The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The Adventures Of Ninja Bunny: The Search For Daruma

Philip Spence

Ninja Bunny is over five years old now and although the characters and the size of the comic remains (pretty much) the same as it’s always been, this latest volume is a remarkable step up for both Spence and the reader. Gone is the small black and white simplicity of earlier volumes and in it’s place is something far, far more colourful – something very lush and owing a huge debt to Japanese culture and art – as Spence acknowledges on his blog:

“My most recent posts have all been heavily inspired by a book on Katsushika Hokusai, while you might not recognise the name, you’ll definitely recognise his artwork. I’d like to think my trip to Japan earlier in the year also gave me loads of ideas, which no doubt you’ll see cropping up over the coming weeks.”

I covered this switch in style of Ninja Bunny when it happened in the webcomic in January 2009. And I actually ended that piece with a wish that pence would be able to put out a full colour comic reprinting the webcomic, but worried it would just cost to much.

But he’s done it – The Search for Daruma is the first full colour Ninja Bunny and brings all the lush colours and Japanese stylings from the webcomic to the printed page. But very importantly it’s not an exact copy of the webcomic. The webcomic was deliberately constructed to be a series of one panel snapshots of the story – almost designed to be mini portraits rather than comic panels.

But for the purposes of a comic it wouldn’t have worked. After all, the nature of a webcomic – especially something like Ninja Bunny where each new webcomic is just one new panel – creates a reading experience where the artist determines the speed with which the reader consumes the comic. Having the actual printed comic passes that control to the reader, and it’s up to us to decide on the speed with which we read each sequentially presented panel.

(Ninja Bunny meets Kisho, guardian samurai to Daruma. From The Adventures Of Ninja Bunny – The Search For Daruma by Philip Spence)

So Spence’s solution is to add captions, some the previous titles of the webcomic panel, others new to print, which transform the reading experience and provide a satisfying print comic. Of course, the very nature of Ninja Bunny – 40 pages = 40 panels – means that it’s a very, very quick thing – or it would be if Spence hadn’t made each panel a visual treat to slow down the eye’s progress.

In fact, where I to boil the story down to a plot summary it would barely make 3 lines:

Ninja Bunny seeks meditating Daruma, battling past guardian Kisho to learn the secrets of meditation, whereupon Ninja Bunny relives past adventures and sees horrific futures. Evil ninjas attack – it’s down to Ninja Bunny and Kisho to fight them off, protecting Daruma at all costs.

But Ninja Bunny isn’t, and has never been, about the story. As I’ve tried to say with each comic I’ve reviewed (here and here) – it’s all about the experience, it’s about the comic as object, and, with this issue particularly, it’s about enjoying each panel/page as a visual treat. And with this comic, Spence has managed to really create a wonderful treat for the eyes.

(Ninja Bunny gets meditating. From The Adventures Of Ninja Bunny – The Search For Daruma by Philip Spence)

(Evil Ninjas! From The Adventures Of Ninja Bunny – The Search For Daruma by Philip Spence)

You can get all of Philip’s Ninja Bunny comics as well as a couple of very funky Ninja Bunny badge sets and a great colour your own bunnies T-shirt direct from the artist at www.ninja-bunny.com or email phil@ninja-bunny.com. And of course, the adventures of Ninja Bunny continue as the webcomic – although updates have been a little thin on the ground recently.