From the Space Raiders cooked up by a 2000AD artist to Odduns with their Dark Side of the Moon style packet, we pop open a new 140-page celebration of crisps and the garishly beautiful bags they’re sold in
W
ould you eat a smoky spider flavour Monster Munch? What about a Bovril crisp, cooked up to celebrate the release of Back to the Future? Then there’s hedgehog flavour – and even a Wallace and Gromit corn snack designed to capture the unique taste of moon cheese, which the duo rocketed off to collect in A Grand Day Out.
All these salty, crunchy and perhaps even tasty snacks are celebrated in UK Crisp Packets 1970-2000, a 140-page compendium that delves into the colourful, often strange and occasionally wild world of crisp packet design. The book will come as a heavy hit of nostalgia for many people, featuring various childhood favourites – Chipsticks, Frazzles, Snaps – along with the lesser known and the rare.
You’ll find Dennis the Menace bacon and baked bean flavour alongside Golden Wonder roast turkey and stuffing and Sonic the Hedgehog salt and vinegar. There are long-gone regional brands from Penryn, Blackpool and Wigan, along with a whole heap of TV and film special editions, including the Spice Girls, Thunderbirds, Zig and Zag, Dr Who, The Mask and Jurassic Park.
