Review: Bone by Jeff Smith

by Chriss Cornish published: July 5, 2010 1 Comment

This Book Is About

After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins – Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone – are separated and lost in a vast, uncharted desert. One by one, they find their way into a deep, forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. Eventually, the cousins are reunited at a farmstead run by tough Gran’Ma Ben and her spirited granddaughter, Thorn. But little do the Bones know, there are dark forces conspiring against them and their adventures are only just beginning!

My Thoughts On This Book

Bone is so cool. This is what epic fantasy is supposed to be. And Jeff Smith does is it with humor and cartoon illustration (though the humor lessens as the situations grow graver).

I love the rat creatures and how even the monsters have bogeymen. I also love Thorn’s grandmother, Rose (a former warrior queen who races against cows in a yearly farming community event).

The Red Dragon rocks, too.

I love the art for Bone, as well; it has a classic-cartoon feel. Which makes sense when you consider that the old cartoon classics like Pogo were an inspiration for Jeff Smith.

It’s great, too, that three of the primary characters are females. And they’re actually key figures in the plot centering on them as opposed to existing in the story because the male character needs a girl friend. A lot of authors, including many of my favorites, write strong female characters but the only reason they’re in the book is so the guys can date.

The writing is really good, as well. Bone is good comedy when it’s being funny (like one of the vicious rat creatures yearning for quiche and the Moby Dick running gag) and gripping when it’s being dramatic. The story flow is seamless, the plot holds you, and the characters are all interesting.

Jeff Smith, like Tony Cliff, has the rare talent to both write and illustrate well.

Bone is also young-adult/kid-friendly without at all compromising it’s appeal for the adult audience. It’s a great book/series for younger readers. In fact, Scholastic is one of it’s publishers.

But Don’t You Hate ‘Save-the-Magic-Kingdom’ Stories?

To anyone who’s heard me rant about how tired I am of the destiny driven save-the-magic-kingdom stories that are stock-in-trade for the fantasy genre you may wonder why I like Bone. Bone is character driven time-to-retake-the-queendom-before-the-evil-we’ve-been-hiding-from-gets-us.

It’s a subtle difference, but fantasy is more interesting when it’s the people that are in danger and not a political structure that’s under threat. Especially when some of the people are some of the baddies. Which is part of why Bone is such great fantasy.

It’s such great fantasy, in fact, that Bone has won both the Eisner and the Harvey awards. Pretty impressive.

Compete Cartoon Epic V.S Colored Volume Series

Some time ago Bone was released in one big black and white edition that collected the entire cartoon epic into one graphic novel. This is the version I read, which is why I keep referring to it as a book. Currently, though, the work is also being published in multiple slim volumes with colored artwork by Scholastic. If you go to a convention or comic book shop, you’ll probably find the individual volumes and not the big book.

I usually prefer color comics to B&W ones, but I have to say that I currently prefer the big black and white collected volume to the current colored multi-volume run. I like having the story in one book, even though thick books like that can sometimes be tricky to manage while reading.

Shadetastic or Blank-city: How Well Was This Black&White Comic Colored

I mentioned that I actually prefer the older B&W collected volume to the newer colored volumes, right? That should tell you how superb the inking on Bone is.