Bone

I love Bone. To me, Jeff Smith was the indie star of the 90s and not the founders of Image Comics (though Bone was published under Image at one point). It proved you could make an indie comic with mainstream appeal that didn't have to involve superheroes or licensed characters. It's Carl Barks meets Lord of the Rings. It's an all ages comics that truly lives up to that term. It's one of the most influential comics in history and I hope its impact will be recognized for years to come.

But enough of my hyperbolic praise. Has anyone else read these comics?

edited 21st Oct '14 11:23:50 PM by DS9guy

I browsed through a few of them some time ago.

Wasn't there a scene where Fone Bone bled from his head though?

Wouldn't surprise me. When some Bone stories were put into Disney Adventures Magazine, they censored references to alcohol and toned down the language.

I saw it in Disney Adventures ages ago and loved it. Then I found a copy of issue #9 at a Waldenbooks that was going out of business, so I figured I would get the rest. I bought Volumes 1-3 off Amazon and the rest at a Books-a-Million when I was on vacation in Nashville. That was 4 years ago and I still haven't finished it. Lazy much?

I loved this series when it came out on Disney Adventures and when I finally picked up the rest of the series, it got even better and better! I wish I had the complete series.

I have all of them in full colour. It was awesome, and I really need to reread them some time.

I keep meaning to get this. Should I get it in colour or not?

Yes, get it in color, definitely.

Yeah, I'm going to try to collect this series in color.

I'd recommend at least checking out the original black and white version at some point. The line work is really lovely.

I've got the omnibus edition. That thing is a brick.

Yeah, I might also try to get the omnibus, even though I wanted it in color, but I did enjoy the black and white artwork also!

I saw the omnibus at Barnes & Noble. I just think it looks so much better in color, even though the inks are wonderful.

Yeah, I think the characters come out much livelier in color.

There are scenes that work better in black and white though. The storm scenes for example.

Anyone seen Jeff Smith's other comic, RASL? I saw a copy at a local bookstore.

I reread all of Bone recently and its even better than I remember. Amazing worldbuilding, wonderful characters, mysticism, royalty, intrigue, lessons on the value of small acts of kindness, you name it. Everything about this story works so well.

I am really, really glad that horror story of an adaptation way back when didn't get made, but now I'm kind of hoping the right director could come along and give this story the focus it deserves on some kind of screen (I'm not sure whether it'd be a better tv miniseries or film series). If not, it's just as well - the comic tells its story more than well enough that it doesn't need Adaptation Expansion or anything like that.

I had no idea until recently that Jeff Smith had finished this series. I used to buy and read it back in the early 90s, but the schedule seemed so irregular to me that I gave up on it around issue 20. I still have the first 20 issues (my copy of issue 1 is a fifth printing!), but I seriously need to get the collected edition and read the whole story. It really is a fun mix of humor and high fantasy.

I'd only heard about the story back in the day, but more recently I read through the whole thing and I'm going to guess that it probably reads a lot better as a collected stories (whether as an omnibus or over 9 TP Bs) than as individual issues.

I recall that he was able to hit a bimonthly schedule pretty regularly, for a while anyhow. I remember fans complaining that he eventually seemed to be writing with the TPB's in mind; there were whole issues that were mostly silent that play pretty well in collected form but felt like a cheat if you were reading month to month (people felt miffed that they waited two months for an issue they could read in less than 5 minutes).

Blargh, someone wanna tell me where I put my Bone books when I moved?

I would consider it disturbing if I actually knew the answer to that question.

I read an interview book about Jeff Smith. Apparently, the reason he published Bone under Image, starting with issue 21, was that The Great Comics Crash Of 1996 was just getting started and he needed a safe haven to be in until the industry was stable again. Once that happened, he went back to self publishing with issue 28.

i've only read a little bit of bone but it was apparent to me from just a volume or two that jeff smith was probably one of the better creative talents to come out of the american comics scene in the last few decades. i don't know that many artists who i'd consider gifted in said industry (though there are plenty of great ones all the same), but smith is one of them.

edited 20th Mar '15 9:54:42 PM by wehrmacht

Not to say Smith isn't talented, as he is, but you really don't feel a lot of American comics artists are talented? Seriously? Sure, there are plenty of artists who suck, but there are loads who are exceptionally talented as well.

i should have probably worded that better.

there are a lot of very good artists in western comics...but i don't think most of them are quite "there" yet, so to speak. i think the last time i looked at a western comic and thought i was looking at a master level of art was juanjo guarnido's work in Blacksad. I single out Jeff Smith in particular because he's very good at gestures and expressions and it really makes his work stand out. i feel like it's very difficult to mistake any of the bones for the other because most of them have very distinct expressions and mannerisms; in short, he's a really good visual storyteller...which seems to be a pretty rare skill, regardless of what industry it is.

i probably shouldn't have singled out the western industry in particular, it's just i know less western artists general and most of the super great ones aren't really working in comics.

edited 20th Mar '15 10:03:08 PM by wehrmacht