for Cereal Killers – the breakfast-themed horror trading

Breakfast
MORNING GORY
MORNING GORY
CRIME
Get Ready (Brek) for Cereal Killers – the breakfast-themed horror trading cards
that are a bowl lotta fun!
WORDS Eleanor Goodman
ILLUSTRATIONs JOe SIMKO
S
kim your eyes over
these pages, and you’ll
see psychopathic droog
Alex about to tuck into
an ultra-violently sweet
bowl of porridge, Freddy Krueger’s
spoon fingers poised to plunge into
a delicious meal of ‘soul grain’,
and Hannibal Lecter scraping
Golden Grahams from someone’s
skull. These mash-ups of movie
murderers and breakfast brands
are Cereal Killers trading cards,
and they’re coming spoon to
a kitchen near you…
The crunchy nut behind these
horribowl images is artist Joe Simko.
He was raised in Pennsylvania on
a diet of cartoons, horror movies
and sugary cereal, and got a degree in
cartooning from New York’s School Of
Visual Arts. Since then, he’s had his hands
full with designing gig posters, creating festival
artwork, drawing comicbooks, and creating
his own series of storybooks, The Sweet Rot.
But recently he’s been causing a stir with
Cereal Killers, due to their kitsch 1980s style.
“I think people are connecting with
Cereal Killers because of nostalgia about the films
they grew up with, although I’ve noticed younger
kids connect with it through the cereal brands,”
smiles Simko, who’s cheerier than a Cheerio at
a cheerleading contest. “The majority of orders
have been from the US, but we’ve also had
orders from UK, Australia, and the Netherlands.
Although people outside America don’t always
recognise the cereal names, they understand
the horror film stuff.”
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All Killers,
no fillers
Killing in the grain of
Simko got a taste for cereal-themed artwork after
painting a piece for a science-fiction themed show
at New York’s MF Gallery, which represents him.
He was keen to do something unusual, and one
of his favourite marketing mascots sprang to
mind. “I did a painting of Cap’n Crunch in outer
space, being attacked by little green aliens,” he
explains. “That inspired me to paint a zombiethemed Cap’n Crunch cereal box parody. After
that, I drew Frosted Flakes as ‘Frosted Freeks’,
and Coco Puffs as ‘Loco Puffs’. Other parody
paintings followed, and they sold right away.”
Cult celebrities ate up Simko’s work, and
Simko says the man who does the voice of selfish
cup Master Shake in offbeat Adult Swim cartoon
Aqua Teen Hunger Force bought his ‘Zomba
Crunch Crunchberries’ painting at a horror
convention. “He was about to buy the ‘Chucky
Harms’ one, but he didn’t like
the rainbow for some reason
– maybe he thought it was
girly!” Simko giggles.
People were getting
their Weeta-kicks from Joe’s
pics, but he wanted to create
something more affordable,
so he approached the company
Topps, which makes gruesome
Cabbage Patch spoof series
Garbage Pail Kids and
product-themed parody set
Wacky Packages. The company
was keen to get involved, and
Simko painted some of their
new Kids as a trial, but his project
was delayed. But when one door closes, another
one Alpens, and while Simko continues to paint
Garbage Pail Kids, he and his wife, June, set up
a company named Wax Eye to launch the cards.
Having a cenobite
Simko made 55 cards using distinctive bran-ding,
pouring in as many hair-raising references as
possible, without making the content too difficult
to swallow. “I like to keep the cards kid-friendly,
but on that edge where a parent might not quite
be happy with them,” he laughs. “There actually
was a trading card series about serial killers, and
they were pretty controversial at the time. I’m not
protesting about them, but they’re not my style
– I prefer the horror films I watched when I was
young, which were light-hearted, gross and gory.”
His claret-soaked cards are also a treat for
adults. The advertising slogan for ‘Hellraisin g
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MORNING GORY
“I THINK PEOPLE ARE CONNECTING WITH CEREAL KILLERS
BECAUSE OF NOSTALGIA ABOUT THE FILMS THEY GREW UP WITH”
Bran’ is ‘We’ll Tear Your Bowl Apart’, which
echoes Pinhead’s line, ‘We’ll tear your soul apart’,
and on the ‘Wheatful Dead’ card, Henrietta is
saying: ‘We’ll Swallow Your Bowl’, instead of,
‘I’ll swallow your soul’. “There are a lot of puns
in there, so someone who really knows the movie
on the card will appreciate it that much more,”
chuckles Simko. “Being immersed in horror
movies, I could’ve gone into underground
territory, but I tried to keep it to familiar films.”
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You don’t have to be Professor Weeto to
realise Simko thinks outside the box when
working on his products. Each box of cards
comes with a chewing gum eyeball, magnet or
temporary tattoo, and may contain a golden card
or a hand-drawn sketch card. Now things are
moving so Nesquik-ly that there are T-shirts on
the way, and Simko wants to produce sticker
packs. He also has a cluster of new ideas for Wax
Eye. “We want to put out all these weird products
combined with food, always making art the
concept,” he explains. “So we have plans for
a cereal, we might make something like a weird
skull with candy coming out, and we want to be
able to hire other artists and writers, and build
a major company.” We think that sounds grrrreat!
Buy Cereal Killers cards at Wax-eye.com, priced $24.95
for a three-pack set. The Sweet Rot books 1 and 2 are
available from Sweetrot.com. Read more about Simko
at Sweetrot.com and MFGallery.net