On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. For joeys, the juveniles of possums, see Opossum. Bone is an American independently-published graphic novel series, bone in ribeye texas roadhouse and illustrated by Jeff Smith, originally serialized in 55 irregularly released issues from 1991 to 2004. Smith’s black-and-white drawings, inspired by animated cartoons and comic strips, are singularly characterized by a mixture of both light-hearted comedy and dark fantasy thriller.
The author, Jeff Smith, describes the comics as “a fish-out-of-water story. Bone has received numerous awards, among them ten Eisner Awards and eleven Harvey Awards. Fone Bone and his two cousins, Phoncible P. After crossing a desert, Smiley finds a hand-drawn map that they use to navigate their way across the fantasy landscape. The rest of the series is made up of similar quest stories, but with varying settings and plot lines. All of the comics maintain the elements of fantasy and humor that Smith employs in Out from Boneville, as well as the intensity of an adventure story. The Bone comics are a series of fictional graphic novels, that tells stories of mystery, romance and adventure.
The novels are written as fantasy stories, following a hero on their quest. They are also meant to be read as a comedy, with elements of sarcasm and exaggeration. Smith is the author of a few suspenseful mystery novels, but he mainly produces graphic novels. Over the years he has published other graphic novels, written comics for DC Comics and created other comic book series. He is most famous, however, for Bone. The author and illustrator, Jeff Smith, made the decision to create Bone in the classic black-and-white comic book style. Critics speculate that he did this so that he could maintain the clear lines that allow for exaggerated characters that contrast their subtle, detailed backgrounds.
The background of the story is mainly set in the Valley but Boneville is mentioned throughout. The series centers on the Bone cousins, bald cartoon characters. The group includes avaricious Phoncible P. Phoney” Bone, goofy cigar-smoking Smiley Bone, and everyman character Fone Bone.
Smith describes the characters in the comics as “modern” even though they possess the “timeless task of combating evil, in order that goodness may triumph”. The comics take place in a fantasy world. They are known for their adventurous story lines and their humor, but they are also said to have a “darker subtext about power and evil”. Author of the Bone comics, Jeff Smith, created the first sketch when he was about five years old, when he drew what looked like an old C-shaped telephone handset receiver. This original drawing, a frowning character with its mouth wide open, resembled characteristics of Phoney Bone, the grouchy cousin to Fone Bone.
In 1970, when Smith was ten, he began making these drawings into comics. The comics had many major influences throughout their creation. For example, Smith tried to pattern Bone structurally around Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Other influences in this regard include the original Star Wars trilogy, J. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and the classic fairy tales and mythologies that inspired those works. While Smith attended the Ohio State University, he created a comic strip called “Thorn” for the student newspaper, The Lantern, which included some of the characters who later featured in Bone.
After college, Smith and his friends produced animation work on commission in their studio, Character Builders Inc. Smith eventually came to decide that it was not the type of cartooning he wished to do. In 1991, Smith launched his company, Cartoon Books, to publish the series. Tall Tales, which has a new story surrounding reprints of the Big Johnson Bone story, the Disney Adventures story, and a few new tales. Issues from the Out from Boneville collection were also reprinted in the digest-sized children’s magazine Disney Adventures, first in 1994 and later in 1997 through 1998.
9 pages a month and were colored. The series was split into three-story arcs, each having two names, one being the original arc name, the other being the name used in the one volume edition, respectively as follows. From February 2005 to January 2009, Scholastic Inc. Some lines of dialogue were completely rewritten for these versions, and some story pages were added and others removed. One example of new material in Eyes of the Storm is Thorn and Fone in the garden talking about Ghost Circles. Four pages were excluded from the conversation between Thorn, Gran’ma and Fone in The Dragonslayer. Much of the dialogue on the remaining pages was edited as well, replaced with shorter lines.
In the same book, the frames from the last pages were completely rearranged, and some of the original ones were removed. Old Man’s Cave, Ghost Circles and Treasure Hunters. The first three volumes have been published in 2005, 2007, and 2009, respectively, though it is unclear whether the last six volumes will be reprinted. Jeff Smith’s Cartoon Books imprint in a paperback volume. In addition to the one-volume paperback, a signed limited edition hardcover edition of the one-volume book was issued.
The deluxe hardcover featured gold embossed lettering on the cover, gilded edges, and a cloth ribbon bookmark. The end pages are printed with a map of The Valley and it comes with a full-color signed and numbered bookplate. The collection won the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album-Reprint, and was listed at No. 3 in Time magazine’s “Best Comix of 2004”. In November 2011, for its 20th anniversary, a full-color, one-volume edition was released. It has a special section in the back with a cover gallery of the original comics, an illustrated timeline of Bone’s 20-year history, and an essay by author Jeff Smith.
Thorn: Tales from the Lantern: During college, Jeff Smith produced a series of comic strips that serve as a beta-version of the Bone series, though with the Bone cousins Fone and Phoney as supporting cast members and Thorn as the main character. The strips correspond with the first 28 issues of the Bone series, and was collected as a trade paperback after Smith graduated in 1989. It sold merely a thousand copies, and is currently out of print. Bone: Tall Tales: The story shows Smiley and Bartleby after the events in the main series. It is a repackaging of Stupid, Stupid Rat Tales, including a Disney Adventures short and new material. It was released on August 1, 2010. Bone Handbook is a 128-page handbook that chronicles the series and is accompanied by sketches, interviews, etc.