Not only is this archive a significant addition to our collection of 20th-century art; it will also anchor a forthcoming HNOC publication—a Bunny Matthews monograph, coauthored by Alison Fensterstock and Michael Tisserand. In addition to discussing Matthews’s work as a cartoonist, the book, provisionally titled Over the Line: The Life and Art of Bunny Matthews, will also cover his years as a music journalist and promoter, as well as his capacity for courting controversy.

Will Bunn “Bunny” Matthews III (1951–2021) grew up in Metairie, went to the University of New Orleans, and worked at Jim Russell Records in the Lower Garden District and the Mushroom record shop near Tulane University before devoting himself to work as a freelance writer and cartoonist. Matthews’s first cartoons appeared in an alternative newspaper called The Word in the late 1960s. He eventually achieved local and national renown with his characters Vic and Nat’ly Broussard, outspoken residents of New Orleans’s Ninth Ward. The first published appearance of Vic and Nat’ly was in Dixie, a weekly supplement to the Times-Picayune. An earlier comic strip called F’Sure appeared in the 1970s and early ’80s and featured what would become Matthews’s characteristic unsanitized views of life in New Orleans. F’Sure ran in the weekly Figaro newspaper. Matthews also had regular comic strips in Gambit, OffBeat, and Wavelength, and he was a fixture on the local public television show Steppin’ Out.

His artwork spiced up local advertising, most notably in ads and on bread trucks for the Leidenheimer Baking Company. Matthews also contributed to public art, such as a prominent mural in the New Orleans Pavilion at the 1984 World’s Fair. According to Times-Picayune art critic Doug MacCash, “He was part of the circle of 1980s New Orleans artists, including George Febres, Douglas Bourgeois, and Jacqueline Bishop, who favored highly detailed, recognizable renderings.” These artists, along with Ann Hornback, Andrew Bascle, Charles Blank, and Dona Lief, are members of a group known as the Visionary Imagists; are all represented in HNOC’s holdings. Their artworks address cultural and social issues and environmental concerns. Matthews’s work differs in its deliberate focus on working-class locals. Although the Visionary Imagists achieved renown in the local art world, Matthews’s work found broader popular appeal—Vic and Nat’ly are immediately identifiable and well known in New Orleans and the surrounding region.

As beloved as Vic and Nat’ly became, Matthews worked in caricature that bordered on the grotesque. Like the 1960s and ’70s underground comics artists who influenced him—especially R. Crumb—Bunny’s caricature work in matters of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation was complex and often controversial. “Matthews’s polarizing representation stems from his deep ideological need to combat political correctness,” writes Nicholls State University cultural studies professor Aaron Duplantier in his article “Bunny Matthews’s Worldview: Race, Art, and Love for New Orleans.” Fensterstock and Tisserand will delve deeply into this aspect of Matthews’s life and work in Over the Line.

Since his days working at Jim Russell Records, Matthews was involved in the local music scene. He served as confidante to pianist James Booker and was the editor of OffBeat magazine for a number of years, interviewing musicians such as James Brown, Bob Marley, Elvis Costello, Cab Calloway, Al Green, and many more. He was one of the “Fabulous Fo’Teen” who helped put Tipitina’s on the map in the late 1970s and early ’80s, drawing designs for dozens of posters for the venue. Matthews also had his own rock band called Bunny and the Playboys, and he played drums in a New Wave band called the Ballistics with members of the Rhapsodizers. He moved to Abita Springs in the 1980s and died after a long struggle with brain cancer in 2021.

Matthews’s wife, Debbie, passed away in 2018. He is survived by two sons, Noah and Jude. It was Jude, as manager of Matthews’s estate, who brought the archive to the Collection. HNOC is thrilled to be the new stewards of the work of this singular artist, a man who, as Tisserand stated in Matthews’s obituary, “helped define for New Orleans an appreciation of our own authenticity.”