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This is a massive book, over 1500 pages long, consisting of all 55 issues of the regular series. Its written and drawn by Jeff Smith, no one I'd heard of before.  I didn't like it at first, but I'm up to page 748 and now loving it. I think if I was reading it issue by issue I would have given up because of the slow movement of the story. The characters are great, and the writer uses a sense of history - things which have happened in the past - to great effect. Our three heroes are the Bone brothers. I gather they are sort of meant to be humans, but rendered like odd cartoons so they stand out from the reality of their fantastic surroundings. We have dragons, big talking mountain lions, fairy princesses, mysterious cult warrios, a hooded mastermind, the Lord of the Locusts, a big monster called Kingdok, and the stupid, stupid rat creatures. The best character of all is a leaf insect called Ted. Why is Bone so good though? Its not so much the story, but its because of the way its done. This is a great summary, better than I could have put it, from Silver Bullet: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/reviews/97771735450399.htmQuote:
So I was watching North by Northwest on dvd the other night, and it may be a cliché, but watching the movie on dvd is like watching it for the first time. DVD preserves the aspect ratio of the movie into a letterbox format, crisps and correct the colors to make the viewing an experience rather than just entertainment. As you watch North by Northwest, you realize what a maestro Hitchcock was and how he understood sequential artwork to borrow a phrase. How does Jeff Smith's Bone relate to North by Northwest? I'll tell you.
The static artwork of Bone creates a filmstrip which manifests the illusion of movement and takes into account a physical quirk of evolution called the persistence of vision. Change a photo or picture incrementally. Put those graphics side by side, and the brain will fill in the movement between the frames. Take a look at the scene on the mountaintop with Rose contending against the Rat Creatures. She actually looks like she's running down the mountainside. It takes Jeff Smith nine panels to make this feeling happen. He cuts very little of the increment and preserves the picture for the brain to fill in the blanks.
Like Hitchcock, Mr. Smith knows it's all good. North by Northwest isn't just suspense and neither is Bone. Both work in a plausible love story. With Bone it's more innocent. This is the issue fans have been waiting for ever since Fone Bone issued a Valentine upon first seeing Thorn. Like the Hitchcock film, with the revelation for this issue, Mr. Smith doesn't lose the roller coaster ride of the conflict. In fact Fone Bone makes a good symbolic substitute for George Kaplan: the every-man who is caught up in a situation that has already been engraved in stone yet changes those etchings for the better.
Every word needs to be spoken, but dialogue does not always need to be heard. In North by Northwest George Kaplan holds Eve Kendall's head while kissing her. In a later scene, he kisses her but because he is not yet convinced of her innocence, he does not hold her head. They don't speak a word in this scene. Hitchcock knows that the viewer is smart enough to catch the clues. The reunion between Smiley and Bartleby in Bone is not telegraphed by text. The scene gains impact through wordless characterization. The visual characterization of Bone creates uncertainty by the way character's are positioned, and when the habitual characterization once more surfaces Mr. Smith dissuades you from the book's climax.
Bone is not only a great story with accomplished artwork. It is a filmmaker's, a novelist's and a comic book creator's text book.
The art can be a little cartoony, but not a single panel is wasted. Its got a superb economy of pace: the real craftsmanship in this text is not the story, the dialgue, the characterisation or the art, but the panel layouts. Its topshelf cinematography, but in a comic.
The fact that the entire thing comes in one big volume means no waiting between issues either - of the single issue or the tpbs (which drives me nuts, as I like a complete story).
More info at the website: www.boneville.com
Highly recommended at 8 out of 10.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,011 Likes: 31
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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Posts: 25,011 Likes: 31 |
I'm with you T-Dave. BONE is one of the brightest series from the last 15 years of comics. Anyone who is a fan of CEREBUS, GROO, or LEAVE IT TO CHANCE should appreciate this series. and what a treat to find it available in a single volume! I'll have to check out the collected edition. Aside from the fluid visual narrative, these have wonderful characters, and it's such a pleasure to see the pacing of these stories, and watch the characters play off each other. There's a warmth, humor and friendship that weaves through the characters in this series, as well as a level of adventure and sincerity that harkens back to an earlier era of comics storytelling. I couldn't agree more. Highly recommended. A few covers from the series:      
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 14,896
10000+ posts
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I had the good fortune to talk with Jeff briefly several years ago at the Chicago Comic Convention. This is significant because of the half dozen conventions I've been to, I think he's the only creator I've ever actually bothered to wait in line to meet.
While the subject matter and artistic style aren't really incredibly unique, I have a hard time comparing Bone to anything else in the comic medium, for I can't think of anything else like it. Similarly, I have a difficult time describing why, exactly, I love the book as much as I do. It definitely has a charm to it that I'd consider Tolkein-esque, the way the story starts out small-seeming and builds into an epic with a history that seems to spill from the pages it's written on. The characters are fantastic, the art(while perhaps an acquired taste) is fantastic, and as Dave said, Smith's characterization really makes it all click.
