Jeff Smith's "Bone"

I probably enjoyed Bone more than I did anything else I read this semester. I started reading it and barely stopped until I had finished it a few days later. Everything about this book drew me in, from it's deceptively varied character designs, to it's enormous, fantastic, sometimes even surreal setting. When I first started reading, I was surprised by the stark difference in appearance between the simple, cartoonish Bone siblings and just about every other character in the series. It provided a strange, but unique set of protagonists and oftentimes seemed as though someone had plucked cartoon characters from the 1930's and suddenly dropped them into an enormous Tolkienesque world, and it works far better than one would expect. 

The story gradually progresses from cheerful and idealistic to something surprisingly dark, but the shift never feels awkward or out of place. I think my favorite part of the series is that it very rarely, but not never, really loses its humorous touch, even once the very serious plot points kick into gear and horrors like the Lord of the Locusts enter the picture. The characters all play off of each other perfectly, recurring gags work themselves into unexpected places (I will never get tired of “STUPID, STUPID RAT CREATURES!”) and there's a certain darkly amusing juxtaposition of the Casper-like Fone Bone playing the hero against gruesome monsters like Kingdok. However, when the series actually does choose to play itself completely straight, it pulls no punches whatsoever, and the impact is staggering. The violence isn't softened at all, and the old, unspoken rule of never presenting a major heroine being roughed up and scarred as a male hero would be is entirely averted. I'm probably going to reread this over break, just because it's left such an impact on me. 

I just want to comb this comic, break it down, and pick through the pieces to see what makes it tick. I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone.