Jeff Smith's BONE Artist's Edition cover
BONE title page
BONE dedication and table of contents pages
I was a late arriver to the world of BONE. I think at the time, there was limited exposure for the book. The story that first captured my attention, was "The Great Cow Race." After reading that and meeting the cast, I was hooked. It was a mix of Walt Kelly's POGO and "The Lord of the Rings." There was adventure, intrigue, humor, and great animated style character design.
When looking at and reading the story, it's hard to really compare it to anything else out there. The style of the drawing is very charming, and looks like style guides for an animated feature. Based on the cartooniness, it might suggest that this is a humor/funny animal book. Although there are plenty of humorous situations and funny moments, the storytelling is much more layered and textured. Actually, there is a lot of very dark and foreboding sequences.
Jeff Smith's ability to create personalities out of white blobby creatures, is pretty jaw-dropping. I never thought I would become so immersed into the journey of the Bone cousins. What a pleasure and delight to be able to get up close and personal with the creations of Jeff Smith and his BONE universe.
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