Bone by Jeff Smith

I read a few pages of the beginning of this comic when they were in Disney Adventures magazine. I really liked it then, and had been hoping to find a copy of the book for some time. Well, now I have, and I have to say--wow! It's so much more than I expected it to be. Like with webcomics and other serially published stories, I have to wonder how much the author knew or planned from the beginning. Was this sweeping fantasy epic in the works when I read about three cousins run out of Boneville and met a talking leaf bug and a cow-racing grandmother, or did it evolve as Smith wrote? Either way, it is extremely successful at moving from humble beginnings to a world-changing tale. Sometimes, with such things as the "lost princess" theme, it does seem a bit stereotypical, but the characters and the storytelling make up for it.