Comic: Bone
I've been reading Jeff Smith's Bone since 1995, when the mother of my friend Perry gave me the first few issues to read.
From the first page of the first issue, I was enraptured. It was like the old Carl Barks "Uncle Scrooge" stories, featuring these three cousins who were run out of their hometown: the megalomaniacal Phoney Bone (who acted like a jerky Uncle Scrooge); Smiley Bone, the cousin who'd go along with Phoney on everything (if only for being part of something fun); and Fone Bone, the innocent one that you can't help but empathise with.
They find themselves in this almost Bronze Age fantasy valley, complete with talking bugs, dragons and rat creatures. So begins a story with the scope of The Lord of the Rings, and a buttload of humour to boot.
Hidden princesses, a dimension called The Dreaming, Moby Dick. This story has everything, and it can be read by youngsters and old people alike.
Dev's dad actually started reading Bone because he brought it into the school he teaches at. Scholastic Books is republishing the trades in colour for younger readers. It's just one of the most innocent, thrilling, funny books I've read, period.
I just picked up the last trade over the weekend. And while reading it, I started to cry. True, it was in part because a major character I've known for ten years was killed, but it was also because I knew this was the end. The Bones couldn't stay in the valley, because they were from a different place. And they would go home. And it would be the biggest decision Fone Bone would ever have to make.
Seriously, if you haven't read any Bone books, I'd urge you to pick them up. Or, hell, I'll lend them to you. Because, seriously, this series is what comics is all about. It's like what Cerebus would be to me if it stayed in the whole Church and State mode for all of its three hundred issues.
The Great Cow Race alone is worth the price of reading ten volumes.
posted by Jago @ 4/18/2005 03:33:00 p.m.
1 Comments:
After reading Jago's review here, I read Crown of Horns, the last Bone trade this afternoon. I'm not as much of a Bone fan as Jago, but I enjoy the stories and art quite a bit: Jeff Smith is very skilled at using both cartoon and fantasy conventions to tell a remarkable story.
I'm sad to see the end of Bone, and some of the outcomes of the last volume got me a little choked up. But it was a great story, with characters that I feel a good deal of emotion for, and when I got to the last page, I sat for a moment and reflected on the end of the epic.
This is an incredible story; the characters pull you in, and you become a part of their big family. I'll miss Gran'ma Ben, and Ted, and Thorn, and the three Bone brothers. And I hope to read about their adventures again, when I have my own family to share them with.
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