Fox Bunny Funny
by Andy Hartzell
The rules are simple: you're either a fox or a bunny. Foxes oppress and devour, and bunnies suffer and die. Everyone knows their place. Everyone's satisfied. So what happens when a secret desire puts you at odds with your society? Starting from a simple premise - and without using a single word - Fox Bunny Funny leads the reader on a zigzag chase in and out of rabbit holes and through increasingly strange landscapes where funny animals have serious identity problems. The tale swerves from slapstick to horror and back again before landing at the inevitable climax, in which all the old rules shatter. When you emerge, you'll find yourself gazing at our fragmenting society with new eyes.
Paperback
Brand New
Review
"This wordless story has three distinct parts. First, a perhaps middle-school-aged, suburban fox-boy carefully pedals about town on his bike with a sack whose contents he keeps secret from neighbors' and parents' prying eyes. The punch-panel of this episode, in which the fox-boy dons a rabbit suit, surely refers to a young man's experimentation with cross-dressing. In the second episode, the fox-boy goes to the equivalent of Boy Scout camp, where he suffers from having to keep his identification with rabbits hidden from peers and counselors. When discovered, however, he turns on a rabbit and makes a species-correct meal choice. In the final part, the fox is now a young man trying hard to present his fox identity. When he discovers a city where foxes and rabbits amicably coexist, he faints, is whisked to a hospital, and undergoes an operation to conform his presenting biology to his inner rabbit. Deftly presented in crisp black-and-white, block-print-like panels, this is a must for libraries supporting LGBT collections." —Francisca Goldsmith, Booklist
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