“Hopping Down The Bunny Trail”

Originally Published: “Unexpected” 202, DC Comics, September 1980

Writer: Michael Uslan

Art By: Tenny Henson

Lettering: Esphidy

Colored By: Tatjana Wood

Editor: Jack C. Harris.

Managing Editor: Joe Orlando

Submitted by: E.M. Tonner

Preface

In our endeavor to find the best horror stories ever told in comics, what consideration does one

give to a code-approved comic? The Comics Code Authority was meant to sound the death knell

for horror comics in 1954. It didn’t kill horror comics but it did make them very scarce (and

juvenile) for the next twenty years. Thankfully, the code did lighten in 1971, allowing DC’s

‘horror’ line to produce stories that were able to frighten your average eight year old.

“Hopping Down The Bunny Trail” is actually scary. It’s not a story of how the deeds of evil men

haunt them, with final retribution by the supernatural. Instead, it’s a story about one of DC ‘s most

common plot devices for its horror covers: kids in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Teny

“Tenny” Henson art really works here. His depiction of children is excellent. The shift at the split

panel at the bottom of page two is amazingly effective. You just know these wide-eyed kids are in

a world of trouble as soon as you turn the page and that the big pot of black ink will be coming

out.

I admit to having a soft spot in my heart for this story. I read it as an eleven year old when it first

came out. It was a time when the newsstand horror comics didn’t seem scary to me anymore. I

started eating chocolate Easter bunnies’ feet-first after reading this…

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Afterword

Five pages long… Short, and sweet.

It’s amazing that Uslan and Henson were able to pack that much into five pages. The fact that DC

was able to depict a grade-schooler having his head bitten off (or about to) and still have Code

approval was revolutionary. Code approval had meant that all comics carried a G-Rating. This

wasn’t. 1980 was a good year for comics.

What are interesting here are two things: the victims are children and they really haven’t

misbehaved. I suppose there is the argument of gluttony, but the parents sanction this egg hunt

after all. If there’s any moral to this story it’s that parents should keep a closer eye on their

children, or perhaps don’t be the last people left in the spooky house. This really is wrong place,

wrong time for kids with just enough foreshadowing.

Is this the greatest horror story ever told in a comic? Probably not. If you use the argument that

‘Creepy’, ‘Eerie’ and the like are actually magazines, it might have a shot. In the realm of code-

approved comic stories, it rates even higher. As something that sparked an eleven year-olds

imagination and produced a chill, it certainly ranks as a favorite.

“The true history of these fertility symbols, rabbits and eggs, is completely unknown to all the unsuspecting

children who have been led by adults to think them so special.”

- David C. Pack

“The True Origin of Easter”

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