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Post by Sniglet on Dec 21, 2005 1:54:31 GMT -5
Hey guys, i've come up with an idea that i think would be great for us as well as the GPK artists. I am going to get ahold of as many of the GPK artists as possible and see if they would be willing to answer a 10 question email interview. I will ask them 5 GPK related questions and 5 general questions. I would like you guys to post who's interview you would like to see the most and perhaps some questions you might have for the artists! I'll post the interviews in this thread as they come along. Looking forward to feedback!
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Post by Sniglet on Dec 22, 2005 23:46:37 GMT -5
Alright guys, i got plenty of rockin' info from Jay Lynch. It went a lot differently that i had expected but we covered some good ground. I'll post the information by tomorrow. Most of it is in factoid style in that he gave me a lot of random facts about GPK, wacky's and his life in general.
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Post by Sniglet on Dec 24, 2005 16:00:07 GMT -5
Ok guys. here it is. i had to do a lot of this from memory as i did reach a point where i was just talking to jay and not typing. Hopefully though you guys will dig. Enjoy!
I called Jay at first and was unable to get a hold of him, so I left a message on his machine. When I saw his number appear on my phone I was totally nervous! Though he is just as human as you and I, he is one of the greatest minds behind TOPPS since its establishment and any GPK fan would find them a little nervous. So I introduce myself and show him thanks for the opportunity to answer some questions that I had lined up. He sounded completely different than what I had imagined him. He was calm, laid back and sounded like a really easy going guy. He lives in New York in small farm town where most of the farmers are former hippies. He buys his milk from a farmer and not from the store which is quite expensive compared to home grown milk. He also says he has joined a wood carving club in his neighborhood.
GP:“Does anyone there know who you are and what you do there at the wood carving club?
JL: Yeah, they all know but most of them have never seen a GPK before. I’ve actually got a toon on my mailbox and no one has ever said anything about it before except for a FedEx guy.
So after a little bit more warming up and small talk I begin to try and get into the questions I had lined up. It was hard for me making the transition from question to question because after he’d give an answer to one question; it would bring up a whole new topic I hadn’t anticipated! After the first hour of conversation I just started talking to him as a person and tried to learn a little about the artist himself.
GP: so how exactly did you get started working for TOPPS?
JL: In 1966 Art Spiegelman and I were pretty good friends. He did a lot of fanzines with his gags and comics that he had made, mostly for just the locals. There was a particular Jack Davis piece of art that he wanted to purchase from TOPPS at the time. Art ended up talking to Woody Gelman and gave him a few of his fanzines. Woody liked what he saw and hired art at the age of 16 where he would work at TOPPS after school and during the summer. Art then got me job at TOPPS for some novelty series they had going. It all just kind of flowed together…
GP: So how many concepts do you normally submit for a GPK series? What is the acceptance/rejection ratio?
JL: I usually do about a dozen at a time and more get accepted than rejected. I think I got about 30 concepts accepted for ANS5. Those that get rejected are left to the side until a few years down the road when TOPPS decides to use them again. The Salmon Joy card from the ANS2 WP was done by me back in 1967 and I also did the Hurtseys card a long time ago as well. I had to rework it as the packaging has changed since it was originally created.
GP: Why is it that you don’t do any of the final art for the GPK?
JL: If TOPPS had wanted me to then I would. It’s just a whole lot easier to come up with a dozen concepts and have several other painters work them up.
GP: That leads me to the my next question, have you ever wanted to make your own series of characters such as TCT or MB?
JL: well, not really. If one person did a whole series it would take way to long. On average I can paint 30 paintings a year but can submit well over 30 concepts in one year. This is why TOPPS has so many new artists with the GPK and WP.
GP: But TOPPS is still rather slow about putting out the GPK. TOPPS doesn’t seem to like deadlines!
JL: The ANS5 is still going to come out in February. I also had to design something totally new for the series which I can not yet talk about….
GP: Whoa! That’s cool. A secret huh? That just builds my anticipation a little more.
