“Here today… hare tomorrow.” That’s the predicament of Harold Hopper, a shy teenage lab assistant whose unauthorized, late-night experiment in interspecies communication backfired – with astonishing consequences: times of stress and danger (which now seem to occur with unnerving regularity) transform Harold into “Harry,” a human-sized anthropomorphic rabbit and all-around mischief-maker.
Harold/Harry’s predicament is the subject of The Incredible Hare, a children’s novel written by Joe Strike, a veteran TV producer, animation journalist and cartoon scriptwriter. “Harry becomes an instant hero and celebrity when he saves Harold’s boss Professor Burnside from a reality show stunt gone disastrously wrong on live TV,” Joe explains. “Now the public believes the clueless Burnside is quote, ‘The Incredible Hare’s confidant and partner in adventure,’ an honor that really belongs to Harold’s anime-obsessed kid sister Cindy.
“Hare is a pop-culture satire, a send-up of the “reality” and celebrity gossip TV shows currently infesting the airwaves,” Joe continues. “Technically it’s a kids’ book, but it’s for anyone who’s ever watched one of those shows and couldn’t believe what they were seeing. I think kids who 10-15 years ago might have been reading Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket will be Harry’s biggest fans, the ones who are already viewing these shows with a skeptical eye.”
“I originally conceived Harry as the star of a live-action Saturday morning TV series filled with goofy characters and outlandish plots, similar to the Sid and Marty Krofft shows of the 1970s. Then I realized my hero needed an origin story, one explaining details that would be taken for granted in a TV show: why Harold linked his pet rabbit’s mind with his own, what happened to Harold and Cindy’s parents, or how Harold feels about his alter-ego.
“That’s when The Incredible the Hare: the Series became The Incredible Hare: the Novel. Something unexpected happened as I worked on the book: my characters left caricature behind and developed genuine personalities and interior lives. They took the story in directions I hadn’t planned on – and I went along for the ride.”
If you ask Joe, he’ll tell you he’s the original “kid in a candy store” – the one his parents ran and lived above in Brooklyn’s now-famous Park Slope neighborhood. “The comic books you saw when you walked into the store were my personal lending library; I’d take two upstairs, read them over lunch and return them to the shelves on my way back to school – usually without any sandwich stains.”
His imagination sparked by a diet of comic books, sci-fi movies and classic Warner Bros. and Max Fleischer cartoons, it was natural for Joe to follow his bliss to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he majored in film and TV production. After graduation Joe worked on 1980s’ children’s TV shows like The Great Space Coaster and Pee-wee’s Playhouse before joining Bravo, and later the Sci-Fi Channel (as it was originally known) as a writer/producer of on-air promos and interstitial segments. In recent years Joe has made a name for himself as a regular contributor to the entertainment industry website Animation World Network (awn.com) and the New York Daily News, covering sci-fi, fantasy and animated films. His Interview with an Animator audience-attended conversations with the medium’s notables have taken place at Manhattan locations including the Paley Center for Media and the Society of Illustrators.
“I like to describe The Incredible Hare as ‘the Nutty Professor meets Bugs Bunny by way of the Incredible Hulk,’” says Joe. “Harry is a cartoon character come to life, the only anthropomorphic animal in his world, which alone makes him a unique and intriguing character to everyone there. After rescuing Burnside he’s a hero as well; Nicky Nesbitt, the sleazy host of that reality show decides there’s money to be made exploiting Harry’s reputation. Of course Harry has a few ideas of his own about that.
“Like his cousins B’rer Rabbit and Bugs Bunny, like rabbits in so many cultures and folktales, Harry’s a ‘trickster’ who enjoys turning the tables on the powerful and the arrogant – and Nesbitt certainly qualifies on both counts. In other words, guess who ultimately comes out on top.”
As so many creative people have done, Joe turned to Kickstarter to fund self-publication of The Incredible Hare. eBooks and print-on-demand technology have liberated writers from the constricted pipeline maintained by mega-publishers and ‘brick and mortar’ stores, and given writers a chance to reach their audience directly.
The Incredible Hare’s Kickstarter campaign began on June 20 and runs through July 20th, with a goal of $7,500 to finance professional-level self-publishing. (As with any Kickstarter campaign, all donor pledges are cancelled if the campaign falls short of its goal.) Donation rewards include electronic and paperback copies of the book, storyboards and art from the proposed TV series, t-shirts and naming rights to any number of the characters.
Portions of The Incredible Hare, including the entire first section of the novel (“A Hare is Born”) detailing Harold’s transformation and his first night as Harry can be read at www.ihare.com, while its Kickstarter page is located at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/795303590/the-incredible-hare-nothing-bugs-this-bunny
