Brand Echh: Charlton Bullseye #6

Thunderbunny was one of the more successful characters to come out of the world of amateur fan publishing. He was the creation of Martin L. Greim, who was a fan who published a well-regarded fanzine, THE COMIC CRUSADER, for several years beginning in the late 1960s. His final fan publication was a black and white trade paperback collection of all-new super hero stories by fan cartoonists and aspiring would-be professionals, THE COMIC CRUSADER STORYBOOK. For his own contribution to that publication, Greim came up with a strip that combined the whimsey of the Golden Age Captain Marvel with a science fiction flair and some of the flavor of a funny animal series.

The result was Thunderbunny, the story of young Bobby Caswell, a comic book fan. An encounter with an alien scientist in the remote woods makes Bobby the inheritor of the power and identity of the greatest hero of a now-dead far-off world. Unfortunately, that world was inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. And so now, Bobby Caswell can summon great power by striking his hands together, but he is also transformed into a seven-foot-tall humanoid rabbit in the process, Thunderbunny. Gene day drew this first Thunderbunny adventure.

Thunderbunny made his first professional appearance in the pages of CHARLTON BULLSEYE #6. BULLSEYE was a bit of a last-ditch experiment on the part of Charlton. Always a bit of a low-rent outfit, CHARLTON BULLSEYE wouldn’t pay any money for contributions, but it would print them and allow their creators to own the rights to the material. Mike Machlan penciled the first Thunderbunny story to see print in the series. Somebody over at Charlton seemed to like the character, as he made a return cover appearance four issues later in CHARLTON BULLSEYE #10.

Thereafter, the character migrated over to Archie Comics, where the strip was given its own title as a part of the company’s attempt to expand into the youthful Direct Sales marketplace under the Red Circle imprint. Only one issue of Red Circle’s THUNDERBUNNY ever saw print, but another short story appeared in PEP COMICS #393 and a story intended for the second issue was eventually published in BLUE RIBBON COMICS #13. This story guest-starred the Mighty Crusaders, Red Circle/Archie’s super hero characters.

Apparently, Archie had had a change of heart regarding their Direct Sales strategy, and pulled away from teh marketplace. Reportedly, they wanted Greim to simply give the rights to the character over to them in return for doing further stories with Thunderbunny. Greim told them to take a hike and kept his rights, even though this meant that the character faded from view.

Thereafter, Greim hooked up with Richard and Wendy Pini, the publishers of WaRP GRAPHICS who had made their bones publishing Wendy’s series ELFQUEST. The Pinis were interested in expanding their line, and they took Thunderbunny on as a regular black and white magazine publication. it ran for six issues (only the first two of which were in the magazine format), with an additional story seeing print in the WaRP Graphics Annual.

But Thunderbunny would not stay down. The series continued over at Apple Comics for another six issues, numbered #7-12 to continue from the WaRP numbering.