Well, here we are at another November... Every Year - another November, When will it end?? I mean, what good is November? It get's Darker, it gets Colder... Who needs it? If Congress really had our best interests at heart, they'd repeal November an' give us another June or April... So in this coming election, Vote for the Candidate who promises June-Part 2..! (It'll make as much sense as anything else that they promise)...
That Aside, you may notice that Cutey's in costume this month... And No, it doesn't relate to the All Hallows Eve just past (Though that might not be a bad cop-out)... In fact, the Genesis of this month's calendar goes back a few decades, back to the previous century, back to the wild an' crazy 60s - with' Vietnam, the Missile Crises, the Space Race an' all that fun stuff... And a comic called "The Brave and the Bold #44", Which at that point in time was a tryout title (like Showcase) for new or revived characters - and in this particular issue, Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert served up one of the early reappearances of the then-new HawkMan and HawkGirl, in one of my all time favorite comix stories, "The Men Who Moved the Earth"... A story which, in these days of Global Warming, has a whole new relevance - that is, with the melting of the Antarctic Ice Fields and what may be buried deep beneath... Not only a fun and thought provoking story, but illustrated by one of the true greats of action illustration, Joe Kubert...
Now fast forward a few decades, into 1985, when a somewhat lesser cartoonist (Yours Truly) Mostly just for fun, endeavored to reproduce that comix cover as a Cutey Bunny pix... (click here for the B&W version) This was eventually printed in one of Cutey's Pin-Up comix...
Fast forward again into the following century, 2003, when for no good reason, other than I loved the original story (an sort'a liked my own pix - an' since it was already drawn & inked, I figured that it'd be easier than starting from scratch) I decided to adapt it to a colored calendar format... But , partway through preparation, it was set aside for a calendar applauding Chinese pilot, Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, in his Shenzhou-5 orbital flight...
And so HawkBunny just sort of languished in a half forgotten folder on my hard drive - until, with no good ideas for this November, I figured "Why Not" - and so here she is in all her Bunny glory, battling 3 members of a lost civilization, piloting their Delta Wing & Canard Fliers, that if you read the story, you might feel a tad sorry for -- They weren't really bad guys, they just had a different viewpoint... So if you like this calendar, don't thank me, thank Joe Kubert for a great design (that I inexpertly borrowed) and Gardner Fox for a wonderfully thought-provoking story..! JQ
Click here for a selection of more Hawk Bunny related Pix.
November 1st 2006