Cartoon Books (1991-present)

Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: Comic books: Misc. Publishers: Cartoon Books (1991-present)
By KAM on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - 1:27 am:

Bone
(I'm guessing this might be issue 16 for those who don't have the big TPB)
Page 346, Panel 4. Because misspelled as "becuase" in Phoney's dialogue.

A rather common nit is Phoney Bone's shirt, which is supposed to be black with a white star, occasionally being white with a white star.
I think Jeff Smith forgot to fill in the shirt with ink.

Warning! Spoiler!!! Don't read if you haven't read the ending of the series yet & want it to be a surprise!!!
The ending kind of baffled me. Fone Bone, Phoney Bone & Smiley Bone leave the valley to return to Boneville and everyone acts like the return will be permanent, which didn't make much sense.
Fone Bone loves Thorn. Thorn seems to love Fone Bone. The only reason for Fone Bone to return is that he promised Phoney Bone that he would, but that doesn't mean he has to stay in Boneville. Why is everyone acting like he'll never return? If Thorn loves him why is he leaving? For that matter why not invite Thorn & Grandma Ben to visit Boneville with them?

Additionally at the beginning of the story (just over a year earlier within the story) Phoney Bone was run out of Boneville. Why is Phoney so sure that Boneville wants him back?


By Luigi_novi (Luigi_novi) on Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 5:41 pm:

Bone was the second of three graphic novels that I read last week during my stay at my aunt's summer home down the shore, and by far it is my favorite.

I had heard boatloads of wonderful things about this book by everyone and their goldfish, and got around to buying a copy (IIRC) in September 2006. I was at the mall, and had to decide between buying the one-volume, 1,332 edition that collects the entire series, and the first volume that collects merely the first six issues. I decided on the latter, both to experience it in color (IIRC, the former was in b&w), and because most of my reading at the time was done commuting to and from work, and I need smaller books to fit in my shoulder bag.

What a WONDERFUL book.

The book comes across as a cross between a newspaper comic strip and Tolkien, with a genuine sense of mythology and buildup toward an epic story. I don't know where it's headed, but I want to go there. I wish I had bought every friggin' volume, which is what I'm going to do now. The characters are engaging, the artwork has a nice, straightforward style, and there's a really nice sense of sarcasm-laced humor in it. The setup that leads to the punchline of Gran'ma's meeting with Phoney Bone, and the visual beat of her reacting to his statment about her cows, is so funny, you just have to see it to believe it.

(Note: Although the collected trade paperback I read was published by Scholastic, I'm putting this under Cartoon Books, since that was the company that published most of the individual issues when it was first published in comics form.)


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