A few years ago I was in Charlotte and found these sidesplitting, vicious, evil, nasty, mean-spirited greeting cards and thought, “Hey! They’re for me!” Well, finally, I found a few in my local queer bookstore, and I looked them up on the web.
The company is called Kaboom!, and this particular line is called Dirty Works. They’re simple cards - nothing on the front but a small graphic - but the one-liners on the inside of the cards are choice! My favorite is the birthday card that reads simply, “You’re horribly, horribly old.” Others include such gems as, “I want my stuff back,” “My deepest sympathies on the death of your soul,” “As a concerned friend, I thought you might like to know that one of you is cheating on the other. Happy Anniversary,” “I admire your ability to stay celibate for so long, but I would be more impressed if you weren’t trying so hard to get laid all the time,” and “Happy Mother’s Day, please say I was adopted.”
They also carry lines of cards with South Park, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and the altered highway signs. I also discovered they carry a brand of cards especially dedicated to women who are in love with gay men, called Fantabulous. (My favorite is the one that reads, “Don’t be ridiculous, Dolores! Your husband is not a homosexual! He just has a lot on his mind and you are simply unattractive.”)
While working at a radio station, I got to open the Christmas cards from all the record labels. The BEST one was a matte black card with a glossy black Christmas Tree on it. Inside read “Fuck you.”
I insisted everyone read it before they could speak to me.
Damn, those cards ROCK! I’m gonna by a freakin’ CASE of 'em…
Although my sense of humor really tends toward the more bizarre:
Front of card shows X-mas tree, the litter of many unwrapped presents, two smiling parents holding an unopened box in front of their child, “sitting” in a chair.
He has only a head, no body.
Inside reads “Oh, let me GUESS! It’s another F*CKING HAT!”
It makes me wish these and these had gotten made into print cards. Easily as witty as your set, IMHO. BTW, anybody with the brains to hang out here on the SMDB will probably love this site. Please check it out.
My name’s Brian and…
I make greeting cards!
Got alerted to this thread so I thought I’d chime in with my 2 ¢.
Sadly for every person who’d love to see a “Fuck You” card, theres about a 100 people who are willing to write and complain that we included the word “crap” on a card.
It’s frustrating, really.
One of my favorite parts of my job in the brainstorms we have where we pitch card ideas into a pile and then read them aloud afterwards. The stuff that gets written in those things could make Larry Flint blush. But… since we’re such a huge company, we could never do anything like that without hoardes of the religeous right storming the proverbial castle.
We also released a card line many years back that was all nasty stuff you could send your ex’s. Failed miserably. Seems that while this stuff is funny as Hell, nobody ever stops and thinks, “that bastard slept with my sister, I’m gonna send him a greeting card he won’t soon forget!”
So it’s up to the little guys to write the smut. But trust me, if the big corporations could get away with printing the dirty stuff, they would.
Incidentally, just saw a memo about how it’s OK to use the word “boobs” on our cards now.
Speaking of the bra thread…I received one memorable birthday card a couple years back from some friends…it’s got 2 bulls in a cow strip joint, and they’re watching a cow shimmy around a pole (but you only see her from the…erm…waist down - udder and hind legs). One of them turns to the other and says, “Oh, sure, it’s nice…but is it real?”
A couple of years ago, I found a birthday card for my sister. On the front, it said, “Congratulations.”
On the inside was the best one-liner I have ever found in a sister card. It said, “You’re one year closer to becoming your Mother.” I have yet to be forgiven.
Did I buy one of your cards? I have one at home that has an image made to look like an old engraving with a man and a woman. The front of the card says “I had a dream about you last night where you were …” and the inside “… roasting on a spit in hell.”
I immediately bought it, but still haven’t find the right occasion to use it.
Nope, not one of mine… Pretty funny though.
I work for “Shoebox”. In any given Hallmark store/Walmart/CVS/ etc. you might find 150-350 Shoebox cards on display. Due to my relative newness and the slow turnover, maybe 3 or 4 of those diplayed would have been drawn by me. There may be more which I wrote but someone else finished, but 3-4 is about average. Lots of luck trying to find one!
A few of my friends who know my style very well are able to pick em out, otherwise it’s needle in the haystack time. I do sign em though.
I remember one quite funny one where you have a giant hot dog about blowing out candles at a birthday party, and the caption said something like “<Some name> chose the wrong time to get the Oscar Meyer song in his head”
We all got together just this past weekend to celebrate Father’s Day and 3 birthdays and had a discussion about this card. What started it all was she got me a bithday card that said something like, “I guess I could have had a worse brother than you.” On the inside it said, “For example, Cain.”
The funniest card I ever bought and sent was one I found in the grocery store. It had an old black and white picture on the front of two women in a hair-pulling catfight. On the inside it said:
“Stop being younger than me, you Bitch!”
The cashier read it at the check-out and about peed her pants laughing. I sent it to my sister-in-law for her birthday, who said she snorted her Pepsi through her nose when she saw it.
I saw this Christmas card 2 years ago and am forever kicking myself for not buying it:
It’s blank inside (as I remember). On the front, in a Renaissance-style painting, Jesus is entering his home but has left the door open. In the foreground, Mary says, “Jesus! Shut the door! Were you born in a barn?”
There are a couple that I saw, purchased, sent, and can no longer find, sadly. One was of two wealthy women having tea together. One says to the other, “How many husbands HAVE you had?” On the inside, the other woman replies, “You mean, including my own?”
The second was a long birthday poem which I committed to memory many, many years ago and will attempt to reproduce here:
Birthdays are a time for fun!
Presents comes from everyone!
Cake and ice cream - what a treat!
It’s your birthday, eat, eat, eat!
Fill your plate and pile it high!
Tell your friends and guest good-bye!
You’ve got their gifts, who needs them now?
They’re eating too much, anyhow!
Get lost, Gary! Later, Liz!
Whose party do they think this is?
There’s food and stuff all on your clothes!
Go wash off with the garden hose!
On this inside, it says “Happy Birthday from Someone Who Knows You.” (I’m amazed that I still remember it!)
BTW, seriousart - I have the Shoebox insert for my Franklin Planner. Different cartoon every day. Now I’m going to be wondering if any of them are yours.
One has a drawing of four different ladies, and under each, it says something about they way they look. “Legs too long”…“Hips too wide”…“Chest too big”…“Poorly drawn head.” On the inside, it says something like “Aren’t you glad you don’t have one of these figure flaws!”
I bought this one for one of my more pure friends. It says, “I bet you thought I would send you one of those raunchy cards, dripping with sexual innuendo and plenty of horny expressions! Well, you’re wrong. I would never say such things!” And on the inside: “…But he will.” it has a big, oiled-up muscle-y guy. The guy says, "Wanna frost my cake, birthday girl?
