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Breakfast CrIMe

MORNING GORYMORNING GORY

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Skim 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.”

Breakfast CrIMe

WORDS ElEanor GoodmanILLUSTRATIONS JoE SImKo

Get Ready (Brek) for Cereal Killers – the breakfast-themed horror trading cards that are a bowl lotta fun!

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 cenobiteSimko 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

All Killers, no fillers

Killing in the grain ofSimko 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 zombie-themed 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

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MORNING GORY

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

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.”

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

“I tHINk PeOPLe are CONNeCtING WItH CereaL kILLers BeCaUse Of NOstaLGIa aBOUt tHe fILMs tHeY GreW UP WItH”