Folks, for my Cobwebs readers, there are no depths I won’t plumb to find a Spidey comic you haven’t seen yet. For you, dear reader, I present a comic that you will only want to collect in mint condition – the toilet paper comic, “The Gamma Gambit”!
Pet rocks, shag carpet, macramé – it was the ‘70s (1979, to be exact). What can I say? We were into weird stuff back then. It was the perfect storm. Marvel had two TV shows – Spider-Man and The Hulk. At the same time, a company by the name of Oh Dawn! was looking for something to print on toilet paper. Yes, you heard me correctly. They had recently had some success with their Gucci print toilet paper (albeit without Gucci’s permission) and was looking for something a bit more… legal to print.
Enter Jim Shooter. The House of Ideas is always flush with innovation, and what better way to get his product to the asses masses than with toilet paper? It was genius! He tasked Jim Salicrup, Michael Higgins, and Marie Severin to put together an original (because reprints just wouldn’t do for this throne-worthy reading material) 8-page story involving Spider-Man and the Hulk. Hmmm… Spider-Man, Hulk, TP? Folks, this was practically custom made for our very own Brad Douglas.
I reached out to Jim Salicrup for a comment, but I guess he was indisposed for the moment.
Now I know some of you have used your copies of One More Day to wipe with, but this comic was actually made for this purpose.
You won’t find this on Marvel Unlimited, but you can find it on eBay for the low, low price of $8 (which in the day of the coronavirus, this roll of tp is going for cheaper than regular rolls!), much better than in 2010 when someone paid $96 for a roll on eBay. Man, I wish I had that kind of money to flush down the toilet.
But no need to risk breaking your social distancing, Cobwebbers, for you will find it here on the Crawlspace. So, without further ado, feast your eyes on this masterpiece!
Why is Spidey’s spider-sense tingling? Possibly because it knows what this comic is about to be used for!
KER-ASH! is a high quality onomatopoeia, folks, well deserving to be printed on 2-ply!
Sadly, the Leader never used the Mechanoid again and the Gamma accelerator was lost forever after its destruction. You know, you have to wonder after the whole Hulk thing, why is anyone messing with gamma rays in this universe anyway? Do we have anything positive coming for their use? I’m not sure as I am not an expert on the Hulk (though the Immortal Hulk run on Marvel Unlimited is pretty awesome).
Now after finishing reading this comic, don’t forget to wash those hands! The CDC recommends singing the theme song from the 1960s cartoon to time your hand washing.
Your Challenge
No, not this challenge.
My son Grant (famous for the creation of Carnage Swarm – a Nazi skeleton covered in bees covered in the Carnage symbiote with each individual bee having its own Carnage face – Spencer make this happen!) suggested a crappier villain for this story should have been the Lizard, since it was all being flushed into the sewers anyway. So, my challenge to you, Crawlspace Crawlers, is what crappier villain or team-up should this Spidey story have been about?
Strangely enough, this isn’t the only “Gamma Gambit” story out there. Twenty years later, the moniker was picked up to title a Marvel CyberComic in partnership with AOL. It also featured the Hulk, but this time, to also get on JR’s good side, they included the Green Goblin. Sadly, I can’t find a copy of that anywhere. How sad of a comic does it have to be when the toilet paper comic can still be found and read today, but this particular cybercomic is nowhere to be found?
Sources
“Crap! I Got Outbid on the Toilet Paper – Now What?” Cool and Collected, Big Fish Design, 6 Aug. 2010, www.coolandcollected.com/crap-i-got-outbid-on-the-toilet-paper-now-what/.
Rougemont, Jacob. “Mechanoid.” 28 Nov. 2012, www.marvunapp.com/Appendix5/mechanoidtp.htm.
Stillman, Jesse. “The Most Famous Crappy Comic Ever.” Comic Booked, 2 Aug. 2016, comicbooked.com/famous-crappy-comic-book-ever/.
Wigler, Josh. “Reasons to Travel Back in Time to the ‘70s: Marvel Comics Toilet Paper.” Comics Alliance, 24 June 2010, comicsalliance.com/marvel-comics-toilet-paper/.
Yates, Andy. “The Comic Exotic: Spider-Man’s Toilet Paper Team-Up.” Comics Tavern, 1 Dec. 2015, www.comicstavern.com/the-comic-exotic-spider-mans-toilet-paper-team-up/.
‘Nuff Said!
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@Mark — As I catch up with all of the posts I’ve missed the past few days, I came across this gem. This is one of my favorite pieces you’ve written! Why on earth aren’t there more comments? I just want to say this, in appeal to the English teacher in you: My favorite sentence in this post was “Man, I wish I had that kind of money to flush down the toilet.” Is there a literary term for the double meaning here? I know it’s not a pun per se, but I was just curious. (The judicious use of the word “crappier” was nice, too.)