. The gags were written by me, another cartoonist named Mark Newgarden, and a host of others by the time it was done. A guy named James Warhola, who was actually Warhol's nephew. Someone named Len Brown, who I actually go way back with. All worked on this thing. It was definitely a collective work. No one was allowed to sign it. They were afraid that Fleer would hire someone away if Topps let the names get out. And when Maus first came out, my editors lived in terror that my connection to Garbage Pail kids would become known. It's hard enough to say, 'Well, it's a comic book, about the Holocaust, it uses cats and mice, but it's not what you might think.' If anyone finds out you did Garbage Pail Kids, it's gonna be 'Garbage Pail Jews' in every newspaper that bothers to touch it.
So when did that secret get out?
I dunno. I was never ashamed of it. I was happy about what I had done. But there wasn't one kind of article that outed me, or anything like that.
I got into Garbage Pail kids about the same time I got into Mad Magazine. Nine or 10. It's amazing the way that those things can shape a kid's world view.
Yeah, especially because MAD was starting to get anemic by then, in the '80s.
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