The story of these strange rabbits began sometime in 1991, while I was working at Don Bluth Animation Studios in Burbank, California. One day, I entered the room of my friend and co-worker Dave Kupczyk, as I often did, and saw a drawing of a rabbit he had done. The drawing was a semi-realistic portrait of his pet rabbit with oversized fangs. Dave smiled and said "That's Fudge, evil fudge!" I went back to my desk and scribbled a picture of an enraged deformed mutated rabbit. I brought the drawing to Dave and said, "Now that's an evil Fudge!"

From this point on I was hooked! Every time I had a minute between assignments and during my breaks, I doodled more deformed rabbits. Dave quickly joined me and the whole thing became a kind of contest of who would draw the most bizarre creature. Dave kept on pinning each new drawing to the walls of his room and eventually his work environment was filled with strange rabbits. The word got around the studio and people frequently came to visit his room to see the latest creations.

We each did fifty rabbits before Don Bluth Studios closed down at the end of 1992. Dave and I parted ways, but somehow the "rabbit project" did not die. I kept my sketches with the idea of one day publishing a weird rabbit sketchbook. Dave on the other end had a more ambitious goal. He started painting each one in full color as well as designing a layout for a high quality coffee table art book. I sincerely hope that Dave gets his version published some day. In the meantime here are my sketches.

Michel Gagné - July 30, 2000