Gums

Origin

A Great White Shark living in the oceans around Australia, Gums secretly had false teeth. With his false teeth in place, Gums remained a force to be reckoned with, and could munch his way through almost anything, but without them he was, literally, toothless. When he tried to attack a surfer, Bluey, the dentures were knocked out, exposing his weakness, and Bluey stole them. Since new false teeth are hard to come by for a shark, he and Bluey began a long-running feud, with Gums seeking to retrieve his teeth and devour his foe while Bluey sought to deprive the shark of his dentures permanently, and thus render Gums harmless.

Creation

Gums was created by Robert Nixon and debuted in Monster Fun #35, 7th February 1976. He was clearly inspired by Jaws, the shark from Stephen Spielberg’s movie.

Character Development

Immediately taking Monster Fun’s cover spot, Gums proved a popular and enduring strip, with the hapless but villainous shark and Bluey engaged in a never-ending contest, with each one winning partial victories in turn: Gums would try but fail to eat the young boy, giving the lad the opportunity to steal Gums’ teeth during the attempt, then Bluey would do his level best to keep the teeth out of Gums’ reach, only for the cunning predator to find a way to retrieve them, and begin the cycle anew. Gums made the transition to Buster when it merged with Monster Fun, and continued to appear there until the 12th May 1984 issue.