The Ballad of Cocky the Fox so far: Cocky the fox, a handsome specimen of Vulpes vulpes living on the edge of an English town, is in trouble. His mentor Holiday Bob, top fox in the Borough, is dead. His family life has collapsed, and he’s moved in with his friend Champion, a distressed albino rabbit. His enemies are everywhere. And he’s been drinking a lot of aftershave.
In Fit the Seventh, Cocky and Champion took their roadshow into the countryside. Accidentally sober after some aftershave-free days at the camp of his pugnacious Aunt Patsy, our hero had a spring in his step as he went looking for Rumpy the badger, former top goon to Holiday Bob. But having tracked Rumpy to his lair, Cocky found the great badger unwilling to emerge. Popjoy the squirrel, meanwhile, was bouncing around like Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now. He declaimed a poem of crushing sadness, about the love felt by Rumpy for the deceased Bob, and Cocky was ‘in bits’. And now look what’s happened to him…
The Sniffer Issue No. Seven accompanies Fit the Seventh of The Ballad of Cocky the Fox. It features an interview with Cocky illustrator Kristin Parker and sketches of Cocky illustrations. It can be downloaded from here.