Bone Volume 8 Treasure Hunters [Paperback]

"Bone" is an huge story about three "bone creatures" and their adventures in a quaint valley of peasants, hidden princesses, dragons and creatures. Like a dark cloud looming over it all is the menace of a great evil intent on taking over the world. The series starts off lighthearted, but grows to become an epic story rooted in fantasy, without the Tolkienesque elves and dwarves.

This installment bring us into a city rather than the valley that has been at the center of the series. The forward progression for the grand tale is small indeed here. Instead, Smith begins to position all of the pieces of the puzzle for the final climax, while unexpectedly adding a few new pieces - a religious tyrant and an underground rebellion - to make the climax all that much more frantic.

Most of the action in "Treasure Hunters" takes place in the city. Few side plots or diversions outside of the city show up. The result is one of the faster reads of the "Bone" series.
This is the kind of comic tale that will appeal to a wide demographic. Smith combines the classic storytelling perfected by the likes of Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge) and Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes) - characters with outrageous and expressive faces and gestures - with the epic plotting of a sweeping fairy tale. "Bone" manages to balance the two well enough to be something fans of both Donald Duck and Frodo Baggins can enjoy.

There is no doubt people will still be reading "Bone" 50 years from now. Broad and epic in scope yet personal and quaint, this is a charming story in every way that will surely outlast most other comic works on the shelf.

Generally speaking, I love the Bone series, and I have rated all of the previous books with five stars. However there are some weak points in this book which prevent me from giving it five stars. One point is that the shift from the outdoors to the city gives this book a rather cramped feel. I believe that Jeff Smith has a certain talent for drawing outdoor scenes, and that talent doesn't seem to be in use in this book. Another point is that a lot of new characters are introduced, which takes away page space from the characters we already know and love, and what is worse, the new characters are not in the least bit interesting. They are all stock types. Also I cringed to see the appearance of dwarfs and gnomes in the city. One of the points I liked about the Bone series is the freedom it had from the typical swords and sorcery fantasy, but I guess he ran out of ideas.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad book. It's just not as good as the others. Of course if you're following the Bone story, you have to get this. Let's just hope that Smith regains his touch in the next book. Oh, and no more gnomes please.