Bunny vs. Monkey Book Three

By Jamie Smart (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-84-1

Way back in 2012, Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a weekly comics anthology for girls and boys which revelled in reviving the grand old days of British picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

Still going strong, each issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material: a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. Since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the totally engaged kids and parents who read itâ€¦

The publishers naturally gathered their greatest serial hits into a line of fabulously engaging album compilations, the latest of which is a third contentious engagement in the dread conflict gripping a once-chummy woodland waif and interloping, grandeur-obsessive simianâ€¦

Concocted with feverishly gleeful inspiration by Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!), Bunny vs. Monkey has been a fixture in The Phoenix from the first issue: recounting a madcap vendetta between animal arch-enemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia which started out as a more-or-less mundane English Wood.

Book Three ramps up the tittering, tail-biting tension, detailing the ongoing war of wits and wonder-weapons over another half-year in the country. The obnoxious simian intruder originally arrived after a disastrous space shot went awry. Having crash-landed in Crinkle Woods – a scant few miles from his blast-off site – Monkey believes himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite the continual efforts of reasonable, sensible, genteel, contemplative Bunny. Despite patience, propriety and good breeding the laid-back lepine is increasingly compelled to wearily admit that the incorrigible idiot ape is a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating troublemakerâ€¦

Following the vivid Contents pages and a spectacular pinup double-spread, the month-by-month mayhem reports recommence with January and chilly snow blanketing the ground. In ‘Log Off!’ Bunny is in need of a little firewood, but should never have asked happily brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver to helpâ€¦

Blithering innocents Weenie Squirrel and Pig take centre stage next as the baking-addicted tree-rodent reveals he has an imaginary friend. The mocking fools have no idea that ‘Lionel!’ is actually one of the ghastly Hyoomanz intent on the demolition of Crinkle Wood and the building of something called a motorwayâ€¦

Monkey’s greatest ally is ostracised outcast and hairy mad scientist Skunky (a brilliant inventor with a bombastic line in animal-themed atrocity weapons and a secret agenda of his own) whose latest bovine-inspired stealth weapon ‘Ca-Moo-Flarj!’ promptly goes the way of most of his ghastly gimmicks, after which both furry factions catch gold fever in ‘The Quest for Blackbeard’s Treasure!’ Sadly the old map found in a tree trunk is of most recent vintageâ€¦

February opens with ‘T3-ddy!’ as Skunky’s colossal and devastating robo-bear is suborned and defeated by its own innate need for a cuddle, after which Bunny discovers a vast cavern under his food store. Aft first he thinks its just Skunky’s latest indiscretion, but even the evil mega-genius is surprised at the hideous thing ‘What Lies Beneath!’

‘Casa Del Pig!’ sees the woodland folk unite to make the porcine ingÃ©nue a home of his own after which ‘Meet Randolph!’ brings them all together to greet a visiting raccoon. The masked stranger claims to be the cousin of surly radical environmentalist and keeper of ancient secrets Fantastique Le Fox, and he can certainly handle himself in a crisis, as evidenced by the swift and efficient way he despatches Monkey and Skunky’s rampaging mechanical Helliphantâ€¦

March ushers in a not-so fragrant Spring as Skunky decides to weaponise his own natural defences, but ‘The Stench!’ proves yet again that his intellect far outstrips his common sense and any iota of self-restraintâ€¦

When an irrepressible yet lonely cyber crocodile finds a message in a bottle he unbends enough to ask Bunny for reading and writing lessons in ‘The Educating of Mister Metal Steve!’ Sadly his eventual RSVP proves that core-programming is hard to escapeâ€¦

A rare victory for Evil is revealed through the creation of a giant beached flounder in ‘Fishy Plops!’ before nature reasserts itself in ‘Bad Crowd!’ wherein the tantrum-throwing Monkey meets some heretofore unknown woods-dwellers who terrify even himâ€¦

The Skunk scientist finally goes too far in his quest for knowledge and accidentally invents Boomantium, capable of creating ‘The Biggest, Mostest Enormousest Explosion in the World!’ Nobody expected dim-witted Action to find a solution to the imminent cacophonous catastrophe but as April opens ‘Billion Dollar Beaver!’ reveals that their crash-helmeted comrade is indestructibleâ€¦

He should therefore be considered another actual ultimate weaponâ€¦ unless, of course, you’re just a short-sighted, imagination-limited primate with delusions of grandeurâ€¦

Over the months the Woods have become home to an increasingly impressive variety of non-native species and an unsavoury crisis of explosive proportions is barely averted when ‘The Kakapo Poo Kaboom!’ defeats the ever-encroaching â€œHumansâ€ but not the combined contemplative efforts of Bunny and Skunky.

His evil dominance in decline, the invader anthropoid is blackmailed by Pig and Weenie into being their ‘Monkey Butler!’ before May blossoms and ‘The Big Eye Am!’ sees a gigantic laser-firing orb crashing through the verdure, closely followed by its previous ownerâ€¦

‘On the Road!’ finds the animals trying to decide on how to stop the human motorway builders when the meeting is disrupted by cute running-toy addict Hamster 3000. This allows Skunky and Le Fox to resume their own private negotiations after which Monkey returns to his devious top form when subjecting the flora and fauna to the inundation of

‘The Purple!’

May becomes June during ‘The Weird, Weird Woods! (Part One and Two)’ as the animals invade the humans’ building site shed. They are furiously repelled and pursued by the bizarre and terrified creatures within, but their first foray is soon forgotten when Bunny wakes up in proposed paradise ‘Bunnyopia!’ only to discover it is a monstrous and frightening shamâ€¦

Skunky’s perpetual and wanton splashing about in the gene-pool results in terrifying travesty ‘Octo-Fox!’ and only Monkey’s arrant disregard for all rules and laws – including Nature’s – saves the day by one-upping the tentacled terror, after which ‘Weenie’s Big Adventure!’ gives the benign waif a day to remember after waking an oversleeping bear. A little later, however, a mind-swapping device in the wrong paws leads to a plague of chaotic ‘Brainache!’

With a seemingly quiet moment to spare the animals all consider the past and their futures in ‘Woodland Story!’, leading to our latest hiatus in this ever more convoluted mystery after Skunky’s new Clone-a-Tron generates ‘So Many Monkeys!’ that the dream of Monkeytopia seems a forgone conclusion, resulting in tantalising puzzle-feature ‘Masses and Masses of Monkeys’â€¦ after which guaranteed audience participation we can only assure you To Be Continuedâ€¦

Absurdist adventure of the most enthralling kind, Bunny Vs Monkey is an absolute treasure-chest of weird wit, brilliant invention and superb cartooning: an utterly irresistible joy for youngsters of all ages.

Share this: