ANDY’S PICK :: BAZOOKA JOE AND HIS GANG HC: Quickie Quiz– what was the first mini-comic? If you said The Tijuana Bibles, then you sir or madam have entered the wrong site. If you said Bazooka Joe and his Gang, well then you are most likely suffering from the same dental issues and gingivitis that have plagued me for decades. For those of you who don’t know, Bazooka Joe comics were the inside wrapper of every twin(!) piece of Bazooka Bubble Gum. This was in the years before the Bubble Yum Revolution and, I swear, I still get residual TMJ pains just thinking about  gnawing that rock hard 1 cent piece of “gum” into a soft enough mass to effectively blow bubbles.  But it was the comics with the corny jokes along with the Foreboding Fortune (Don’t look behind you!!) located below each punch line panel that made each jaw dropping (ouch!) experience so memorable. BAZOOKA JOE AND HIS GANG HC is a beautiful new book that provides the history of both the Comic and the Gum and collects several hundred of the ‘best’ of the Bazooka Joe Oeuvre. Now I know comic folks who collect everything comic-related. In fact, I know one guy who saves and bags the entire run of Comic Shop News in MINT!; but I don’t know anyone who collected the Bazooka Joe comics. It was rather difficult to keep them for any length of time, since they were usually carried away by ants if left out in the open for any length of time. So this book  is a true 20th Century artifact–a testament to taste over, well…taste. BAZOOKA JOE AND HIS GANG HC is a collector’s dream. The only thing missing is that glorious bright pink sweet smell.