As part of the convenience store, Majik Market, 7-11, Circle K, world of "stuff kids could buy with their allowance", comic books battled for supremacy against candy bars, baseball cards, Slim Jims, Slurpees, and cheapo magic tricks and bent-nail puzzles nobody bought more than once. At some point in the early 1980s some enterprising bubblegum merchant accidentally bumped into the local comic book distributor. Hey, you got your comic books in my bubble gum! No, YOU got YOUR bubble gum into MY comic books!
And thus was born BUBBLE FUNNIES, the world's only line of comic books that came packaged with its very own piece of bubble gum!


Great idea, huh? Well, not so much. As we can see from our handy promotional Coca-Cola ruler from the 1940s, these were not exactly Treasury Edition comics. Measuring a diminutive 3 1/2 inches by two and 3/8ths of an inch, the tiny size and low page count meant things like "story" and "art" had to be compressed to their bare essentials.


I mean, with the Captain America comic, a eighth of the story is filled up with explaining who Captain America is and how he came to be and why you should care. Because this is a Marvel comic we're exposed to high levels of exposition, and because it's the 80s we think a 'stealth' plane is something like Wonder Woman's invisible jet.


Meanwhile over in the Archie Universe we can see how simplified art and large-size word balloons make bubblegum comicbook reading a much more satisfying experience. Heck, this story got started on the cover and is blasting right along. No wasting time showing Sabrina's top secret origin here. Is this Dan DeCarlo or Stan Goldberg? Only Richard Goldwater knows for sure, and he ain't tellin'.


Captain America parks his stealth shuttle right next to the Skull Satellite and gets to pose dramatically in silhouette to surprise the Red Skull. Luckily the Red Skull spends a lot of time talking to himself explaining his plans to himself and laughing at the fools who will soon tremble under the iron boot of his conquest, giving Captain America plenty of time to float leisurely across the zero-gravity satellite chamber and boot the Skull in the skull.
I just want to point out here that the Red Skull wears a belt buckle with his own face on it.


what an attention whore.


cousin Ambrose learns about traffic.
Well, let's wrap these comics up and get to some gum-chewing!


Cousin Ambrose learns all his fuel-saving work has been in vain, exposing the fatal flaw in any magic-based work of fiction because supernatural powers would obviously have far-reaching implications on society and the laws of physics and once you realize this you can't watch BEWITCHED any more without boring everybody by constantly pointing out that if Samantha could really do anything why is Darren still working his lousy job living in a boring suburban house surrounded by nosy neighbors when he could be king of the world? Huh? Also America has been made safe for democracy, so it can then inforce that democracy upon other nations that may or may not want it. God bless you Captain America, you and your self-destruct-switch-seeking shield!
The Amurol Products Company's experiment in bubble-gum comic book combination didn't last too long, in spite of a cross-company line up of star characters and a slab of pink sugary goodness that only hurt the teeth for a few minutes. Will some new comic book outfit attempt such a melding of cosmic forces again? Or will we learn from the mistakes of the past? God help us... in the future.



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