Review by Frank Plowright

This eleventh collection reformatting Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey strips from The Phoenix will be a phenomenon on release, already in the bestselling children’s books on pre-orders alone. The success of recent collections hasn’t induced any complacency, though, and this is Smart’s familiar formula of mind-expanding scientific creations spattered with plenty of poo jokes. In fact, if anything, Smart’s response to success has been to increase the quantity of poo jokes.

So why is this intergalactic monkey business? Because the usual conflict is removed from the woods and transferred to space. There is a backstory of Monkey being abducted by aliens, using their spacecraft for mayhem and accidentally destroying Skunky’s secret underground lair on returning to Earth, but that, as might be expected, is merely slim justification for the usual imaginative havoc. See the Cinnamon Bun Pig, a chutney creature and Weenie reinventing the jam sandwich with jam on the outside. Furthermore, Monkey’s always wanting Monkeytopia, and now he gets it.

Before then, though, there’s an extended period in the woods without Monkey, although his substitute Little Monkey proves every bit as annoying, just smaller. Skunky considers him smarter also, but that’s certainly up for debate.

As ever, Smart’s manic cartooning is excellent, and along the way he slips in some science for very young kids. A particularly clever strip deals with quantum theory, after Skunky invents a device that changes his form every time someone looks at him. A succession of ridiculous transformations maximises the possibilities. There’s also almost an infusion of the theological with a supreme being introduced and standing above the actions of their creations. That is until Monkey glues underpants to their face, when righteous vengeance is let loose.

The imagination is phenomenal, the cartooning is wild and the fun will be had.