Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Bone, one volume edition by Jeff Smith ::
by William the Bloody
One day, the three Bone cousins got chased out of Boneville. What is Boneville and who are the Bones you ask? Well, Boneville is a little town where folks known as Bones live (kinda like Hobbits in the Shire). See, Phoney Bone was running one of his get rich quick schemes and the towns folk finally had enough of his double talk and lies and so they ran him out of town and his two cousins Smiley and Fone got caught up in it with him. Lost in the uncharted wilderness, the three Bone cousins are wandering through a desert when they are beset by a swarm of locusts and unwittingly separated. Fone falls down a cliff into a gulch, and when he climbs out, he mistakenly went up the other side. After accidentally waking up a slumbering dragon and a near miss encounter with some carnivorous rat creatures, Fone winds up in The Valley where he runs into a friendly leaf bug named Ted. Ted gives Fone the low down on The Valley and tells him to talk to his friend Thorn for information on how to get out of The Valley and back to Boneville, so long as it's before the snow falls, because winter hits fast and hard there. Unfortunately, the snow arrives before Fone can do either of these things and he is stuck in The Valley trying to survive and hopefully locate his missing cousins.
The Good: The comic is in black and white, and Jeff Smith totally works it. His lines are crisp and clean, the characters are expressive, people's clothes and backgrounds have just the right amount of detail work and it's all just swell to look at. aside from being pleasing on the eyes, the characters and story are pretty darn keen as well. The three Bone cousins each have different personalities, goals, and outlooks on life. Then there's Thorn, her grandmother, Lucius, the rat creatures, the red dragon, and all of the other back up characters who really do make this an enjoyable read and arguably an ensemble book even if their names aren't "Bone." The book moves from all out adorable comedy to adventure story so seamlessly you might wonder exactly when did it change direction, when the truth is it never did, and that it was going that way all along, only you were too busy enjoying the ride to realize it. The way the characters develop throughout this tale is marvelous. Thorn and Fone's relationship grows and expands, Gran'ma Ben goes back to her roots and realizes her life's mistakes, and surprisingly, I found myself getting more and more attached to Smiley Bone as the story unfolded, which I didn't expect at all since at first he felt like he was there purely for comic relief.
The Bad: There were a few odd panels which I thought weren't drawn in the caliber as the rest of the art. In particular there was one panel towards the end where Thorn dreams of her mother, and this is the first time we see her, so it's a big deal, and I felt she looked disproportionate somehow and odd looking. There were times when I found myself absolutely hating Phoney Bone, but I think you're kinda supposed to hate him a little bit. There are two rat creatures who are used as running gags and they wear thin after a while.
All in all, there are some comic books out there the connoisseur absolutely must read. Watchmen, Sandman, Maus. And Bone is on that list. Now that the entire series is available to purchase in a single volume, no comic enthusiast has any excuse for NOT reading it any longer. I likened the Bones to Hobbits, and the Lord of the Rings comparisons really don't stop there. That is the sort of fantasy adventure story you're in for with this, only with lots more fun and comedy, and less angst. Read it. That's all I have to say.
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