WATERSHIP DOWN is an epic story about a band of rabbits leaving their doomed warren in England, and traversing the countryside to find a new home. I can’t recommend it to anyone reading this highly enough (and I can’t discourage you from seeing the abysmal animated adaptation strongly enough). My love of W.D. and adams took me naturally to another of his books– “THE PLAGUE DOGS”, another anthropomorphic animal epic. To quote Wikipedia: “This book tells of the escape of two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, from a government research station in the Lake District in England, where they had been horribly mistreated. They live on their own with help from a fox, or “tod,” who speaks to them in a Geordie dialect. After the starving dogs attack some sheep on the fells, they are reported as ferocious man-eating monsters by a journalist. A great dog hunt follows, which is later intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous bioweapon, such as the bubonic plague.” The “research center” is where Rowf & Snitter are experimented on daily–Rowf drowned (nearly) over and over, and Snitter having his brain probed & poked, giving him delusions & visions. Snitter was one of those characters you can’t forget, and the doc in DD,DD was my little tribute to great character and book (and a lousy cartoon).

Two chapters ago we saw Lackluster Lizard’s debut, and last time a “Bungalow Bill” strip in the Krazy Kat style. Below is a Lackluster Lizard strip from 1976. This originally appeared in “BUMBAZINE”, a fanzine put together by Alan Jim Hanley, Chuck Fiala, and me. The Lackluster character is evolving visually into the character he looks like in DD,DD. Actually, I had a second character called “Newt the Newt” whose visuals I co-opted and gave to Lackluster when I decided to insert him in the DD strip. The strip below is the the first appearance of “Pigs Benedict”, and the rabbit is essentially the look I used for Bungalow Bill in DD. Don’t ask me who the mouse is.