Bone is perhaps my all time favorite comic story/series. It took me 3 tries to get into it after being dismissive of it when I saw it on the stands in the 90s. It wasn't until I tried reading it in the all in one editions, where I looked at it as a single whole and not a collection of individual volumes, that I got past the initial storylines into the meat of the epic. The early parts are like trying to read the opening chapters of one of those multi-volume fantasy epics which are all about the farmboy and his prosaic existence, and what his day to day life is like before the call to adventure comes (or in LOTR terms everything leading up to Frodo leaving the Shire). They're good, they're well written, they're important in helping establish who the characters are so you can see how much the heroic journey changes them when it is all said and done, but it takes a while for some people for it to really hook you when things hit the fan. It was about a third of the way through the volume when that moment happened for me in Bone, and once it did, I didn't want to put it down. I had to know what happened next, I couldn't put the book down and leave these characters in the predicaments they were in, etc.

As with a lot of fantasy epics (and at its heart that is what Bone is, cartoonish characters aside), you don't realize how important (or how much they set the stage) they are until you get to the end of the journey and have more context for the story as a whole.

But yeah the first 2 times I tried reading Bone, I did so in the individual trades, and with the first 2 I kept asking myself if I wanted to get the next, and I stalled about where you are at volume 2. The third time, doing the all in one, I just kept going. I will say though the same has happened to me with a couple of acclaimed series (Preacher, 100 Bullets, Cerebus, etc.) where despite people singing its praises I keep stalling. Part of me wonders if I didn't read far enough to get to that point where "the meat" of the story kicks in, but in those cases, no matter how far I got (about 1/2 way through Preacher and Bullets for example) I never reached a point where I really wanted to keep going. Bone was different for me in that I got to that point. It's happened with other series as well. But with Bone it was to the point that after I finished the whole thing the first time, I put the book down and then 2 days later picked it up and reread the whole thing again (and I've been thinking is past time I pick it up and revisit it again). The only other comic epic that happened to me with was the original Elfquest saga-again a few tries to get going on it, and get past the opening section, but when I finally did, I devoured it all in short order and returned to it almost immediately to read it again.

I can't speak for your experience shaxper and I can't guarantee that you will reach that point I describe for yourself if you continue, but I'd highly recommend giving it a try.

-M

I also prefer the earlier issues of Bone. The Great Cow Race is my sweet spot. It was such a blast collecting those issues as they came out. 

Smith had me at "Stupid, stupid Rat Creatures!"



Actually, he had me with the dialogue between Fone Bone, Phony Bone and Smiley Bone....



I enjoyed the lighthearted back and forth and the whimsical adventure, early on but loved this moment...



I used to have a Graffiti Designs Bone t-shirt, with the Bones on the front and "Stupid, stupid Rat Creatures" on the back. People loved the image, then would ask what the heck the quote on the back meant, since it had no context.

Really, for me, once I saw the series, it was the visual style that pulled me in. I love Walt Kelly's Pogo visuals and he was a big influence on Jeff Smith. That simple, animated style was light and lovely, in the ebst traditions of figures like Carl Barks and the other Disney comic book artists. The playful dialogue and the comic timing were great and I enjoyed the heck out of it, after I got a copy of the first Cartoon Books trade collection (waaaaaayyyy back) . Started getting the issues during the Great Cow Race, which was just comic genius.

However, the thing that really hooked me, beyond the visuals and the comedy, was this image.....



This is the stuff of fairy tales and myth and a hint that much bigger things were going on here. I wanted to see more. I got the issues for a while, until I had to curtail things a bit and decided to just wait for book collections. I ultimately ended up buying the big black and white Cartoon Books omnibus, since he had been publishing it in black and white. I ended up enthralled by the story, which has everything you could want in an epic fantasy, but it feels original because of the Bone characters. Had it just been the human characters, it would have seemed more like your average fantasy story. The Bones add little touches, here and there (the two stupid rat creatures, too, plus the baby rat creature), which alter things from the norm. As a bookseller, I loved the fact that Fone Bone's favorite book is Moby Dick, but everyone kind of glazes over when he talks about it, which is the way must people look upon it and "classic literature," if they were assigned it in school, rather than discovering it for themselves.

I also liked the fact that it was totally Smith's baby and he was able to see it through. So many of those who tried to follow Dave Sim either got savaged by the state of comics, in the 90s, didn't have the discipline to see it through, or life intervened. What I wouldn't give to see more Hepcats; but it ended when it did. Smith saw it through and was able to keep it commercially viable.

Back in the day, for a brief period, we used to have to call smaller publishers to see if their books could be special ordered and what their terms were and then submit orders through special channels, rather than go through out normal (Barnes & Noble and Ingram Distribution) channels. With Cartoon Books, you talked directly to Smith's wife, who handled the business side of things.

The greatest pleasure, for me, was seeing the Scholastic Books color collections. Here was a big name childrens publisher who saw the potential and made it possible to have the whol saga in color. And kids LOVED it! You could see it in their Faces when they looked through the book. Parents would sit there and read it with their kids, at our little storytime stage area, and smile. You didn't see a lot of that with many modern children's books....the classics, yeah; but not many others. That was the thing I kept hearing, in the Comic Buyer's Guide, when the series was relatively new; that comics fans were reading it to their kids and they loved it even more.

You find me any other 90s comics that parents shared with their kids......there aren't many, that I can name.

Everyone's reading experience is different. For me, the charm was there at the start, and Smith slowly played out the mystery and the danger and the stakes and it was a fine thing to witness. It was both the potential of the Direct Market made manifest and the traditions of comic books, as a medium. It was the best of the old and the new distributions system. It made you feel optimistic about comics, as a medium, in the face of all that bad 90s mess of gimmicks, poor drawing, cynical publishers, distribution wars, bankruptcies, T&A, violence and other negative forces. All that came and went and little Bone just chugged along and showed them how it was done.

One of the delights of being a bookseller, back in the day, was seeing a book become successful not because of a big marketing campaign or a media tie-in/adaptation, or some celebrity promoting it; but, on its own merits. Harry Potter was that and so was Bone.

I've been meaning to go back to Bone--I read some random issues as they came out and thought it was very well done.

The Tolkien comparisons are apt not just because of the epic fantasy elements. Both authors seemed to start writing without really knowing where they were going or what tone was appropriate, but somehow by the end it all made sense, despite a transition from high whimsy to deadly serious along the way.

Been trying to portion out my reading, as it would be so easy to read the whole thing in one sitting.


Just wrapped up the Old Man's Cave storyline tonight, and beyond being thrilled, thoroughly entertained, and laughing uncontrollably far too loud at eleven o'clock at night in a sleeping house when the prophecy that warned the Hooded One about Phoney Bone was revealed, the biggest feeling I'm walking away with is anger at myself: How the hell did I not see the solution to who The Hooded One was? The Hooded One is lifted almost directly from Hugo pratt's Corto Maltese, a work I adore and know like the back of my hand. In terms of, visuals, characterization, and overall role in the story, The Hooded One bears a marked resemblence to The Monk.



Throughout most of Corto Maltese's first volume, the mystery of The Monk's true identity is everpresent. Without spoiling that story for anyone who might choose to read it one day, I'll just say the solution is...surprisingly similar to this one.

I should have seen it coming.


And man if the repertoire of great works Jeff Smith is chanelling doesn't continue to impress the hell out of me. The resemblance to Corto Maltese wasn't a coincidence. Wow.