Will Bunn "Bunny" Matthews III is an American cartoonist and writer from the Greater New Orleans Area. He is best known for his depictions of New Orleans characters and local dialect, especially Vic and Nat'ly Broussard.
Career
Matthew's characters Vic and Nat'ly Broussard are an overweight husband and wife who speak in what some call the Yat dialect and run a working-class corner bar and po-boy emporium in the city's Ninth Ward. In light of these characters' sometimes unfavorable reception, it bears noting that Matthews has often and repeatedly described others' use of the word "Yat" as derogatory. Matthews' cartooning style has been called "post-psychedelic baroque". Vic and Nat'ly first appeared in 1982 in Dixie, a former weekly supplement of The Times-Picayune. Matthews' first cartoon strip was titled F'Sure: Actual Dialogue Heard on the Streets of New Orleans, published from the late-1970s to the early-1980s in the defunct New Orleans weekly paper Figaro for which Matthews also wrote music reviews. A collection of some F'Sure strips were published in book form in 1978. Some of Matthews' artwork can be viewed in the Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rouge, the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans, and gracing the sides of New Orleans bakery Leidenheimer Baking Co.'s delivery trucks. His original illustrations can be found in the Historic New Orleans Collection, which also commissioned Matthews to create a large mural for the official City of New Orleans Pavilion at the 1984 World's Fair. His exhibitions include "Chihuahua: King of New Orleans Dogs", "The Art of Bunny Matthews", "Bunny Matthews: Art For Heterosexuals", "Da Eve O'Destruction", "Too Many Bunnies", "Black and White", "The People of New Orleans From A-Z", "Before and After", and "Bunny Matthews". His monumental painting, "Nint'Wardica," based on Pablo Picasso's "Guernica," was displayed at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. During his career as a music journalist, Matthews interviewed countless celebrities including James Brown, Brenda Lee, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Eddie Bo, Ernie K-Doe, King Floyd, Bobby Marchan, Jessie Hill, Albert Collins, Elvis Costello, Mark E. Smith, Marilyn Chambers, Cab Calloway, Black Flag, Jonathan Richman, Suzi Quatro, Al Green, and 1978 Playmate of the YearDebra Jo Fondren. He composed album liner notes for artists including Smiley Lewis, The Meters, Earl King and James Booker, with whom Matthews was close friends till his death in 1983. On February 15, 2012, Matthews' band, Bunny and the Playboys, performed for the first time at Tipitina's. The band includes guitarist/vocalist Christopher Stoudt, guitarist Anton Gussoni and bassist Colby Kiefer.
