posted 01-09-2001 03:14 AM               

Out from Boneville, the first volume, introduces Fone Bone, Smiley Bone and Phoney Bone, three cousins who have been run out of their home town of Boneville due to the latest of Phoney's schemes. After getting lost in a desert, the strange-looking Bones are overcome by a swarm of locusts and separated. Fone Bone finds himself wandering through a forest, encountering hostile rat creatures, sympathetic bugs and possums, a mysterious dragon, and finally a girl named Thorn. Thorn offers to let Bone accompany her and her Grandma Ben to the local village of Barrelhaven to look for his cousins; Phoney and Smiley, meanwhile, have adventures of their own as they make their way to the village as well. Meanwhile, the sinister force that controls the rat creatures is searching for Phoney, as an old conflict appears to be boiling back to the surface.

The art, as I said, is deceptively simple - Smith uses very few lines to create his world and characters, but he uses those well, whether to express a character's emotion or to convey action. And there is plenty of action in Out from Boneville. The story appears at first to be played mainly for laughs, as Phoney wallows in misery at his fate, but the danger of the situation becomes evident when Fone Bone has his first encounter with the rat creatures. The design of the Bones is outstanding. These creatures are so odd-looking, but appealing at the same time, and whether it's because they're so darned cute or because the abstractness of the design makes it easier to project emotions onto them, they are sympathetic and entertaining protagonists - even the irascible Phoney. Smith has a marvelous sense of pacing as well - he'll often "hold a shot" by essentially repeating panels, to build tension and heighten the emotion of a scene. And he engages the reader by not showing some of the most significant scenes of the story - by letting the dialogue and the reactions of other characters carry the story, he makes many scenes funnier or more dramatic than they might be if he actually showed us the punch line.

The story is similar to the art in its deceptiveness - what appears at first to be a mostly-humorous tale of the three lost Bones quickly becomes something more, with hints dropped and mysteries raised. Who is the mysterious Hooded One that commands the rat creatures and their leader, the giant Kingdok? Why is he searching for Phoney so intently? What was the big war, in which Gran'ma Ben last fought the rat creatures? What past does she share with Lucius Down, owner of Barrelhaven's tavern? And why is Thorn having such strange dreams? The intrigue and complexity of the backstory are not the primary attractions, here, though - instead, it is the skill with which Smith tells the story at hand while dropping the hints of what is to come. Smith has a marvelous sense of pacing - his cliffhangers will leave you with a sense of dread and/or excitement that will have you eagerly turning pages or reaching for the next volume. His dialogue can go for the ridiculous punch line (Fone: "Maybe next time you'll think twice before you build an orphanage on a hazardous waste landfill!!" Phoney: "What is wrong with that?! That's two community services rolled into one!! It was th' ultimate tax shelter!"), or deftly convey the emotion of a scene like the Bones' reunion, and ring true in either case.

In a nutshell, Out from Boneville is a great, great book. If you're looking for a comics that's appropriate for kids, this is it. If you're looking for a comic that's a great and satisfying read for adults - this is it too.