Jeff Smith (1) (1960–)

I borrowed this from the library because I had heard a lot of great things about this graphic novel series and wanted something that me and my son could read together. This is the first graphic novel in a nine book series. Overall this was a great graphic novel and completely appropriate for younger children, yet complex and funny enough for adults.

Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone have been kicked out of Boneville because of Phoney's greediness. Fone Bone gets separated from his show more cousins and ends up wandering through a strange valley. There he meets Ted the Bug, horrible rat-creatures, the beautiful Thorne, the butt-kicking and cow-racing Gran'ma Ben, among many others. He main goal in this installment is to find his cousins.

This was an awesome graphic novel. The illustration is solid but what really makes the book are the wonderful characters, the humor, and a storyline that will appeal to both kids and adults. This is the first book I have read in the Bone series and it is already starting to explore deeper concepts of good vs. evil, greed, etc. There is enough slapstick and general funniness that even my four year old son gets a kick out of it; although the rat-monsters are a bit scary for him and some of the more complicated storyline is lost on him.

There are some hilarious characters here. You've got Gran'ma Ben who can kick monster butt with the best of them, the sweet Thorne, Smiley Bone (who is crazily positive), and even a cigar-smoking dragon that only seems to appear when Fone Bone is by himself. Fone Bone has an obsession with Moby Dick that constantly puts other characters to sleep, which is hilarious. There are the creepy, but somewhat dopey, rat-creatures that are constantly after the Bone with the Star on his chest...these add a sense of danger and adventure to the story and hint at some greater evil lurking in the valley.

I loved every minute of this graphic novel and loved how the story is already interesting and complex. The characters are awesome and the humor wonderful; I found myself giggling out loud a number of times. We have only read a little bit of this with my son and he seems to be enjoying it also (he is four years old). This is a great comic for the whole family to read together. A great intro to graphic novels and a great way to transition from picture books to more complicated story/chapter books. I will definitely be checking out more installments in this series. show less

I was recently surprised to find Bone mentioned among a list of indispensable comics works in Neil Gaiman's introduction to The Best of the Spirit. Remarking this fact to my Other Reader in a local comics shop, along with the circumstance that I had never read Bone and hadn't ever had it personally recommended to me, multiple store personnel, overhearing, piped up that they followed the title themselves and recommended it strongly. So, now I've finished the collection of the first six issues show more from the early 1990s, and I did enjoy it. It was somewhat different from my expectations.

Given its origins as a black-and-white underground comic, along with the art style and presentation of the covers, I was expecting something like the early issues of Dave Sim's Cerebus (at that point a Conan parody featuring an aardvark), and in fact protagonist Fone Bone bears more than a passing resemblance to the young Cerebus as drawn in Sim's later work. But as I read the Bone comics, I was most reminded of the work of Charles M. Schulz. It was as if the writer/artist of Peanuts at the height of his powers had decided to undertake a fantasy epic. The pacing of the dialogue, the facial expressiveness of the characters, the telescoping of major events into the gutter between two panels, all showed the sort of technique that I associate with Schulz's best work.

This first volume introduces a robust set of characters, and sets a dramatic tableau, but it does not complete a plot arc. I'm sure I'll read at least one more collection. show less

I've always had a fascination for all things Tesla, so that's what drew me to RASL. Of course, having the guy that wrote Bone behind it didn't hurt either.

I originally tried to follow this series when it was being released as a regular comic, but, like Terry Moore's work and The Walking Dead, having larger chunks of the story, or, as in this case, the entire story, works so much better. This is a story that should be read in one sitting, as I've just done.

The story is initially confusing, show more but clears up as we go. Smith never really stops and gives a gigantic info dump, instead allowing the reader to parse out much of the story on their own. And then he throws curveballs like the little girl and the President that just make the story that much more fun.

It took a while to get used to the art, as this felt like it should be a touch less "cartoony" than Bone, but after a while, I quite enjoyed it.

The one big thing I wish had been explained was, why the tribal mask on the T-suit?

Anyway, it has exactly what a good story should have. Lots of mystery and thought-provoking elements. Another winner from Jeff Smith. show less

I'm coming to this stellar collection rather late. I read Bone when it was coming out in comic book form -- I started a little late, but I was picking it up regularly in the early '90s -- and became a huge fan of the title, even tracking down a copy of Disney Adventures when one of the rat-tails stories made an appearance. When my daughter was born about a decade later, figures of the Bone cousins looked down on her crib from the bookshelf above. (Ok, maybe not literally -- like I'd have show more books right over her bed.)

A few years later, I ended up getting my daughter a copy of the Bone collection -- she likes the heft and challenge of a big volume, that girl -- and so it's rather nice, now that she's twelve, that I received Bone: Tall Tales from her as a birthday present. That's two decades of Bone, coming full circle.

What made Bone such an enjoyable read wasn't just Smith's charming, clean line art, but how the small character details contrasted with the epic sweep of his storytelling. Smith somehow made his tale of odd big-nosed creatures work amidst the backdrop of a full-blown fantasy saga, complete with princesses and dragons and an evil entity to rival Sauron. The big difference was the humor: though I wasn't a big fan of the Great Cow Race arc (it seemed like an overlong detour at best), I loved how Smith could balance the constant silliness with the forces of darkness-type peril in which the characters found themselves.

Bone: Tall Tales is marketed as a prequel, insofar as the principal events take place before the founding of Boneville, but one needn't have encountered the Bone cousins or the Bone universe first to appreciate the volume. There's an introductory piece about a treasure map that's a mere setup for a punchline -- it's similar to those two-pagers that come between the ads, and nothing special -- and a framing story featuring a clueless Smiley Bone, which is merely okay.

Where it really shines is in the stories featuring a character named, obviously with no pun intended whatsoever (I'm being sarcastic here), Big Johnson Bone. (It reminds me of how I had once recommended Bone to a friend, whose first question was, "Is that published by Eros Comix?" Smith had at times infused the relationship between Fone Bone and Thorn with a little bit of innuendo, a bit of a reminder to the readers that Fone Bone wasn't just some cute naked child, but an adult creature of sorts.)

These Big Johnson stories are "only" drawn by Smith, but as always, they're beautifully illustrated; Tom Sniegoski, whose writing I'm not familiar with, is responsible for these broad-humored Paul Bunyanesque tales. There's an origin story, and a tale about an eating contest (shades of the Great Cow Race here), but the best of the lot is a mini-saga involving Big Johnson, a motley group of adorable but scared woodland creatures straight out of Pogo, and a hungry giant rat creature.

Big Johnson himself is a larger-than-life character, spinning off exaggeration after exaggeration to a scarcely believing audience. Sniegoski's comic timing is perfect, with a sense of gag-filled humor that's closer in rhythm to a rapid fire Thirties comedy. He mines the creatures' anxiety in successive frames, acting as counterpoint to the main narrative. The frames reminded me of those Harvey Kurtzman parodies from Mad from the early '50s, where entire conversations occurred in the panel margins, or blocks of text -- in this case, one tall tale after another -- petered out in smaller and smaller cramped type.

Bone: Tall Tales is an excellent collection. It may not be the best introduction to Jeff Smith's work -- you really need to start with Bone proper for that -- but it's good enough to stand on its own. show less