Product Description

An American graphic novel first! The complete 1300-page epic adventure from start to finish in one deluxe trade paperback. Three modern cartoon cousins get lost in a pre-technological valley, speanding a year there making new friends and out-running dangerous enemies. Their many adventures include crossing the local people in The Great Cow Race, and meeting a giant mountain lion called RockJaw: Master of the Eastern Border. They learn about sacrifice and hardship in The Ghost Circles and finally discover their own true natures in the climatic journey to The Crown of Horns.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13354 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1300 pages

Customer Reviews

Bonetastic!
I'd heard of Bone in the 90s in various comic-related magazines and through the grapevine, but had never read an issue. Coming from a superhero-only comic background it just never, to my shame, appealed to me. Something tickled my curiosity about Bone a month or so back and I finally took a chance on this well regarded book. I started with the Out From Boneville TPB (£5.02 from Amazon!) and was amazed by quality of the story and the charm of the characters. Off the back of that book I decided to get this one volume collection as opposed to the nine individual volumes. This is the best book purchase I've made in years.

One of the best comics I have ever read!!!
I had heard a lot of comments about Jeff Smiths Bone, but never got around to check it out. Last year (read: 2004), I spotted this collected edition of the entire series at the Gothenburg Book Fair. It was a nice looking edition, but I figured that I could still get it cheaper via the internet and well, I was right about that. The collection was purchased during the fall, but remained unread on the bookshelf for a long time; I guess one hesitates to start on a 1300(+) pages volume. When I recently got around to reading it, I was just blown away. It is quite honestly one of the best comics I have ever read - well, among the best anything I have ever read to be honest, and in that sense it ranks up there with other comics like Alan Moore's From Hell, J. M. DeMatteis's Moonshadow and Will Eisner's To the Heart of the Storm. That being said, Bone is very different from these graphic novels.

Bone is a warm, funny and intelligent fantasy narrative which told by someone in complete control of the medium he works in. Everything is narrated either entirely visually or through dialogue (i.e. no captions). Long 'silent' passages acquire an almost filmic quality and are expertly balanced with regards to the dialogue which sometimes become almost philosophical or historical in its tone, but never becomes dreary. Jeff Smith uses the medium of comics extremely well and the result is pure joy to read.

Add to all of the above that Smith has managed to put together a phenomenal character gallery, create an expanding, well structured and very intelligent plot, and that the style of his art is quite exquisite. This is clearly a strongly recommended purchase and read. This collected format, apart from looking very nice in the shelf, also has the advantage of containing the whole story... And believe me, once you start, you will not want to stop until it's all done.

Much better in one volume
I spent more than a decade collecting the individual issues of Bone. The wait of 2 or more months between issues hardly did it any favours and I have to admit that it had started to lose me about halfway through as it seemed to become incredibly twee.

There's no denying it has certain twee elements, but what struck me reading the all-in-one edition is how much more funny, more adult and more dark it was than I remembered. The story, as a whole, really does work much better than the original issues.

Ultimately, this Disney-meets-Tolkien style book isn't going to appeal to all. But it holds up very well, and people like myself who grew up with Rupert Bear Annuals will notice some similarities. Don't miss the single edition - I understand its a limited printing.