BC Mambo

Stone Rabbit Series #1

by Erik Craddock (Contributor)

Stone Rabbit is a bored little bunny who lives a humdrum existence in the sleepy town of Happy Glades. But all that changes when he discovers a time portal of doom--right under his bathroom rug! Suddenly, Stone Rabbit finds himself on a Jurassic journey in a prehistoric world, facing off against vicious velociraptors, terrifying T. rexes, and a nefarious
Neanderthal bent on world conquest. Will our hero be able to save the past and return to the present--or will he become extinct?
"BC Mambo "is the first book in a full-color series of riotous, rip-roaring graphic novels that chronicles the zany of adventures of a quick-tempered and quick-witted young rabbit.
Erik Craddock grew up during the '80s and '90s on a steady diet of comics, video games, and pop culture. It was during his time as a student at New York City's School of Visual Arts that Stone Rabbit was born. He lives in Babylon, New York.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Humor, Middle Grade, Childrens, Juvenile, Fantasy, Time Travel

Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Wendi Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay, and certainly creative, but I could have done without the booger humor.

[Phobean]

I'm not sure if 'read' is the correct word for the experience of this short graphic novel for, I guess, middle grade or younger readers. Felt more like 'watch.' It was like sitting in front of a Looney Tunes style coyote-flattened-by-anvil cartoon for twenty minutes. Gross and crass --this book has the type of humor that revolves around thoughtless violence.

Also, I think all of the characters were male . . . and there was a bit of questionable . . . intent in the depiction of 'natives', or maybe they were supposed to be prehistoric bunnies? In any case, I felt uncomfortable about the proto-Native people garb.

Clearly, I wasn't the intended audience.

[Liz Price Patel]

Recommended by first grade.

[Matthew Watrous · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stone Rabbit finds a worm hole in his bathroom and sucked back in time to a prehistoric age. The graphic novel starts with Stone waking up from a dream and smashing his alarm clock. The angry rabbit continues through the story smashing and beating his way back home. There doesn't seem to be a redeemable quality for Stone to the point you may start to root for the antagonist.

Some key themes of capitalism and greed find there way onto the pages but are smashed into oblivion like everything else. I did enjoy the cartoon like characters and the vivid colors used to depict the scene it's just the disposition of Stone that I can't embrace.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bored Bunny, enters a bottomless pit of doom that turns up in the middle of his bathroom, sending him back in the past where he does battle with a neolithic man who has ideas of taking over the world using his Big Burger hut as the center of his plot. Silly, over the top prehistoric fun and fantasy.

[haven ⋄ f (hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just read this because the rabbit was cute. It was really random. It was a fast read because there are only a few panels per page, along with limited text. The humor wasn’t great a lot of the time.

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t really understand what happened in this. There was a lot of interpreting required between panels. Multiple times I thought I had skipped a page, but hadn’t.

I don’t know if I’d recommend, just beachside I found it so confusing.

[Rolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly better than the later entries in the same series that my son is obsessed with, only because it doesn't involve any of the central characters friends, who all talk to each other in horribly bullying ways. It's still incredibly mediocre, though.

[Michael Rhode · Rating 3 out of 5]

He's a little too enamored of splash pages, just like superhero comics have been.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

All crudmonkeys and chaos - but not in a good way.

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

was a nice short comedical book

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Completely absurd—in a good way!

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Classic comic styling. Not my cuppa.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a funny book with dramatic and hilarious setting

[Eduardo]

it a cool book talk about dinosausers and a lot of barbecue sause but great book the drawing is good too

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't like these books either way. I read them because my 5 year old loves them. But ugh this one was the worst one yet. 😫

[Brandon Ibarra · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the same thing as the first review

[Conan Tigard · Rating 4 out of 5]

BC Mambo is an extremely fast-paced book about a young rabbit sucked back in time to the supercontinent of Pangaea. Here, he must rescue the primitive rabbits from a Neanderthal set on world domination. Okay, I know the story is weird, but that is what makes it so fun. Kids will love it.

The story is beautifully drawn by Erik Craddock. The coloring is terrific and and the pages look gorgeous. As for the story, the fast-pace and the extreme action will keep kids wanting more and more. What also makes the reading a little difficult is the fact that the primitive rabbits do not speak in words. They speak in symbols. It takes a little while to figure out what they are trying to say, but once you do, everything is all good.

The storyline is fun and early chapter readers will read BC Mambo over and over again. There is enough action and adventure in this book to set a child's action-meter to full and keep it there for a while.

One nice thing about this book is a list of terms used in the story. On the back, inside cover is the list with not only the pronunciation of each word, but a definition of of each so early chapter readers can learn more about some of these strange words that they may never have heard or seen before.

The only issue I had with BC Mambo is having a Neanderthal back in time 200 million years ago. Humanoids never lived with dinosaurs no matter how much this is portrayed in books and movies. The only reason I bring this up is that the author states on his website that this series not only entertains, but it also educates.

Overall, BC Mambo is a great book that early chapter readers, especially boys, will absolutely love. With a fun storyline, beautiful artwork, and wonderful coloring, this book is a treasure.

I wonder what kind of trouble Stone Rabbit will have in his next adventure entitled Pirate Palooza? I sure hope that someone doesn't swab the deck with him or send him down to Davy Jones' Locker.

I rated this book an 8 out of 10.