GP: So do you think that ANS5 will steer away from the vomit, puke and urine jokes?
JL: Yes actually. You can only do so much with bodily fluids and this series should be able to see a new direction.
GP: My favourite GPK’s are the surreal ones that are anything but bodily fluid based and I think a lot of the GPK fans today feel the same way. Why won’t TOPPS allow more surreal GPK?
JL: There’s a couple of reasons. If they ever decide to market GPK with dolls, figurines or any other method, it’d be really hard to make a GPK doll of some of the more surreal characters. TOPPS wants a joke that you can get as soon as you can see the card and for younger kids sometimes the surreal GPK are harder to figure out. TOPPS is slowly becoming more lenient with surreal ideas though.
GP: Do you by chance know who Todd Schorr is? I think he would be an excellent surreal GPK artist!
JL: Yeah. I had actually contacted him once to see if he wanted to do some GPK, but at the time he was working on airline advertisements and did not have the time and he didn’t seem to intrigued by the idea.
GP: Now how about these ANS4 sketch cards. Did you ever grow tired of making them and did you do any one of a kind sketches that were turned down by TOPPS?
JL:….. I don’t know (laughs). I did make a few one of a kind but I haven’t seem them pop up on ebay and I didn’t get them back. I drew them in an assemply line type style. I would draw the eyes on about 10 cards then go back and draw the heads on all of them. It made it go by pretty quick. Of course using a crow quill pen made a little faster as well.
Some how we make it to the subject of TOPPS method of payment and the cash that is made from GPK drawing.
JL: Back in the old days we would get paid a 5th of what the final painters would get paid. The 80’s paid a little better because we did colour roughs as opposed to the standard black and white roughs we do now. One rough will usually buy me one bag of groceries
GP: That’s not too shabby!
JL: ……..yes it is.
GP: So do they still keep your roughs once you send them in or are you getting them back now? I remember hearing that TOPPS was bad about keeping final art and roughs in the 80’s
JL: Well what they do is they just buy all the old roughs from me and then auction them off on ebay. Plus I Xerox all of my drawings before sending them in to TOPPS so I have copies of all my works in notebooks and folders.
GP: I see. I often wondered if you guys got a slice of the pie when they would sell your work on ebay for hundreds and even thousands! So they just buy them from you and sell them huh?
JL: Right. I even have the very, very first GPK that was created by Art somewhere in my room. None of the artists at TOPPS could believe they were going to try to make a series based on one particular thing and nobody thought it would work. Art was trying to figure out what it was that TOPPS was looking for and the idea of using a name with an adjective had not come up yet, so the first GPK was an extremely ugly little kid name “Olga”. That was it (laughs). So the original idea was to just have ugly kids not necessarily have them doing things such as vomiting.
GP: So who is your favourite GPK that you or another artist has done?
JL: I’m fond of the GPK with a crow in his head, I don’t even know what they ended up calling him.
GP: Bird Brain Brian?
JL: Yeah, that one. It’s the epitome of modern media (laughs)
GP: Did you think that your art would ever take you this far in life? Did you know you would end up being an artist?
JL: Basically yes. I started drawing when I was 3 years old and everyone always told me that I had the skill. I didn’t get my first crow quill pen though until 1959 and I then locked myself in my room and just started drawing all the time.
GP: Well Jay, we’ve been talking for 1 hour now, I have a few more questions I’d like to ask unless you’re getting tired or have something else to do.
JL: That’s fine I’m up.
GP: Ok, I’d like to ask some non GPK based questions and find out a little more about you as a person and artist. What is your favourite band or your favourite band back in the day?
JL: I used to really like a group called “The Fugs” but they have been completely wiped away from history. I didn’t like none of that “Light my Fire” stuff, we always called it conspiracy music.
GP: Did you like Pink Floyd?
JL: No. Conspiracy music remember?
GP: What other jobs have you worked for other than those dealing with art?
JL: Well, I worked at a toy factory for about 10 years, a art store and some restaurants. I used to do jokes for Playboy as well. One year the editors daughter threw a fit and we couldn’t draw women in high heels in Playboy.
