Regular
readers may know I had limited exposure to comics where I lived when I
was a kid. Chewing gum wrapper inserts were among the very few sources (provided
we managed to get hold of some chewing gum – it was scarce here then…).
The
other day I was looking through my old stuff and found a small collection that
I put together back in the day. There are quite a few that came with Donald Duck chewing gum but I remember that
my favourite ones were those offered by some German brands. One was Fix und Foxi Bubble Gum with Fix und Foxi inserts; Big Babaloo, with Otto und Alwin was the other one.
I
did a quick online search and it turns out Fix
und Foxi, created and illustrated by Rolf Kauka, used to be really big in
West Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Otto
und Alwin by Jürgen Günther were a different story. In fact, I was quite
surprised to find out that Big Babaloo
was made in West Germany because Otto and Alwin (the characters featured
on the inserts) were from FRÖSI – children's magazine published in the
communist East Germany. Check out some examples of both strips below. I remember trying to
copy the drawings and found Otto und
Alwin to be way more difficult than Fix
und Foxi.
Driven
by nostalgia, I recently bought some FRÖSI’s and will probably do a post about
them here sometime soon.
I was also impressed to learn that an enthusiast of
East German comics published several collections of strips from FRÖSI, and I bought
those of Otto und Alwin that I could
get hold of – the print runs of 300 copies sold really quickly. I have a
soft spot for reprint collections and will probably show the German books here
at some point in the future.
I am
curious if comic strips inserts were offered by chewing gum manufacturers
in the UK?
