From Cereal Boxes to Cartoon-Fueled Madness: Cereal Savages Delivers ’80s Nostalgia, Chaos, and a World-Threatening Milk Monster. New Graphic Novel from lead Garbage Pail Kids artist Joe Simko and DC/Marvel writer Hans Rodionoff arrives May 26
This May, a limited-edition hardcover graphic novel from Joe Simko and Hans Rodionoff delivers a heaping bowl of nostalgia, satire, and Saturday-morning chaos.
Published by 1984 Publishing, Cereal Savages marks Joe Simko’s long-awaited return to long-form graphic storytelling. Best known as a lead artist for Garbage Pail Kids and co-creator of Craniacs, Simko joins forces with DC and Marvel veteran and television writer Hans Rodionoff (Voltron, The Muppets Mayhem) to launch the first installment in a planned series blending irreverent humor with surprising heart.
Featuring a foreword by Adam F. Goldberg, creator of The Goldbergs, the story follows four disgraced 1980s cereal mascots struggling to survive in the modern world. With the help of their now-adult superfan, these unlikely heroes must mend fractured friendships and confront an oozy, world-ending milk monster.
The style of the Cereal Savages book has a creatively independent vision, smoothly blending Joe’s rock poster art style, mainstream superhero aesthetics, and the direct influence of underground alternative comic books.
Among the pages of Joe’s brush-inked, monotone-colored, sequential panel-to-panel storytelling, there are also intermittently dispersed full-color supplemental pages that help with world-building. These inserted supplemental pages include acrylic-painted Cereal Savages cereal box designs from Simko, faux newspaper articles, magazine interviews, Saturday morning cartoon screenshots, and much more.
Nearly seven years in the making, the project represents a personal milestone for Simko.
Artist Joe Simko
I am thrilled to finally share this book. Returning to sequential storytelling—especially around subjects that mean so much to me, the ’80s and cereal—has been incredible. I couldn’t have done it without Hans’ guidance on story and dialogue. I’m excited for the grown-up kids of the ’80s to dig in.”
Writer Hans Rodionoff
This collaboration is like being Isekai’d into an unhinged Saturday morning cartoon where the stakes are high, and the only thing more dangerous than the villains is the corn syrup.
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 60 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove headfirst over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 21-year-old young man with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.
