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Title: Thorn
Series: Bone #2
Authors: Jeff Smith
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 28
Words: 1K

Synopsis:

From Boneville.fandom.com

Fone Bone is now living in the Valley and has befriended some of the woodland creatures. Near the end of winter, his friend Miz Possum has Fone Bone babysit her kids for a short time while she goes to visit Miz Hedgehog. While playing with him, the kids run out of the house and get caught by the Rat Creatures. Fone Bone snatches the kids from the Rat Creatures and tells them to run while he creatures a distraction. The Rat Creatures chase Fone Bone for awhile but they are again chased away by The Great Red Dragon. The dragon gives him a brief blast of fire (at this Fone Bone questions his choice to let the Rat Creatures go) and tells him to "never use an ace when a two will do." Fone Bone finds the Possum Kids, who have managed to get to Miz Possum safely. They acknowledge he was chased by Rat Creatures but don't know the part about the dragon (The kids claim that dragons don't exist, and their mother (plus Miz Hedgehog) agree, saying that he was adding to his "dashing" story). Fuming, he goes to the hot springs to take a bath and finds a beautiful woman and almost immediately falls head over heels in love. She tells Fone Bone that her name is Thorn (who Ted told him to find). Unfortunately for Fone Bone, she has never heard of Boneville but offers to help by letting him stay at the farmhouse which Fone Bone accepts.

My Thoughts:

Once again, Smith has impressed the everliving daylights out of me with this single comic issue. Fone Bone has an adventure, learns about the valley, meets Thorn and falls in love. All in 28 pages.

He has another run in with the rat creatures and the dragon saves him but nobody seems to believe that the dragon is real and only Thorn believes the rat creatures are real. And Fone is disappointed to learn that Thorn has no idea where Boneville is, so she'll not be able to help him return.

Smith's humor is a bit skewed and I really like it. I've included a pix here to illustrate it:

While it's not a Laugh Out Loud moment, it does showcase that sly humor mixed with slapstick that really appeals to me.

I like that so far, each of these comics has advanced the plot in a decided direction. Here Fone meets Thorn and begins his quest to find his cousins. It is a concrete goal with real steps being taken to follow through on it. No dream sequences or social commentary or other “messages”. Just Smith telling a fun story.

Bravo.

★★★★☆ ( )