I guess, to put it best, this book makes me feel young(er), and that's really why comics were created in the first place.
MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,746
2500+ posts
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I've got the complete run of this book (I actually started picking it up around issue #3...), and have this on back order from Westfield. Can't wait to sit down and read the whole thing. I really like the first twenty issues or so, but after Alan Moore's guest stint on issue 21, the book took a darker, more serious tone. I tried to read every issue as they came out, but when you had some years where only two or three issues shipped, it was hard to keep up with.
In case anybody's interested, there's also a 1/2 issue (which I don't know if it's included or not) and two mini series that tie-in. The Rose mini by Smith and Charles Vess is worth hunting down, but skip the other one that was drawn by Smith and written by somebody else (can't recall the guy's name, but I think it's the same guy that revamped Punisher at Marvel Knights before Garth Ennis came along.) It's not relevent to the series or very interesting...
Get the fuck out!
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 4,948
4000+ posts
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How does the book hold up in terms of being so thick? I mean, do you get to the middle and find that the panels spill into the spine and become hard to read?
Thing is- I can’t spell or type. I spell so badly my spell check doesn’t even know what I was trying to spell. And I have five Eisners HAHAHAHHA!!
-Brian Michael Bendis
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Joined: Jan 2002
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Banned from the DCMBs since 2002. 15000+ posts
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OP
Banned from the DCMBs since 2002. 15000+ posts
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Kind of awkward to manage, I admit, but the spine on mine seems to be ok so far.
Smith's art is kind of the absolute opposite to George Perez. Perez draws every single miniscule detail as if he were drawing a blueprint for an aircraft. Smith uses a sparsity of necessity. Smith's art is superior for that reason.
I wasn't aware that Moore did a guest-stint. I did notice that somewhere along the way it stopped being a kiddie story and became a hell of a lot more serious.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 14,896
10000+ posts
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I had no idea Moore did an issue. I'll have to read that one over again.
MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.
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Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,062
1000+ posts
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I've been seriously considering buying this, especially since I've heard how good it is. And yes, I like that there's a complete edition available. If I get this, I'll be getting the hardcover version.
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Joined: Jan 2002
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Banned from the DCMBs since 2002. 15000+ posts
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Banned from the DCMBs since 2002. 15000+ posts
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I've stopped buying comics as of today - I'm saving up to buy a Mustang, and re-routing the $100 a week I spend on tpbs might actually help that goal.
My reviews will start getting a little retro....
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 3,638
THE Franta 3000+ posts
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THE Franta 3000+ posts
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Im with rufie (I think he was the one to turn me onto Bone even) I got the first two trades and tried collecting the comic but it came so sporadically I never caught up!
I wanna get this so I can read 'em all at once!
Great story!
And the first issue I actually got was Moore...hmm thinking of it maybe it was my comic shop guy who told me to grab it throwing the Moore issue in first to tempt me...
YOU PUT SOUP IN IT!
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 28,009
Inglourious Basterd!!! 15000+ posts
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Inglourious Basterd!!! 15000+ posts
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I'm in the 500s of this collection and the one thing that keeps going through my mind is I wish I'd been in on this title from the beginning. Everything Dave's said about this series and this collection has been spot-on. The pacing and the narrative are amazing. I've found myself laughing out loud at some of the dialogue. This was definitely a wise purchase.
Uschi said:I won't rape you, I'll just fuck you 'till it hurts and then not stop and you'll cry. MisterJLA: RACKS so hard, he called Jim Rome "Chris Everett." In Him, all porn is possible. He is far above mentions in so-called "blogs." RACK him, lest ye be lost! "I can't even brush my teeth without gagging!" - Tommy Tantillo: Wank & Cry, heckpuppy, and general laughingstock ![[Linked Image from i6.photobucket.com]](http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/JoeMama13/RedSoxBanner05.png)
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Joined: Dec 2002
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100+ posts
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Quote:
Dave said:I wasn't aware that Moore did a guest-stint. I did notice that somewhere along the way it stopped being a kiddie story and became a hell of a lot more serious.
All 55 issues of Bone were done completely by Jeff Smith (writing, pencilling, inking, etc.). The only Bone-related material that Smith didn't do all of the work on was the two miniseries Rose (which was written by Smith but illustrated by Charles Vess) and Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero (which was written by Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Smith and Stan Sakai.)
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Joined: Jan 2002
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Banned from the DCMBs since 2002. 15000+ posts
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1500+ posts
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Educator to comprehension impaired (JLA, that is you) 50000+ posts
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Educator to comprehension impaired (JLA, that is you) 50000+ posts
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Quote:
backwards7 said:
Bone comes to the PC
as opposed to the usual bone coming on the pc!
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