Brand-New Series 2

Arriving in March 2013, only six months after Brand-New Series 1 debuted in October 2012, Brand-New Series 2 expanded the revitalized card line under Topps brand manager Stephen Dumas. Rather than resetting the numbering back to card one, the set picked up right where the previous run stopped, spanning from card 56a and 56b up through 128a and 128b. It was the first time Topps had preserved continuous numbering between releases since the shift from Original Series 14 to Original Series 15. The checklist reached 146 base stickers, making it the largest base set the brand had produced up to that point and requiring two separate checklist cards, Checklist A and Checklist B, to cover the lineup, with the release featuring a checklist titled and outlined in blue.

Topps also altered pack counts, leaving behind the eight-card packages of the previous series and returning to ten cards per foil or plastic pack at a suggested retail price of $2.49. Eight separate wrappers reached store shelves, displaying promotional taglines that advertised more brand-new artwork than ever and urged collectors to stick them everywhere. Collectors could purchase standard hobby boxes containing twenty-four packs of nine base stickers and one insert, yielding about 1.48 common sets per box if collation held, alongside an array of retail configurations. Those retail options spanned sixteen-pack peg boxes, twenty-four-pack retail counter boxes, thirty-six-pack gravity feeds, mini and specialty gravity feeds, four-pack value boxes, and eighteen-pack jumbo boxes, with each value box and jumbo box containing a bonus sticker.

Painting assignments for the release were divided between veteran franchise artists and next-generation contributors. Classic series painters Tom Bunk and James Warhola returned to contribute finished work, but the bulk of the visual workload went to next-generation artists, led by Joe Simko with thirty-six paintings alongside Brent Engstrom, Layron DeJarnette, Mark Pingitore, John Cebollero, and newcomer JungHwa Im. Concepts originated from contributors including Colin Walton, Neil Camera, and Jeff Zapata, while cards in the set included names like MEL Tin, Surf's up CHUCK, i PADME, Egg SHELDON, and Insomniac ZACK. David Gross also contributed to the concept artwork and completed four finished paintings.

The release also leaned into fresh chase formats, bringing 3D Lenticular cards, Glow-in-the-Dark stickers, and Foldee cards into the Garbage Pail Kids lineup for the first time. Newcomer Pat Barrett drew all ten Foldee cards, which inserted at one in four packs, and all ten Glow-in-the-Dark stickers, falling one in six packs, while also writing all GPK comics and helping on sketch cards. Base stickers offered Black-Border, Silver-Border, and hobby-exclusive Gold-Border parallels, while true chasers pursued printing plates, eighteen Returning Characters "C" cards landing once in every 3,555 hobby packs, and one-of-one sketch cards drawn by ten artists who each received ten blank return cards from Topps. The release marked the sixth Garbage Pail Kids set to include one-of-a-kind sketch cards.