Thursday, May 13, 2010

WHY A RABBIT?


Why a rabbit?!

No - that's not a lost line from a Marx Brothers movie but a question I can imagine people asking.

I mean, we've already had Oswald, Roger, Thumper, Max Hare . . . not to mention Bugs just to name a few. But then what out there hasn't already been done?

To be honest I just stumbled onto this character while drawing silly faces one day. I just tried out a few ears, cats, human, bunny - the bunny ears just looked right and with the frown spoke volumes.

At the time I was playing around with the idea of a goofy bounty hunter character type thing more as a spoof of the Star Wars bounty hunters than anything else - it didn't gel, but then it hit me while watching The Searchers, I thought a western parody would work. Inspired by the Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng western parodies I quickly gave my rabbit a cowboy outfit and BANG . . . it worked for me.

Now what? I have the look of the character? What do I do with him? and - more importantly who is he?

Without giving everything away, let's just say he is every bit as inspried by Clint Eastwood's "man with no name" as he is by the classic toons.  The name for this short says it all, he's tough with an attitude.

So in answer to why a rabbit? well - now it's the challenge to see if I can add something new to the long tradition of rabbits in animation.

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