Comic Book / The Amazing World of Gumball

The cover of the second issue.

The Amazing World Of Gumball is a comic book series by KaBOOM! Comics, based on the eponymous animated cartoon. It is written by Frank Gibson of Tiny Kitten Teeth with art by Tyson Hesse of Boxer Hockey.

The main series was announced on March 2014 and began on June of the same year. It ran for a total of 8 issues before being cancelled for unknown reasons. However, one-shot issues, as well graphic novels, are still being published.

Comics and special issues:

• The Amazing World Of Gumball (eight issues, June 2014—March 2015)
• The Pants (May 2014)
• The Tasks (July 2014)
• 2015 Special 1 (January 2015)
• The Amazing World of Gumball 2015 Grab Bag (September 2015)
• The Amazing World of Gumball 2016 Grab Bag (August 2016)
• The Amazing World of Gumball 2017 Grab Bag (August 2017)
• The Amazing World of Gumball Spring Break Smash (February 2019)

Graphic novels:

• The Amazing World of Gumball Vol. 1: Fairy Tale Trouble (December 2015)
• The Amazing World of Gumball Vol. 2: Cheat Code (June 2016)
• The Amazing World of Gumball Vol. 3: Recipe for Disaster (February 2017)
• The Amazing World of Gumball: After School Special Vol. 1 (September 2017)
• The Amazing World of Gumball Vol. 4: Scrimmage Scramble (March 2018)
• The Amazing World of Gumball: Tunnel Kingdom (September 2018)
• The Amazing World of Gumball Original Graphic Novel: Midsummer Nightmare (January 2019)

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This comic books in general provides examples of:

• Adaptation Personality Change: Anais in the series is a Only Sane Woman Snark Knight that just wants friends where in the books she's even more of an Insufferable Genius that besides ignoring friendship is unpleasant.
  • Gumball is much closer to his Season 1 counterpart and is a lot kinder (ironically Darwin gains most of his trademark snark) than in the show despite being more egotistical. Except the very few times he isn't when he arguably becomes the evilest character in the comic book.
• Adapted Out: Some characters from the show never appear in the comics (but some of them appear in the covers), such as Sussie, Rob, and several minor characters. Others don't appear in the main series, but appear in specials or graphic novels, such as Molly, Felix, Juke, and William.
• The Bus Came Back: Rachel, Mother and Son and Mother and Baby appear in a few issues, while they're all suffers of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome after the first season of the cartoon.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The show's trademark Medium Blending would be absurdly difficult for a single comic book artist to do, so all characters in the comic are 2D, including the ones who are CGI in the show.
• The Unintelligible: Averted with Mrs. Robinson. Here, she can speak in actual words instead of "meh meh".

Examples for specific titles

The Amazing World Of Gumball (2014-2015)

• Minimalist Cast: Downplayed. The cast isn't exactly small, but there are much fewer characters than in the show. The school only seems to have 22 students (all of Miss Simian's class, and some are missing), and only a few minor characters appear, most being parents of students or school staff.
• Short-Runners: Lasted only eight issues.

Issue #1

• Bringing Running Shoes to a Car Chase: In the first issue of the comic, Richard lets Gumball and Darwin drive the family car by themselves. When they drive in front of Nicole, she runs the car down, jumps in front of it, and scares Gumball and Darwin into backing up all the way home.

Issue #2

• Faceless Masses: The audience members from the tournament.
• Shout-Out:
  • The karate instructor resembles Chop Chop Master Onion from PaRappa the Rapper.
  • The karate tournament between Gumball, Tobias and Darwin is similar to the climax to The Karate Kid.
  • The game Gumball and Darwin are playing at the beginning is named "Beat Fighter" and heavily resembles Street Fighter. Gumball asking Darwin to "beat up" the car is a reference to the bonus stage in Street Fighter.
• Tuckerization: Beat Fighter Ben may be named after series creator Ben Bocquelet.

The Pants

• Naked People Are Funny: Gumball decides to walk around pantless (without censors, and there isn't anything there). Everyone is shocked, except Mr. Small, who approves of him "finally exposing himself".

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