Bone: Coda

Always lovely to revisit the world of Bone - both in a new story and a great recap of Jeff Smith's publishing journey. ( )

I enjoyed Smith's new Bone short story and his memoir about Bone's creation and history. But beware! Half the book is padded out with a tedious, amateurish, redundant, and overly worshipful and aggrandizing companion written by some random other guy. His half of the book is 1-star, but I'm weighting my final rating heavily in Smith's favor. ( )

The treat of this book -- celebrating Bone's trajectory from 1991 to 2016 -- is a new Bone story. Unfortunately, while Jeff Smith conceived of Bone as having a beginning, middle, and an end, this story doesn't really add much more to the canonical story. (The Bones have a small mishap in the desert as they are returning home from the adventure detailed in the original graphic novel.) There's a note from Smith himself which outlines the struggles of starting the series and the euphoria of being successful. Then there's two essays, both of which read like "Cliff's Notes" about the series, which might be helpful for teachers (or perhaps very inquisitive younger readers). The story is a fun read -- it's good to be back with the gang again -- but I'd rate it as more of a library rental than a must-have. ( )