Bad Egg

"Bad Egg"
The first page of "Bad Egg".
Publication details
Date	September 7, 2024
Production staff
Writers	Josie Day
Artists	Laura Jay
Comic Issues
Next	Happy Birthday, Hal

"Bad Egg" is the first webcomic in the Angry Birds 15th Anniversary Comic series, released on the series' official X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram accounts on September 7, 2024. It follows Red as he chases after a troublesome runaway egg, one which sports a pink shell and a small crack, eventually getting himself in a pig construction site during his chase.

Official descriptions

Instagram

We're thrilled to release our first 15th Anniversary Angry Birds Comic! 🎉

Red's got his work cut out for him when a particularly bag^[sic] egg goes on a construction site adventure 👷What could go wrong??

Bad Egg - Script by Josie Day and Art by Laura Jay

X (formerly Twitter)

ok here goes:

introducing our very first 15th anniversary comic! this one stars me and a particularly troublesome egg.

mystique. intrigue. that guy with the moustache. anything could happen! put on your hard hats!

Plot

On one sunny day, Red looks after the eggs while drinking lemonade on a deckchair. However, one of the eggs starts rolling away beyond his watch; he soon realizes that one egg is missing from the nest, and catches the runaway egg using a butterfly net. Red becomes suspicious of the egg, assuming that it might already be hatching, though Matilda arrives and rejects this hypothesis. She proceeds to interrogate Red over if he had done anything to cause the egg to act so oddly, which he refutes by saying that the egg is merely a "bad egg". The fact that Red would say such a thing about an egg stuns Matilda, who suggests she should take over in protecting the eggs for the day, though Red refuses, claiming he can handle a "little egg".

Meanwhile, the pigs are working on a brand new fortress; however, construction on the project is happening rather slowly, and rather poorly, with it taking approximately two more weeks to complete. A disgruntled Foreman Pig tells Corporal Pig that he'll have to break the news to King Pig, which Corporal Pig follows through with, having to endure the furious king's ranting - and foul breath. The corporal returns with the news that the fortress has to be completed within a day, enraging Foreman Pig, who commands the Corporal and the procrastinating Minion Pigs to get to work.

Back at the nest, Red is still infuriated with Matilda's accusation of him damaging the egg, though Matilda does not seem to share Red's apparent rage, instead making lemonade to try and calm him down; unfortunately, however, she spills the lemonade on him, as the egg rolls away right before their eyes. The now-mortified Red proceeds to chase the egg down a hill, but he accidentally slips, knocking the egg into a catapult. Increasingly stressed, Red uses the catapult instead; however, while the egg lands on a wagon filled with hay, which is able to cushion it from the launch, Red instead lands in a thornbush right behind the wagon, the impact towards it from the landing also pushing the wagon down the hill. In spite of him now being covered in thorns, Red continues to chase the runaway egg, winding up in the pigs' construction site.

Red's misgivings only increase, however, as the wagon gets taken by a construction worker, unknowing of the egg buried in the hay. In order to get the egg back, Red wears a nearby green cup over his upper beak in order to disguise himself as a pig. The pig who took the wagon lets Red onto an elevator, where he almost manages to take back the egg until it hops onto a nearby girder. Red jumps in the egg's direction, but loses his "snout" in the process. Corporal Pig would be first to spot Red's identity, and attempts to warn Foreman Pig about his presence, but the latter is too lazer-focused on getting the construction project finished in the allotted day; it is not until the girder swings over his head that Foreman drops his current objective to focus on the disobedient egg and the intruding bird chasing it.

As Corporal and Foreman Pig rush towards the girder to get the egg, however, said girder tilts in Red's direction, causing the egg to roll off into a garbage chute. It seems as though Red will go through the same fate; however, three Minion Pigs sit down on the other side of the girder to eat their lunch, providing balance and thus preventing Red from falling. Red proceeds to gauge the area bellow before jumping into the chute himself to find the egg, landing in a pile of bricks while he finds that the egg fell into a conveniently placed pile of pillows. With the egg finally in his possession, Red begins to make his way out of the construction site; before they leave, however, the egg knocks a pig's barbecue grill down, leading to some of the burning charcoal briquettes to ignite some nearby TNT crates, destroying the entire construction site, right as King Pig checks in on the progress the pigs had made.

Later that evening, as the construction site continues blowing up, Red finally makes it back to the nest, where he once again finds Matilda. He downplays the events of his day, claiming that he only went for a "little walk" with it, before correcting himself on the egg being a "bad egg" earlier on; now, he not only views the egg in higher regards, but says it may just be "the greatest egg of all".

Characters

• Corporal Pig
• Foreman Pig
• King Pig
• Matilda
• Minion Pig
• Pink Egg
• Red

Pages

1/11

Reception

Despite being released during a time of heavy dissatisfaction with the franchise within the community, "Bad Egg" was immediately met with overwhelming acclaim from Angry Birds fans. Praise has been directed at the art style, the lack of tracing within the comic's artwork, the lack of the Angryverse as a plot device, the accurate portrayal of the Classic dimension's universe which lacks elements from the Movie dimension, characterisation of characters such as Red, and the inclusion of King Pig Smooth Cheeks, who has seldom been used since the introduction of the movie incarnation of Leonard. Many have even gone as far as calling the comic the best piece of Angry Birds media to be released in years.

Trivia

• Not counting Rovio Classics: Angry Birds, which was a direct remake of the original Angry Birds as it was in 2012, this marks King Pig's first full, physical appearance in any major Angry Birds media since Angry Birds on The Run, in which he debuted in 2019.
• Several aspects of "Bad Egg" are heavily evocative of or are direct nods to previous Angry Birds content:
  • The plot of the comic as a whole is similar to the Angry Birds Toons episode "Egg's Day Out"; both follow Red chasing a runaway egg through multiple comical situations; both even involve girders, on which the pigs eat their lunch.
  • Red using an unconvincing pig disguise that nevertheless fools the pigs is a plot point used in several pieces of media. The most notable example being Angry Birds Comics #4's "The Green Rookie", where Red disguises as a Pig under incredibly similar circumstances. Other notable instances of instances of this occurring include the Ham'o'ween Short Movie, Angry Birds Game Play #2, Stella and the Hunt for the Jade Egg, and Stella and the Egg Tree.
  • When Red approaches the construction site, the posters on the site's fencing can be seen with the words "Something PIG is coming!", which was the tagline used for the first teaser trailer of Bad Piggies.
  • The Pigs eating lunch while in construction gear on page 8 is a possible reference to the artwork for the Eggs Delmonico recipe from Bad Piggies' Egg Recipes.