[Howardh014 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little bunny wakes up and when he is done eating he brushes his teeth. He had barbecue sauce in his bathroom when he spilled it everywhere he pulls the rug that all full of barbecue sauce and there was a hole!! When he slips into the hole he falls on a nest with eggs. The world was very weird to the little rabbit. He ran for his life until he fell into a large lake. When all the sudden a dinosaur scoops him up! When he falls a meets this boy, the boy says hey what is that? It was the barbecue sauce he wanted a taste he loved it but when he started to like to much of it he thought he should but it with his little resturant he is planing on making. But when it gets a little crazy the little bunny fights for freedom of the other rabbits and the boy fights for that barbecue sauce! Who do you think is gonna win?????

I loved the first book of this series I hope the rest of the books in your series are just like this. If I would ask any questions to Erik Craddock I would ask him do you enjoy writing books? Another question would be do you think people would like this book because I sure did?! My final question would be how many more books will you be writing in this series?

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first in a series of graphic novels about Stone Rabbit and his friends. We learn why the series is called Stone Rabbit and get an introduction into the quick tempered and sharp-witted rabbit. The style of illustrations is very lively, vibrant, and humorous. However, at times, this book is difficult to tell what is happening the story because the level of sophistication to the illustrations takes some decoding. A reader new to graphic novels might be a bit confused. The book has a glossary in the back for some of the hard words used in the story. This is a feature in all of the Stone Rabbit books and makes for great vocabulary building opportunities. BC Mambo is not quite as strong as some of the other books in the series.
Reading Level: 2.2

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of it makes no sense at all, but it's goofy fun. One of my new favorite lines is contained in this story:
"May your bravery console you as you sit firmly between two sesame seed buns!"
Seriously, it makes about as much sense as any of the "traditional" caveman comics like B.C., but that's not saying much. I mean, why IS there a bottomless pit and a bottle of barbeque sauce in the main character's bathroom, anyway?
Still, the story seems aimed at the same kind of audience as things like Captain Underpants, but the humor is less gross. Like Owly, there is a pictographic language spoken by some of the characters.
It's good enough to recommend, but not a classic by any means.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My niece really enjoyed BC Mambo. In fact, she liked it so much we ran right to the library as soon as she finished it and checked out Pirate Palooza and Deep Space Disco. She said the book was funny, and the illustrations were bright and entertaining. I do think that some of the humor may have been slightly over her head, but not much. All I know is, she had her nose buried in the book whenever she was in the car, or whenever we went out. She couldn't put it down--what more could I ask for?

[Harold Ogle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautifully colored, humorously written, and with a combination of big, blocky easy-to-read dialog and illustrated onomatopoeia for lettering, I'd think that I'd like this more. But I found the artwork extremely busy, with confusing perspective shifts that made the action rather difficult to follow. Most comics follow a filmic visual convention, with the equivalent of pans and zooms. BC Mambo uses a multi-camera jump-cut approach (to stretch the analogy a bit), often moving from a zoomed-in low angle to a zoomed-out high reverse angle. Add in to that aggressive color switching meant (I think) to indicate tension, mood, and situational changes, and it is pretty confusing and chaotic.

[Duane · Rating 2 out of 5]

While reading this, I tried to think as a 7 year old boy, but even then I don't think the story is really that good. Following a rabbit that discovers a time portal in his bathroom, he ends up in the age of dinosaurs and cavemen. Battling a evil caveman who wants to take over the world, the rabbit does his best to solve everyone's problems. The artwork is good and there are humorous parts in the story, but to me, the layout of the comics are very hard to follow. I can see young boys/girls enjoying this book, but I think more for the artwork then the actual story.

[Erin Reilly-Sanders · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was fun with bright colourful illustrations. Unfortunately, I found it a little hard to follow because the action moves quickly and the illustrations are rather busy. They also seem pretty dense with dark, saturated colours. The bunny character himself is the best part of the book because he is simply drawn, yet expressive. The humour, especially in the translations between picture-speak and words, is decently fun.

[Eden Silverfox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is about a bunny, who lives in the town of Happy Glades. There is nothing to do, nothing on tv. He is bored. Then, after brushing his teeth, he finds a bottomless pit under the rug of his bathroom floor. He falls through the holes and ends up in the present, in a time when Dinosaurs lived!

I picked this up from my local library because I thought it looked interesting. It wasn't too bad and I think I'll pick up the other books in the series soon.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rabbit who lives a pretty normal life discovers a hole in his bathroom floor that leads back to the Prehistoric era where a neanderthal has plans to take over the world if he could just figure out the recipe of barbeque sauce!

A fast-paced kids comic book that is funny and features the best kind of bad guy: one that is powerful yet completely ridiculous.

Recommended for grades 2-4, and as a readalike for the Captain Underpants series.

[Funtime Sydney]

I pretty much like the title of the book if you combine all the book series of stone rabbit then you can write a whole essay on it.!

[Wayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty simplistic stuff aimed at a very young audience. Not sure if author Eric Craddock is going for the middle school audience or younger. The story is about a rabbit who falls in a hole in his bathroom with a bottle of bbq sauce and goes back in time. There is some old balding dude already there. Don't ask me where he came from. Hijinks ensue, and he makes his way back to the future. Yay !

[Kelly Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I'm the right audience for this book. I was totally confused the whole time, and pretty grossed out by the boomerang part. I think lots of readers would be a lot better at following the nonstop action and appreciating the humor than I was. I just hope I don't get the term "crudmonkeys" stuck in my head now.