Warning: Dragons may be bigger than they appear.
Seeing the dog and cat - who had begun backing away, barking and meowing - the huge grizzly asked Bob Bear, "How about if I eat them? I mean, they're not talking animals, right?"
At this, the cat said in English, "No! We talk! We talk! Don't we?"
To which the dog responded, "Bark, bark! Aw, forget it."
—The Quest for Bunny Island
The Quest for Bunny Island
relates the tale of a steadily growing band of talking animals, and their entertaining, dangerous, (and often funny) quest to find a home for themselves.
It is the first work by a four-author team: Kenyon, Travers, Rioux and Therese Jordan. Illustrated (primarily) by Travers Jordan, who also produces Planescape Survival Guide and Harry Potter Comics (the former with co-author Rioux).
The story is largely based on the stuffed animal adventures played out in Travers and Rioux's parents' basement many (for the most part) years ago.
This story provides examples of:
- Anthropomorphic Shift: Played with. Several characters wear clothes at times to disguise themselves as humans and many of them enjoy burgers, coffee and other niceties.
- At the end, they do found a town, replete with money, but clothes remain mostly eschewed.
- Big Game: The dragons watch football on Lava Breath's amazing new "tee vee."
- Carnivore Confusion: Played with. Many of the meat-eating characters mention adjusting their diets. The grizzly bear, though (El Capitan), has issues: "Is anyone going to eat that bunny?"
- Children in Tow: Quite a few of the talking animals have talking children, too. They get to help, too.
- Cool Boat: The Communicator, a megayacht used by our heroes.
- Cool Car: The predecessor to their Cool Boat.
- Covers Always Lie: Averted. The cover scenes are ACTUALLY in the story.
- The Dragon: Lava Breath (an actual dragon) uses a human pirate as his Dragon. Or, alternatively, his draconic co-horts.
- Evil Poacher: Sorta. Big Game Moe and his sidekick Blow hunt talking animals, but only in the live capture sense.
- Good Animals, Evil Animals: Averted. Varied moral fiber is not species related. Even the dragons have some protagonists in their ranks.
- Herbivores Are Friendly: Averted. Rab Rabbit isn't exactly a villain, but he's not exactly a hero, either.
- Nice Kitty...: A grizzly bear in this case. The talkers are rather terrified of encountering him.
- Old Soldier: Two grizzled veterans of World War I AND II. They just happen to also be talking bears.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The dragons fly and breathe fire, but are very vulnerable to focused streams of water (if little else). Most of the dragons are villains, but two are sympathetic characters. Also, the bad dragons have partnered up with human pirates for easier hoard gathering.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Moe disguises himself as "Barley Joe" to trick the animals. It works.
- Pirates: Of the Type 1 variety. Mostly. (They're not the brightest of bulbs, but they do have draconic backup)
- Predators Are Mean: Averted. Roughly half the heroes are predators.
- Sliding Scale of Animal Communication: Sort of Level 7, but the ability isn't unique to certain species, only to certain individuals, and appears to be a genetic mutation.
- Stock Animal Diet: Several of the rabbits use carrots as currency to bet on Go Fish.
- Signature Roar: El Capitan has one. Lava Breath usually uses unprintable draconic swear words.
- Stock Animal Name: Mostly averted... except for Spot the Dog.
- Talking Animal: Most of the main characters, but the majority of the animals in their world can only communicate on the same basic level as real world animals.
- This Bear Was Framed: Except, in this case, a bear really does steal a truck.
- Tiger Versus Dragon: Uh... literally. The tiger is a bit outmatched.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Basically pretty central to the conflict between the talking animals and the villains.