GP: Now that’s odd. What did they have against heels?
JL: Heels limit a womans mobility thus rendering it sexist. Things like this would happen all the time. TOPPS even had a period where you couldn’t use the word moron (laughs).
GP: What do you think about Luis Diaz art?
JL: Diaz is very good. He’s like…. John Pound 2.
GP: LOL. That’s interesting that you said that because I told him once that if Pound ever retired then he would be the best candidate for head GPK painter! Now do you do many characateurs like Aron Laikin does?
JL: Not really. I can do a little bit of everything but I don’t usually do characateurs a lot. Laikin, however, is very good at what he does. His characateurs are a little more distorted and exaggerated so you wouldn’t want that type of style for something like Silly Cd’s where you want the characters to look more realistic and less distorted. Laikin’s father, Paul Laikin, wrote gags for wacky packages and was also the editor for Cracked magazine back in the day. Paul even did the JFK colouring book back in the 60’s. Aron used to do a lot of the Cracked covers as well.
GP: That’s cool! I didn’t know that about Aron. Now do you have any kids yourself Jay?
JL: Nope. Forgot to do that one.
GP: I was just wondering if the drawing genes had been passed down to another generation.
JL: No, no kids but the genes do get passed down. Paul and Aron being a good example.
GP: What about your parents? Did they draw or anything like that?
JL: No. my aunt drew a lot but never got anything published
Jay then gets a knock at his door and places me on hold for a moment. When he comes back he said that his wife wanted him to draw a toon for something (I forgot what it was, sorry guys) so she could paint it.
GP: Ah, so your wife paints too? What’s her name?
JL: yes she paints. Her name is Carol and she even did some of the colouring for the final art of the old backs.
Then drawing near the close of the second hour of our conversation, Jay lets me go. I express my gratitude for him giving me so much information and not getting tired of all the questions.
This was a very fun experience for me. Though unprofessional, I feel I did a pretty decent job and getting all info we as GPK fans look for. Hopefully you guys feel the same way!
Keep up with this thread as time moves on, there should be plenty more of interviews to come!!
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Post by JOHN John on Dec 24, 2005 16:49:08 GMT -5
Wow, that interview was pretty good! I demand more!! You should date them and make your own name for the series of artist interviews. Like "Couch Time with Sniglet" or something crazy like that.
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Post by Zoop on Dec 25, 2005 2:44:57 GMT -5
As a professional journalist, I approve. Good job!
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Post by Cory on Dec 25, 2005 21:07:46 GMT -5
Good interview Sniglet. I see you got all the questions except for the "Did you ever go out drinking with the artists back in the day" one. Thanks for hooking us up. To make things easier on yourself next time get a cheap speakerphone and tape the whole conversation. Then you can just go from one question to another without having to worry about keeping records.
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Post by Sniglet on Dec 26, 2005 13:29:16 GMT -5
Yeah, and the only reason i didn't ask that was because he had kinda answered it in a previous statement. when he was talking about art trying to work out the GPK look he said JP came over to do the backs. i assumed that they did hang out, and being a young age person during the 60s and 70s it was impossible to not drink or have a good time. so i assume! :sniglet:
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2005 12:15:48 GMT -5
Wow that was insightful. Todd Schorr kicks ass.
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Post by slamjim on Jan 2, 2006 2:23:15 GMT -5
That was great. Jay is always insightful and fun to talk to. The man is even more of a Wacky Packages legend than GPK. Got to ask him some more Wacky questions next time!
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Post by Sniglet on Jan 28, 2006 22:25:46 GMT -5
I lost this picture when i was doing the interview and managed to find it again. Jay told me to go to zippythepinhead.com (i think that's it) and check out this joke. It's pretty cool...
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Post by GarbePailDude on Jan 28, 2006 23:26:12 GMT -5
Great interview!!
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Post by oldjay on Feb 23, 2010 15:23:49 GMT -5
man i liked the hell out of that intetview thank you
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