Review: Bunny Punch: Meal Replacement (2023)
30 Comics in 30 Days - I’m reviewing a comic every day in November!
Day 9 - Bunny Punch: Meal Replacement by Michael Furler
The titular protagonist of Bunny Punch — a girl in a bunny suit who describes herself as “a costumed hero” with “not much luck being a hero so far” — spends most of this comic trying heroically to open a can.
In the first few pages, she’s swindled by a holographic corporate siren into buying an expensive, soylent-esque carton of nutritional paste, called simply: “Sludge.” But in a nice little metaphor for the scam artistry of consumer capitalism, the can is inaccessible without the purchase of a separate drinking accessory. (But hey at least she can choose between five different flavors of Sludge!!!)
While our bunny girl is an easy mark, her naivety is endearing. She fits uneasily into the dehumanized corporate world of the comic, which is one part facial surveillance and two parts soulless transaction through a touch-screen kiosk, all mixed together with a few fascistic police thugs. The story turns, unexpectedly, into a superhero style team-up that pits Bunny Punch and a mysterious, chameleon-like hacker against the cops. And she beats their asses, of course.
I admit I was stymied, at first, by the visual chaos of Bunny Punch. I found the irregular, kaleidoscopic pages compelling, but it’s like my brain couldn’t assign meaning to what was happening. The literal action kept dissolving into neon colors and jumbled shapes.
This probably says more about me and my usual taste in comics than the book itself. But there is also a satisfying feedback loop between style and story: The drawings are chaotic because the story is full of dystopian absurdity; the story feels strange and fragmentary because it is drawn with surreal energy.
The longer I sat with the comic, the more sense it made and the more I appreciated its zany anticapitalism.
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