Wacky Packages who's who Return to the Wacky Packages homepage
Wacky Packages Who's Who
This is a (rough) list of the people involved in Wacky Packages. This is the majority of the players, others will be added as we figure it out. Interviews describing in great detail the history of Wacky Packages are coming soon, please check back.
  1. Jordan Bochanis: Writer for 1991 series. Did layouts and wrote some of the '91 titles. Designed '91 series packaging. Also responsible for making prank phone calls from the Topps offices (one of which had the New York City police show up at Mark's apartment) and various morale-boosting initiatives throughout the Topps offices. (credited on the 1991 checklist)
  2. Len Brown: worked for Topps for some 40 years, from the early 60's on. One of the Wacky Pack pioneers/godfathers. Involved in wackys from conception, all the way from organizing the people to writing gags.
  3. Woody Gelman: head of creative department and worked on product development - came from Fleisher studios
  4. Tom Bunk: some paintings for the '85, '91 and 2004 series (credited on the 1991 checklist).
  5. Neil Camera: conceptions and paintings for many ANS titles starting with ANS2.
  6. Leslie Carbaga: did some paintings for the newgarden series, not sure if any of them actually got used.
  7. Chet Darmstaedte: signs as "XNO". Paintings for the '91 series (credited on the '91 checklist) and probably the '85 as well. bio
  8. Kim Deitch: did roughs of early wackys, e.g. Blunder Bread.
  9. George Evans: checklist line art (on the upper corners of the backs of the checklists) - the same George Evans of EC comics fame.
  10. Drew Friedman: did drawings and paintings for the 1991 series. (credited on the 1991 checklist)
  11. Ira Friedman: organized people
  12. Sean and Patrick Glover: painted Tix, Unlucky Charms
  13. Sean Greathead: painted Dead Bull, Skunkist
  14. Bill Griffith: did roughs and gags, did much of the 12th series
  15. Dave Gross: paintings and concepts for the 2004/5 series.
  16. Robert Grossman: Illustrator, did airbrushing for many wackys in 70's and 80's.
  17. Gary Halgren: painted some of the 85s, former underground cartoonist.
  18. Ray Hammond: a staff artist at Topps in the 70's who did all of the original logos on wackys. He was a very talented staff artist (held a top job at an ad agency, but couldnt deal with the pressures). I believe he would put down the logos on the artwork first and then Norm would do the illustrations around them. His name appears on one of the checks on Bum Chex.
  19. Stan Hart: The old Carol Burnet show was written by Stan Hart...who also wrote many early Wacky Packages gags (according to Jay Lynch)
  20. Overton Lloyd: airbrushing on many of the later 70's wackys.
  21. Jay Lynch: gags and roughs from the 60's to the 90's, did many many, if not the majority, of the wacky gags. Jay is the only original wacky artist still in touch with the hobby today.
  22. Rick Mahig: worked in mechanical group during 70's wackys, painted borders, laid out sheets for photographing, etc.. also did some touch ups.
  23. John Mariano: roughs and gags for the 85 or 91. (credited on the 1991 checklist)
  24. John Marshall: helped conceive Pig Newtons, Slobway
  25. Abe Morgenstern: the guy in Woody's department who set things up with the paper suppliers - this is the guy who ordered the ludlow paper!
  26. Mark Newgarden: did roughs and gags for '85, ran whole show for '91 series. Mark is generally considered the reason the 1991 Wackys failed.
  27. Peter M. Orens: did roughs and concepts around 1974. Friend of Spiegelman from school and introduced to Len and Woody around 1974.
  28. Pat Piggot: Painted some of the Wackys in the '91 series. (credited on the 1991 checklist)
  29. John Pound: did most of the paintings for the '91 series, painted many of the 2004 titles.
  30. Russ Rieley: Writer for the 1991 series (credited on the 1991 checklist).
  31. Frank Santopadre: gag writer for some 1992/2004 titles like "Mr. Coffin" and "Gravestones".
  32. Norm Saunders: painted or worked on most of the wackys, and was responsible for most of the Wacky Pack characters we know and love. Norm really needs no introduction, he's the man. See also (Norm Saunders web page).
  33. Zina Saunders: Daughter of Norm Saunders. Painted several of the 2004 titles.
  34. Joel Shorin: CEO of Topps when Wackys first came out, personally approved titles
  35. Arthur Shorin: CEO of Topps after Joel (still CEO now: 2003), personally approved titles
  36. Ben Soloman: director of the art department which brought wackys to production - came from Fleisher studios
  37. Mark Sparacio: painted Minnow Maid
  38. Art Spiegelman: One of the godfathers of wackys, developed them from the start, wrote gags, orgainzed people, and worked on them from die-cuts (did all the roughs for that series) all the way to the '91.  This is the same Spiegelman who did Maus, Raw Magazine, among many other projects, and won the Pulitzer prize in 1992.
  39. Claude St. Aubin: Painted Castro Oil
  40. Bhob Stewart: product development dept, and did gags and roughs
  41. Tom Sutton: painted the Wacky Ads, penciled some of the images for the final paintings by Saunders.
  42. Strephon Taylor: Painted several of the 2004 titles
  43. Rick Varesi: worked on the wacky pack packaging, wrappers, boxes, etc..
  44. John Williams: Topps project manager for the 2004 series.
  45. George Wright: painted a number of ANS titles
  46. Jeff Zapata: Topps artist and project manager for the 2005 series.
  47. Pete Zies: Did the roughs for about 85 Wackys between 2011 and 2014 (ANS 9 -12, I believe).