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