Another fun crocheting blog: cthulhu crochet and cousins. I like it mainly because she has patterns for the creatures from the comic Bone on there.

I started reading Bone a couple of weeks ago - bought the first volume. Now I find I want to read them all. They're going on my "In case of sadness/freak out/frustrated by the world, pull books off here" shelf, along with the Little Dee collections, and the Owly books...I have a whole shelf of these comic book/graphic novel things that are selected to be things that are both diverting and capable of cheering me up.

The Bone series is interesting. It took me a bit to get into it because I have to admit I found the mix of rather slapstick humor (most of it involving Smiley Bone) and more serious, quest-like themes a little bit hard to adjust to...it's kind of like Looney Tunes meets Lord of the Rings, so it takes some getting used to.

The basic story (or at least as far as I've read - the end of Book 2) is this: Boneville is apparently this place where humanoid creatures (they are sort of rounded white things; they do look a bit like animated cartoon femurs) called Bones live. It seems to be a fairly advanced civilization (at least in comparison with where the three Bone cousins wind up): there is money, and nuclear power, and balloons, and such.

The Bone cousins are Fone Bone (a sort of kindly "Everyman" figure who carries around a copy of "Moby Dick"), Smiley Bone (who is cheerful but dim; a lot of the trouble happens because of that combination of personality traits he has), and Phoney Bone (Phoncible P. Bone; sort of a corrupt-businessman type who was apparently the reason the three cousins got thrown out of Boneville).

They wind up in a woodland country, rather like the Shire. Something is vaguely wrong in the country (but it's not entirely clear what, yet). There are rat creatures (which look more like spiders to me) that try to capture the Bones. (They are going after "the one that bears the star" - in other words, Phoney, who wears a t-shirt with a star on it). The reason for this is not entirely clear yet.

The cousins get separated. Fone winds up with Gran'ma Ben (one of the best characters in the series, IMHO), who is a tough clever old woman, and her granddaughter Thorn. (It is hinted that they are more than just a good old woman and a sweet young thing, but again, I think that's made clear in the later books).

Fone fits in pretty well - he's content to do chores, to help out. (And he's in love with Thorn). They find Phoney, who, true to his spoiled rotten nature, isn't all that helpful.

Oh, yeah, there's a fair involved. With a cow race. Or rather, a race of Gran'ma Ben vs. a bunch of cows. (Which she wins; she always does.) And there's some comic misadventures with Phoney trying to manipulate the betting on the race. And a Mystery Cow. And lots of things. It's a pretty dense story.

The characters are rather reminiscent in style of "Pogo" (another comic that I have a few books of, mostly purchased at used-book stores. They can get expensive. Though I do hear that Pogo is going to be reprinted in a book series sometime soon). In fact, Fone Bone looks a lot like Pogo, and is kind of like Pogo in personality. And Smiley Bone looks very much like a bleached Albert the Alligator (only his personality is a bit different); he even has the see-gar.

It's the kind of thing that makes me smile. I didn't read comic books much when I was a girl - part of it being that I think comics were kind of on the downswing in the 70s; there just weren't a lot of interesting ones out there. (I think that was when Archie comics were being used as a tool of Christian evangelism? I seem to remember that. Now, don't get me wrong - raised in the church, following that spiritual path and all - but I still did. not. like. the. comics. It was my first introduction to how that kind of thing can be done very badly, and, to paraphrase Hank Hill, make both comics and Christianity worse.)

Anyway. I also didn't read comics as a girl because it was seen as kind of a "boy" thing. (Though I didn't read "horse stories" either, which were kind of the "girl" equivalent). And there was some lingering prejudice that comics were bubblegum for the brain, that they were what underachievers read.

But now, as an adult, I'm coming to delight in comics...or "graphic novels," if you want to be all hoity-toity.

But what I like mostly would be called "comics," I think. The ones I go for are the ones called "all ages." "All ages" doesn't necessarily mean "aimed only at children." But even if it does, where's the harm. I find a certain comfort in re-reading the Owly stories (well, "reading" in the sense of looking at the pictures and interpreting the symbols used to stand in for dialog). Owly - with his cozy treehouse, and his eternal desire to be helpful and kind, and his cups of tea and books - is a nice anodyne for the pains brought on by the harsher aspects of our culture.

And Little Dee - I can laugh over Vachel's selfishness (but secretly, he's my favorite character). And again - there's a fundamental coziness to the stories. Nothing too bad happens. And I think there's some value in that, in having that kind of imagined place to escape to, where being sad can be made better by having a big friendly bear give you a hug and offer to make you a cup of cocoa.

The Bone series are a little different because they are a long story - a saga, if you will - but there's much of the same sense of sighing with relief as a part of my imagination slips the surly bonds of this earth and travels somewhere else, somewhere where good triumphs over evil, where people are kind to one another. And where a 80 year old woman can kick tail (literally) in a footrace.