"Is That a Monkey?" "He's Got a Gun!"

About

"Is That a Monkey?" "He's Got a Gun!" is an exploitable meme format based around a series of standalone panels from the 1999 Hellboy comic miniseries "Box Full of Evil," in which a monkey shoots at the main characters. The panels became the subject of redraws as early as 2013, in which the characters are replaced with characters from other fandoms.

Origin

In August and September 1999, artist Mike Mignola and Dark Horse Comics published a two-part miniseries of Hellboy comics titled Hellboy: Box Full of Evil. At one point in the story, the titular hero and his ally, Abe Sapien, are ambushed by a man who has been transformed into a monkey. Abe sees the monkey and asks, "Is that a monkey?" and Hellboy shouts, "He's got a gun!" The revolver-wielding chimpanzee shoots Abe twice.^[1]

Spread

The three panels featuring Abe and Hellboy noticing the monkey and the monkey shooting the gun became the subject of redraws and memes as early as 2013. One of the earliest known redraws was posted by Deviant Art^[2] user Metal-Kitty on October 9th, 2013, replacing the characters with Twilight Sparkle and Spike from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, garnering over 5,300 views in 11 years (shown below).

On July 16th 2016, Tumblr^[3] artist äbsölüt uploaded a redraw with Overwatch characters drawn in Mignola's art style, the monkey being depicted as Winston the gorilla, garnering over 13,340 notes in eight years (shown below, left). On February 27th, 2019, X^[4] user @ScruffyTurtles posted a redraw with Pokémon Sword and Shield starters, garnering over 46,000 likes in five years (shown below, right).

On January 2nd, 2024, X^[5] user @MassiveVerseCEN posted the panels under a thread asking "What's your favorite Hellboy moment?" garnering over 3,000 likes in a day. Later that day, X^[6] user @AnneComics quote-reposted the panels, writing, "Never been the same since someone pointed out that these three panels work perfectly no matter what order you put them in," garnering over 32,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

External References