An "Unexpected" Easter

 

This December I did an entire history of evil Santa’s in comics and popular culture, so today here’s a look at an evil…Easter Bunny??? Yeah, it’s short, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and kills some of it’s own impact by making the Bunny creepy even before we see his true form, but you know what? This may actually be the single most famous horror comics story of all time, even though it was published by DC (whose horror output was notoriously lackluster, great art aside) in an era when anthology horror comics were on their way out. I’m serious, I’ve heard people who don’t read horror comics, or even comics in general, or who were even alive when this story was published, who are familiar with it. It regularly gets mentioned on comic forums about comics that traumatized people when they were kids, it tops lists of horror comics stories, and back before it became a PC hellhole, Scans_Daily practically made a meme of this story by posting panels out of context. I’m probably not even the first blogger to post it. I’m also honestly surprised this story has never been inducted into the DCU or made into a short film or TV episode (Hey, “My Ghostwriter: The Vampire”, another Unexpected story got adapted for TV!).

 Also, true story; I once worked as an office temp, and during a blackout, me and some co-workers talked about things that scared us as kids to pass the time, and this one guy, a huge gruff non-nonsense guy who didn’t seem like one to read comics (or anything in general to be honest) brought it up and said it made him scared for years of the Easter Bunny. Let me mention that this was when I was going through a sort of anti-comics phase and had never mentioned them myself all the time I had worked there, so hearing the guy’s story out of the blue like that really got to me. It reminded me of the power comics can have and eased me back into them.

 So yeah, this story, in a way, is responsible for me getting back into comics, and for this blog even existing. How can I not post it?

 So, from Unexpected #202, here’s “Hoppin’ Down the Bunny Trail”. Written by none other than future Batman film producer Michael Uslan! All © DC. Oh, and…Happy Easter!

~

Vas ist das? Dis comic book is clearly racial segregationist propaganda! Look at how ze white rabbit is persecuting zese children covered in chocolate! Clearly zis story is trying to teach white children to discriminate against African Americans! I must alert mein goot friend Martin Luther King of zis trash!

 ~3 hours later~

…and so zen de story ends. Vat do you think?

 ...........Fred, have you been hitting the bong again?

 No! I—I---Ja.