Garbage Pail Kido

Cryptid Art Space is pleased to invite you to

Garbage Pail Kido
An exhibition by Kokimoto

April 6–30, 2026

The unmistakable images of the late 1980s and early 1990s stayed forever lodged in the minds of more than one generation. Pop-culture heroes burst into our local reality at full force, bringing with them the necessary dose of colour and quality to our scarce, grey and dull surroundings. Alf, E.T., the Flintstones, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Pink Panther, the Smurfs, the characters from Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and many others filled parts of our repetitive everyday life as eagerly awaited cartoons, series, films and comics, which later quite naturally appeared on mass-market products such as posters, figurines, chewing gum, stickers, napkins, backpacks, T-shirts and who knows what else. These products are still desired today, stirring nostalgia in the children who have since grown up — men and women who passionately collect all kinds of objects bearing those images from the recent past, in an attempt to fill that nostalgia-shaped void in their hearts and minds.

One of the most exciting things for me from that time was Garbage Pail Kids — a series of trading stickers produced by the Topps Company. First released in 1985, they were meant to parody the then-popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Each card shows a Garbage Pail Kids character with some comic anomaly, deformation or horrible fate, even death. The characters have funny names built on wordplay (Adam Bomb) or alliteration (Blasted Billy). Each card was produced in two versions, with variations featuring the same artwork but a different character name, distinguished by the letter “a” or “b” after the card number. The labels were die-cut so that only the character, together with its nameplate and the GPK logo, could be peeled off the backing. Many of the card backs contain puzzle pieces that form giant murals, while other back themes vary widely across the different series.

These cards are still being made and sold today, and they arrived in Bulgaria in the early 1990s, available only in a few places. Children collected them, like everything else that was collectable in those lean years. Card fans still love and collect them today, and Kokimoto is one of them. On top of everything else, the artist develops his own signature character — a computer worm named Kido, which fits neatly into the compositions on this theme. The artist also plays with the original title, replacing Kids with Kido. Kokimoto’s interpretations in the project titled Garbage Pail Kido range from acrylic drawings on prints, through painting and sculpture, to limited-edition prints, T-shirts and stickers, and can be seen from April 6 to 30 at Cryptid Art Space.

Opening: April 6, 6:30–8:30 pm
Cryptid Art Space (Sofia, 1 Dimitar Traykovich St.)