shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 23, 2024 9:32:41 GMT -5
One volume left to go ("Crown of Horns"), and...I'm nervous.
I'm loving the ride, but, ultimately, when you are dealing with a complex work that has a definite ending, how the series ends inevitably colors how you view the series in hindsight. A great ending makes you love it more and love re-reading it more and, no matter how hard you might try to dismiss an unsatisfactory ending, it does the opposite. Much like my boyhood fascination with Star wars in the 1980s, so much of my excitement for this series comes from expectation -- that there is more out there worth seeing and that all mysteries have satisfying, fascinating explanations behind them.
I gave up on Star Wars a long time ago.
Thing is, I don't think Jeff Smith has left himself enough space in the next eight issues to satisfactorily bring the series to a close AND wrap up all loose ends. Will we ever get an explanation for what/where Boneville is? Now that we're in Atheia and are getting a good look at all the other races in this world, nothing looks anywhere near as different as The Bones. And what's up with their names? "Bones". It's bugged me from the start. I'm guessing Fone Bone was part of some prophecy all along (things sure seem headed that way, and why call the series BONE if he isn't in some sense the main character by the close?), but will Smith go any deeper than that? There's a whole race of them out there in some mysterious location no one knows about or can find. Why? Are they in The Dreaming?
Phoney Bone's development. Why show Rose spending so much time teaching him in Old Man's Cave. Where is that going? Fone and Smiley have given their views on their lives together before leaving Boneville, but we haven't gotten Phoney's perspective. He has the potential to become the most loveable character of the series, but we need a condensced Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck for him at this point -- a totally sympathetic, emotionally rich explanation for his greed that might include what happened to their parents.
Then there's Ted the Bug, who absolutely positively cannot just be a bug. We've seen no others like him in all this journeying, and he is drawn more like a piece of the Lord of Locusts than anything else. He has amazing abilities and knowledge, and has clearly been around for a while. Not a bug. So what is he?
Rose --> Luna --> Thorn. Names matter, and Luna doesn't fit the pattern. Did Smith just abandon some original idea for a meaningful connection between Rose and Thorn and decide "Luna's a cool name"? Briar and Rose have a meaningful connection in their names too.
Are we going to get any more info on the first in the Harvestar family line? Why did the dragons pick her? What's up with the name?
And having a second mysterious hooded villain feels a little lazy by this point. Unlike Briar, we are repeatedly given a gender for this guy, so that eliminates most possibilities for what is under that hood. Clearly, there's a shock reveal coming, so either he's Lucius' twin (as Lucius is the only prominant human male in this series, though that would be SUCH a cheat after the Rose/Briar reveal), or the shock will be the amount of damage the dragons did to him, or the shock will be his very species: he IS a dragon, or a Bone perhaps. I'm sure Smith will end up addressing this one. Just not sure I'll be pleased with the outcome.
And, of course, clarification with what happened with the first dragon, the lord of locusts, the valley, and the stone worsship site. Clearly, there's more to it and something does need to be freed/released by the end.
I realize it sounds like I'm setting myself up to not like the ending, but it's actually the opposite. By laying out my concerns now, I've also set my expectations for happiness. If Smith can hit all these notes in eight more issues, I'll be very very happy.
Not sure when I'll have time to read the final eight issues; could be tonight, and it could be five days from now. Either way, wish me luck.
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,864
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Post by shaxper on Mar 25, 2024 15:09:48 GMT -5
Wait. THAT was the ending? I totally understand and respect the idea of going out on a small note, but it was neither meaningful nor particularly clever. If Smiley had been giving Phoney a hard time about the treasure prior to this, it might have worked better. Why did Fone Bone choose to go back? Some time could have been spent on that. Why does the newly crowned Queen of Atheia have the luxury of going off on an adventure right away that ends up taking her out of the city for an entire season without anyone batting an eye? Shouldn't Rose be the queen? Thorn would make so much more sense as Captain of the Guard than as dainty royalty, especially after all the inner strength she uncovered in herself throughout this series. This doesn't feel like the appropriate culmination of her character arc. WHY was Briar able to hear the Lord of Locusts in her mind since she was young? This character deserved more of a revelation and opportunity for redemption, at least in the mind of the reader. Instead, she's just the bad sister. this series seemed to have more to say about family and about people than that. Why are the villagers