Throughout the 1980s it became harder to find sword and sorcery on bookstore shelves. Whatever the reason, it couldn’t have been due to lack of interest, for the genre remained popular in a variety of other media: films, games, heavy metal album covers… and Garbage Pail Kids!

The wildly popular trading cards were devised by Topps, who wanted a parody of Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. The artist they selected to create the GPKs was John Pound, who had done a few cover illustrations for fantasy/SF books in the early ‘80s (by authors including Michael Moorcock and Andre Norton, among others). The GPKs infuriated teachers and parents, which of course caused children to love them even more. While they were mostly known for their grossness, that wasn’t all they had to offer. A good deal of the cards were either violent, goofy, or just strange. Sword and sorcery is violent and strange, so it’s no wonder a few crossed over into S&S territory.

One GPK was overtly modeled after a Frank Frazetta piece. Compare Max Axe with the cover of the October 1967 issue of Creepy:

Throughout the GPK’s 15 series run during the ‘80s, a few other S&S-type characters appeared. Check them out in the galleries below.