Who remembers the gross but oh so collectable Garbage Pail Kids stickers? I am certain that they are the sole reason kids at school got gross names – Luke Puke etc. But they weren’t merely the grossed illustrations the makers could get away with without offending parents, they were disgusting works of art full of hidden political comments from the time.

Topps released the Garbage Pail Kids, or as some may know the The Garbage Gang stickers as a direct rebuke against the overly nice Cabbage Patch Kids (personally I used to find them terrifying). The makers of Cabbage Patch Kids didn’t see the funny side however and quickly took offence and sued Topps.

Wether your favourite was Oozy Suzy, a girl who had a lit wick in her head and was generally constantly melting or Itchie Richie who was a baby covered in insects we’re sure the image of at least one of these overly gory or gross little kiddies will be etched in your memory if you are a child of the eighties (you’re also owed some love from Calvin Harris if this is the case).

A new book is now coming out that contains the first five series of the Garbage Gang cards called, appropriately, Garbage Pail Kids. In it Art Spiegelman, one of the illustrators of the cards talks about his role at Topps before you find the collective onslaught that is the collection of Garbage Pail Kid images from the creators that included avant-garde cartoonists and humorists Mark Newgarden, John Pound, Tom Bunk, and Jay Lynch as well as Art.

The book is ideal for anyone that’s loving the 80s memorabilia flooding Ebay and people’s Instagrams lately. It’ll bring back so many memories you won’t know wether you should be reading it whilst picking your nose and chewing on some gum that you later find stuck in your hair, it even has a waxy book jacket, just like the packets of stickers themselves.

Garbage Pail Kids is published by Abrams Comic Arts and is out now.