totally cool with Bartleby? Why was that ending with Nim and the dragons totally rushed? I really needed more of that climax and falling action after all the build up. How does anyone know the Lord of Locusts is really gone now? It's all good just because Bone and Thorn touched the MacGuffin? Why did we spend an entire winter in the cabin? From a storytelling perspective, what did that accomplish/add to the narrative beyond being a minor callback to the earliest issues that isn't used meaningfully at all? Why was Rock Jaw even in this series? I'm guessing Smith originally had different plans for him? sigh. Let's go through my list of things I'd hoped to see worked out by the close to see what we got... Rose-->Luna-->Thorn. Nope. We're not going anywhere with the meanings of names. Which (I guess) means the King and Queen decided to name their infant princess "Thorn" just because it sounded like a good, royal name? Ugh. Will we ever get an explanation for what/where Boneville is? Now that we're in Atheia and are getting a good look at all the other races in this world, nothing looks anywhere near as different as The Bones. And what's up with their names? "Bones". It's bugged me from the start. I'm guessing Fone Bone was part of some prophecy all along (things sure seem headed that way, and why call the series BONE if he isn't in some sense the main character by the close?), but will Smith go any deeper than that? There's a whole race of them out there in some mysterious location no one knows about or can find. Why? Are they in The Dreaming? Rose knew where it was all along. We're not going to see it, and apparently, there is nothing special about the Bones, Boneville, nor the name "Bone" at all. Ugh. In a rushed, throw-away sequence, Foney went back to get help instead of running away, but his need to come off like a hero when this is revealed thoroughly undercuts the moment, as does his choice to hoard the treasure at the end. Ugh. Apparently, he's just a bug, even though he's the only one we EVER see or hear about, and even the red dragon (who never got a name, weirdly enough) knows and respects him. Ugh. Nope and nothing. Ugh. Smith went with the second easiest solution, and it ended up being in no way meaningful nor important to the plot. Ugh. This one truly surprised me. I really expected Smith to go deeper with this and to provide a more meaningful/satisfactory climax. Ugh. I'm not sorry I read it, and the ending wasn't terrible -- just sloppy and unsatisfying. It really feels like Smith just didn't know how to wrap up the final three issues, as everything before that was fantastic (though how the hell did the rat creatures know how to avoid the circles when Briar wasn't with them? That continues to bug me!). Anyway, I can't claim I would do any better bringing my life's work to a close like that. I guess it remains to be seen whether this will sour my perception of the rest of the series, but I do know I enjoyed the reading immensely. Am I being too harsh? |
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,864
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Post by shaxper on Mar 26, 2024 4:27:56 GMT -5
Well, I'm already finding I miss reading the series, so I guess that ending didn't ruin things much after all.
It's funny: I went back to reading traditional superhero books last night, and I was definitely holding Bone to a higher standard than a conventional comic book story. Because it earned it.
So the ending was a massive let down; the rest was fantastic.
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Post by rberman on Mar 26, 2024 8:55:09 GMT -5
The loose ends were probably a mix of (1) details that escaped him in the many years it took to produce the series, (2) elements deliberately left hanging for the future, and (3) things that were too much trouble to tie up without dragging the finale out. Even Tolkien had Tom Bombadill just for kicks, not because he was well integrated into the overarching narrative.
Colleen Doran reports seeking counsel from Jeff Smith as to how she could bring the many threads of her own epic A Distant Soil together for a finale of just a few issues. One day we may see how that turned out, if/when she finishes it.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 27, 2024 13:48:41 GMT -5
Speaking of Bone, the fulfilment of the Thorn Kickstarter, Jeff Smith's proto-Bone material, arrived in my mailbox today, with the book collecting all the Thorn strips from the OSU newspaper days, 3 facsimile editions of the mini-comics Jeff made in his younger days, and a passel of prints, including one series of process prints showing the image in blue line pencils, then in inks, and then in full color.     I hope to be able to dive in to this soon. -M |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,864
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Post by shaxper on Apr 19, 2024 15:50:46 GMT -5
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Post by Calidore on Apr 19, 2024 19:09:31 GMT -5
I just followed this link to Instagram, which linked back here, and am now dizzy.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,864
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Post by shaxper on Apr 19, 2024 20:57:21 GMT -5
I just followed this link to Instagram, which linked back here, and am now dizzy.
