Punk Rock Bunny Band Faces Hare-Raising Horrors in The Wraskles

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Submitted by RJ Carter on Tue, 12/29/2020 - 14:40

Once upon a time, there was a genre of Saturday morning cartoon that followed the formula of "teenage rock band fights bad guys." They were usually not real supernatural bad guys like Mystery Inc took on, of course. Josie and the Pussycats usually ended up finding spies or corrupt real estate tycoons. The Neptunes (and Jabberjaw) faced down megamaniacal world beaters. Kidd Video and his crew almost exclusively battled Master Blaster.

THE WRASKLES falls into the category of storytelling, only with anthropomorphic characters. The musical crew of conies is on their way to a battle of the bands when their vehicle mysteriously breaks down at a crossroads. If you know anything at all about musicians and crossroads, you can feel the foreshadowing coming on. And, sure enough, as they sit stranded, they meet up with a mysterious old goat (literally, an old goat) who strikes a deal with them: if they can play a better song than he can, he'll fix their van.

Free auto work? That's right in this band of bunnies' budget! So he pulls out his fiddle and plays one (cough) hell of a tune. Undaunted, this punk-pop team jumps on their instruments and plays their hearts out, fueled by desperation to get to their gig on time. Outplaying the devil, he lives up to his end of the bargain and their van is mysteriously fixed. But he also curses them for their victory: they'll continue to encounter beings from the supernatural until they play a song even better than the one they just performed.

Too excited to be back on the road, The Wraskles don't give the curse a thought -- until they arrive at the Battle at the Barn, and encounter equipment-munching gremlins! They're in for more than just a musical battle now! Fortunately for them, they're discovering that the curse came with a few more otherworldly elements they can use to their advantage.

The creation of Greg Schoen and Curt Spurging, THE WRASKLES came to life through an Indiegogo crowdfunder, and is already in the process of building up its second issue, Song of the Banshee.

Bonus Content; Critical Blast sat down with Schoen in October to talk about the crowdfunding efforts of the second issue, and delve into the makeup of the band's individual members.