4 out of 5

The comic which the show deserves.  Perfect comic timing from Tyson Hesse and Paulina Ganucheau with the best blend of absurdity and innocence (which the show pulls off the majority of the time) by writer Frank Gibson.  As I’ve been blabbing about in some other reviews – for Turtles Animated, for Rick and Morty – the main failure of most of these licensed books is in trying to copy the show, instead of using it as a springboard.  Gibson seems gifted with the same Looney Tunes wonder as creator Ben Bocquelet, and grasps the key checks and balances relationship of Gumball and Darwin, so the stories that come out feel inspired.  They also, perhaps more importantly, feel more at home on the printed page, where framing and panel placement function differently than camera angles.  So while the books could be adapted to episodes, the way they’re presented here feels ideal, and I don’t have to “see” them on TV to recognize the world.

And because the main stories are so strong, the backup bits don’t just seem like filler.  It’s an interesting realization, but a sensible one: backups in humor mags are almost always going to boil down to a setup and punchline, one-two, and when the preceding pages aren’t strong, the backup suffers too, just salt to the wound; following a bad act.  So with Gibson and Hesse making such a great team, the inventive one-offs of the various indie creators in the back get to shine.  Yehudi Mercado is also back for an issue – Philip Murphy stepping in for a couple – with more worldy-building type ads that, again, sell this book as its own thing in the Gumball universe, although Murphy’s are admittedly a bit more dry than Mercado’s.

…The missing star is just a note of warning, I suppose: issue #8 is solo Hesse.  It’s still pretty great – Gumball taking down smart guy Billy in a chess match, then shrugging off the victory with lovable insouciance – but, while it’s clear that the excellent characterizations belong to Hesse (and this is a huge contributor to the humor), the paneling and pacing are very traditional, which suggests the really oddball stuff comes from Gibson.  A whole series of this type of work would still be fun, but certainly less insane.  So hopefully Gibson is just taking a break, and I’ll continue to laugh off my hard-to-laugh-off socks next collection of issues.