The future's so bright, you gotta take Dramamine. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 9, 2024 12:52:55 GMT -5
So I just got through reading Bone; the big b&w omnibus has been sitting on my 'to-read' pile (or, as the late, great Greg Hatcher more aptly called it, the Shelf of Shame) for well over a decade...  I quite thoroughly enjoyed it; it's just a fun, well-written and drawn all ages fantasy epic. Anyway, I read through all of the comments in this (thankfully only 2-page) thread before posting my thoughts here. First, I have to say that, unlike shaxper , I wasn't disappointed by the ending, nor did I feel there were any loose ends that needed to be addressed, nor any details from the backstories of the various characters that needed to be explained (e.g., I'm mostly uninterested in the location or nature of Boneville - I'm perfectly fine with the three Bones we get here). It seems like Smith told the story he wanted to tell and finished it the way he wanted, and that's good enough for me. Second, I'm kind of surprised by some of the folks who needed one, two or more tries before they pushed through the whole thing, or mentioned the need to pass over some kind of hump before it 'gelled'. For my own part, I was introduced to Bone when I checked the first Scholastic color tpb ("Out from Boneville") out of the library. I knew immediately that I wanted to read the whole thing (which led to the purchase of a surprisingly inexpensive copy of the omnibus - like about $30 total, with postage), and when I finally started reading the whole thing I could barely put it down - I got through it in a few sittings over the course of the past week. My impressions align more with what Roquefort Raider or codystarbuck wrote; I loved the perfect blend of high fantasy and comic-strip humor (accented by the portrayals of the Bones and certain other characters in a style that channels, as noted by others, Walt Kelly). This is definitely one I hope to re-read at some point. |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 9, 2024 12:59:11 GMT -5
So I just got through reading Bone; the big b&w omnibus has been sitting on my 'to-read' pile (or, as the late, great Greg Hatcher more aptly called it, the Shelf of Shame) for well over a decade... I quite thoroughly enjoyed it; it's just a fun, well-written and drawn all ages fantasy epic. Anyway, I read through all of the comments in this (thankfully only 2-page) thread before posting my thoughts here. First, I have to say that, unlike shaxper, I wasn't disappointed by the ending, nor did I feel there were any loose ends that needed to be addressed, nor any details from the backstories of the various characters that needed to be explained (e.g., I'm mostly uninterested in the location or nature of Boneville - I'm perfectly fine with the three Bones we get here). It seems like Smith told the story he wanted to tell and finished it the way he wanted, and that's good enough for me. Second, I'm kind of surprised by some of the folks who needed one, two or more tries before they pushed through the whole thing, or mentioned the need to pass over some kind of hump before it 'gelled'. For my own part, I was introduced to Bone when I checked the first Scholastic color tpb ("Out from Boneville") out of the library. I knew immediately that I wanted to read the whole thing (which led to the purchased of a surprisingly inexpensive copy of the omnibus - like about $30 total, with postage), and when I finally started reading the whole thing I could barely put it down - I got through it in a few sittings over the course of the past week. My impressions align more with what Roquefort Raider or codystarbuck wrote; I loved the perfect blend of high fantasy and comic-strip humor (accented by the portrayals of the Bones and certain other characters in a style that channels, as noted by others, Walt Kelly). This is definitely one I hope to re-read at some point. For me, I think the failure of me to have it click on the first try was more about me than the work itself. I am very much a mood reader, and the first time I tried to read it was more about obligation-i.e. this is something I should have read or at least sampled, not something I was in the mood to read or wanted to read at that moment, and I was carrying a lot of my biases in with me, so the failure was in my approach and attitude. The second time I went in with a let's just take this for what it is and I was in a mood to read it, and I loved it, it transcended all my expectations and biases and become one of my most treasured reading experiences and one of my favorite books of all time. It was more of a "this wasn't the right time for me to try reading this" than a "this isn't for me" thing. There are other things I have tried on numerous times to read and failed regardless of mood or appraoch that I know fall into "this is not for me" territory, but it was never that with Bone. -M |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 9, 2024 13:03:13 GMT -5
So I just got through reading Bone; the big b&w omnibus has been sitting on my 'to-read' pile (or, as the late, great Greg Hatcher more aptly called it, the Shelf of Shame) for well over a decade... I quite thoroughly enjoyed it; it's just a fun, well-written and drawn all ages fantasy epic. Anyway, I read through all of the comments in this (thankfully only 2-page) thread before posting my thoughts here. First, I have to say that, unlike shaxper , I wasn't disappointed by the ending, nor did I feel there were any loose ends that needed to be addressed, nor any details from the backstories of the various characters that needed to be explained (e.g., I'm mostly uninterested in the location or nature of Boneville - I'm perfectly fine with the three Bones we get here). It seems like Smith told the story he wanted to tell and finished it the way he wanted, and that's good enough for me. Second, I'm kind of surprised by some of the folks who needed one, two or more tries before they pushed through the whole thing, or mentioned the need to pass over some kind of hump before it 'gelled'. For my own part, I was introduced to Bone when I checked the first Scholastic color tpb ("Out from Boneville") out of the library. I knew immediately that I wanted to read the whole thing (which led to the purchased of a surprisingly inexpensive copy of the omnibus - like about $30 total, with postage), and when I finally started reading the whole thing I could barely put it down - I got through it in a few sittings over the course of the past week. My impressions align more with what Roquefort Raider or codystarbuck wrote; I loved the perfect blend of high fantasy and comic-strip humor (accented by the portrayals of the Bones and certain other characters in a style that channels, as noted by others, Walt Kelly). This is definitely one I hope to re-read at some point. I loved Bone from the first time I read it. As an aside, I introduced by step-grandson to Bone when he was about 11 or thereabouts. He was recently at my house overnight and was overjoyed that he could grab the final volume off my shelf and read it, as apparently I'd failed to get that one for him. |
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