Humans and Other Myths

I just realized, after all this time of doing Humans and Other Myths, I haven’t done ANY blogging.  I am now making a change to that.  Since I (try to) read a lot, I thought I’d do a little piece once a week titled “What I’m Reading”.  I’m doing a similar blog over at Heroes, inc., but since I’m always reading at least five different books or comic books there’s plenty for both sites.

So… among other things I’m reading…

I’ve known of Bone for the longest time, but have never picked it up (well, only to skim through it at a friend’s house) because it seemed aimed towards kids.  It has that “Smurfy” look to it.  I’ve heard over and over again that, though pretty child friendly, it’s not aimed at children.  It’s won TONS of awards and I keep reading how the story is of a scale of “Lord of the Rings”   After recently listening to an  interview with Bone creator Jeff Smith at ComicGeekSpeak podcast, I decided to finally find out for myself what this is all about.

I started with a single issue, which was one of the original black & white ones.  The story starts with three Bone cousins out in the desert:  The main character (so far at least)  Fone Bone,  comic relief cigar-smoking Smiley Bone and greedy Phoncible P. “Phoney” Bone.  They’ve been thrown out of their village, Boneville, for reasons that aren’t quite clear to the reader.  Soon enough they get seperated by a swarm of locusts and Fone Bone stumbles into a valley where he encounters all kinds of creatures.  One of the characters he meets is a young girl named Thorn who he instantly has a crush on.

The story is fun.  It kept me turning the page. I really liked the black & white, but after purchasing the first volume and seeing the coloring job Steve Hamaker (a fan of the series brought on board) has done, I’ll be sticking to the great colored versions. The creator, Jeff Smith, has said he’s a big fan of Walt Kelly’s Pogo and you can tell.  The style is very Pogo as is the humour. A  few of the characters even have cigar stubs hanging from their mouth.

And yes, it also has that “Smurfy” look, but after you get into it and the story really opens up it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m half way through the first volume and really look forward to the next ones.

SO NO MAJOR SPOILER, PLEASE!

Though there are the “rat creatures” which are gangly, big teethed, rather unintelligent “monsters” the series is pretty kid friendly. So any child that’s old enough to read and understands that this is just a story, shouldn’t have any problems. This would also be an excellent Christmas present for my daughter.  It would be great to share this adventure with her.

-Scott-