That is super solid and fun. Love the volumes on the rabbits with just a minimum of cross contour on their fuzzy whiteness. It will be interesting if you do a black bunny.
"Black Bunny." I like it. Sounds like a strip all on its own.
Y'know, long ago when I first became smitten with the idea of doing my own variety comic a la Daniel Clowes' "Eightball," I'd wanted to call it "DUST BUNNY".
But the more I worked with the name, the less I liked it...for some reason the more I spoke it, wrote it, thought about it, "DUST BUNNY" kept wafting this faint, untraceable whiff of racism--at least, to my nose. It has no racist-y etymology or connection, near as I can tell. But I never got comfortable with it.
This wasn't a worry about being "PC" (whatever that means anymore); it was just personal.
Yet "Black Bunny" doesn't bug me in the same way....
And NO, Ellis, this is not an invitation for you to go off on any and all things PC! Just ruminating....
Rumination is good. What was I watching where it had Clowes as a young man... Captain weirdo, something like that, mid 80s. I'll find it, Here it is. Hardly recognizable.
I wasn't thinking anything about race on black bunnies. Bunnies come in black. Watership Down bunnies have a kind of homogeneity I think. I always thought of them looking pretty much the same except for size and injuries.
"Black Rabbit of Inlé: A sinister phantom servant of the god Frith who appears in rabbit folklore. He is the rabbit equivalent of a grim reaper in human folklore, and similarly ensures all rabbits die at their predestined time. "Inlé" is the Lapine term for the moon or darkness."
No one talks about Watership Down anymore. They could make a great CG movie of it nowadays. It reminded me a bit of Lord of the Rings in the way it built this whole detailed fantasy civilization. It didn't last like Lord of the Rings though.
I remember seeing "Watership Down" in the theater as a wee lad. Amazing now to think any story so shockingly dark got the green light--and as an animated kids' movie! Clearly the producers were betting that parents of the 70's were ready to leave behind the ridiculous feel-good Disney-style fantasies of their own childhoods, and instead would want their kids to be confronted with bracing existential questions, extraneous "comedy relief" be damned!!
Wow.
And if you think "Watership Down" was dark, I suggest you watch "Plague Dogs," a later work by many of the same people...it's a very, very, VERY DARK movie--again animated! A good friend of mine loved the book, and I do think the movie (which is super-obscure) had it qualities...but seriously, it's about as sad and despairing a flick as you could ask for.
The reason I read Watership Dowm was the old trick writers have of passing on to their readers and fans who else they think they should be reading. Travis McGee settled into bed with Watership Down, very dubious he would like it and then marveled at how deeply he was drawn into that world of rabbits.
A Plague Dogs, the movie, barely gets started on the adventure of those poor dogs. The black lab a test subject for near drowning. Depressing for sure. But a brilliant set up for how he endures his final storm swim ordeal.
Quite the writer is Richard Adams. I can't recommend Shardik. I was hoping for the same sort of thing found in the other two. He writes about primitive people. It's like Carl Barks gave up Ducks. But almost worth hanging with for the final brutal anti-slavery third act.
14 comments:
I love it so far!
That is super solid and fun. Love the volumes on the rabbits with just a minimum of cross contour on their fuzzy whiteness. It will be interesting if you do a black bunny.
You could just hit invert in photoshop and get a preview of the black bunny effect.
"Black Bunny." I like it. Sounds like a strip all on its own.
Y'know, long ago when I first became smitten with the idea of doing my own variety comic a la Daniel Clowes' "Eightball," I'd wanted to call it "DUST BUNNY".
But the more I worked with the name, the less I liked it...for some reason the more I spoke it, wrote it, thought about it, "DUST BUNNY" kept wafting this faint, untraceable whiff of racism--at least, to my nose. It has no racist-y etymology or connection, near as I can tell. But I never got comfortable with it.
This wasn't a worry about being "PC" (whatever that means anymore); it was just personal.
Yet "Black Bunny" doesn't bug me in the same way....
And NO, Ellis, this is not an invitation for you to go off on any and all things PC! Just ruminating....
Rumination is good. What was I watching where it had Clowes as a young man...
Captain weirdo, something like that, mid 80s. I'll find it,
Here it is. Hardly recognizable.
Why can't all web pages be built this way
I wasn't thinking anything about race on black bunnies. Bunnies come in black. Watership Down bunnies have a kind of homogeneity I think. I always thought of them looking pretty much the same except for size and injuries.
Thanks for the Clowes link...I agree, I miss that super-clean web page look! Ah, so very 1998....
I din't think you had any ethnic associations going on with the black bunny suggestion. It was the counter-idea to my "fuzzy white fur" look.
And I'm going to use yr PhoSho inversion trick, but just for the panels where they are in the dark (seriously).
Remember the Black Rabbit from Watership Down?
"Black Rabbit of Inlé: A sinister phantom servant of the god Frith who appears in rabbit folklore. He is the rabbit equivalent of a grim reaper in human folklore, and similarly ensures all rabbits die at their predestined time. "Inlé" is the Lapine term for the moon or darkness."
No one talks about Watership Down anymore. They could make a great CG movie of it nowadays. It reminded me a bit of Lord of the Rings in the way it built this whole detailed fantasy civilization. It didn't last like Lord of the Rings though.
I remember seeing "Watership Down" in the theater as a wee lad. Amazing now to think any story so shockingly dark got the green light--and as an animated kids' movie! Clearly the producers were betting that parents of the 70's were ready to leave behind the ridiculous feel-good Disney-style fantasies of their own childhoods, and instead would want their kids to be confronted with bracing existential questions, extraneous "comedy relief" be damned!!
Wow.
And if you think "Watership Down" was dark, I suggest you watch "Plague Dogs," a later work by many of the same people...it's a very, very, VERY DARK movie--again animated! A good friend of mine loved the book, and I do think the movie (which is super-obscure) had it qualities...but seriously, it's about as sad and despairing a flick as you could ask for.
(shiver)
...I can safely say this comic story lands mid-way between Watership Down and Bugs Bunny.
Afterall, my character's name is "Chubby Cheekers." A long way from a Celtic Rabbit of Death....
Awesome. Chubby Cheekers. Sounds very not dark.
The reason I read Watership Dowm was the old trick writers have of passing on to their readers and fans who else they think they should be reading. Travis McGee settled into bed with Watership Down, very dubious he would like it and then marveled at how deeply he was drawn into that world of rabbits.
A Plague Dogs, the movie, barely gets started on the adventure of those poor dogs. The black lab a test subject for near drowning. Depressing for sure. But a brilliant set up for how he endures his final storm swim ordeal.
Quite the writer is Richard Adams. I can't recommend Shardik. I was hoping for the same sort of thing found in the other two. He writes about primitive people. It's like Carl Barks gave up Ducks. But almost worth hanging with for the final brutal anti-slavery third act.
Instead of saying "Jesus", rabbits should curse by saying "Fudd!"
@Tom: HA!
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