trying_to_swim2710's review
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
moonshake's review against another edition
5.0
say -what-. new goal in life is to make something half as good as this
m__montes's review against another edition
5.0
Se puede encontrar repartido en 9 volúmenes o en una versión completa en un solo tomo. Comencé mi afición por la novela gráfica con esta saga hace ya varios años y me sigue pareciendo estupenda.
Llena de aventuras y muy divertida.
Llena de aventuras y muy divertida.
neartaking's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
micahstudies's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
gray_ghost's review against another edition
5.0
My favorite graphic novel. Amazing fantasy combined with an adorable and unforgettable cast.
grondboek's review
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
lilaceous's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
characters - ⭐️
illustrations - ⭐️
effective storytelling - .5⭐️
engaging to read - ⭐️
would recommend - ⭐️
this series was such a treat to come back to as an adult. i had a great time hehe.
this series was such a treat to come back to as an adult. i had a great time hehe.
600bars's review against another edition
4.0
My coworkers were all talking about having read this as a kid and I remember people reading it but I never got around to it back in the day. They found me an enormous 1300 page omnibus so I could read it all in one shot instead of waiting for the store to get all 9 volumes. However I did take whatever stand-alone volumes we had on hand because the omnibus is in black and white but the individual ones are in color, and tbh the color made a big difference in my enjoyment. I can’t tell if it’s just “whatever you had first”, because when I’ve looked at color editions of From Hell I think the b&w version is so much more effective. I liked the red eyes of the Rat Creatures, and at one point the crew is trudging through a volcanic wasteland covered in ash, but when I was reading it in black and white I realized I was imagining it to be cold and snowy but when I switched back to color it was clearly ash and fire.
Anywayyyyy this was super cute and fun!! It follows 3 bone creatures (not sure what they are) who have a much more cartoony style than any of the other characters. THey have an Edd ed & eddy dynamic– Phoney Bone is like Eddy where he has a single minded focus on attaining money and power, and he’s always got some get-rich-quick scheme that usually has disastrous results. Smiley Bone is the Ed, he’s larger than the others and is the “dumb one” although he frequently shows kindness and caring which he doesn’t get enough credit for. Fone Bone is the everyman, he’s kindhearted, morally upright, down bad for a girl, and obsessed with reading Moby Dick. The Bone cousins get run out of town due to one of Phoney Bone’s schemes, and they stumble upon a mysterious valley. At first things are cute and funny and they fall into the shenanigans of the valley. These include Phoney Bone commiting fraud and a gambling scheme, and running a protection racket. They stay with a kindly badass old lady named Grandma Ben and her granddaughter Thorn, who Fone Bone is obsessed with.
Halfway through the series there’s an abrupt shift in tone and it becomes a fantasy epic with quests and factions and battles and war and usurpers and dragons and secret monk orders and all that stuff. Which I tend to love. (spoiler alert but not really because it’s obvious from the beginning) Thorn and her Grandma are actually part of a government in exile, Thorn is the princess and Granma Ben was the Queen Mother until they were betrayed. The villain of the story is the Lord of the Locusts, an almost Lovecraftian entity who doesn’t have a physical form and is seeking a ritual sacrifice so he can get a physical body and rule. He’s currently trapped inside the Original Dragon who is an ouroboros named Mim but they’ve turned to stone so he can only show up in the form of a swarm of locusts or if he takes on a host body. The residents of the valley are also facing the encroachments of the Rat Creatures who are not respecting their treaty to stay out of the valley. (The rat creatures are mostly idiots, including two especially lovable idiots that have a running gag about eating Quiche that made me laugh every time. But I am still confused about the timeline of their treaty and who was inhabiting the valley first… if they were there first then I see why they’d be upset that the humans live there… Justice for the Rat Creatures idk we don’t get to learn all that much about their society).
It has lots of tropes and cliches, but the characters are very lovable and the humorous moments make it stand out. I started getting a little lost in all the lore because of the way the lore dumps are, and usually that is what I love about fantasy stories but here I was just getting a bit confused. The ending was abrupt–like all of a sudden if she just finds the crown of horns everything will be solved, but the crown of horns wasn’t brought up until very near to the end? Still, I really liked reading this. My roommate was very stressed out taking their prelim exams this week and was excited to see that I had them because they had enjoyed the series as a child. We had a very wholesome evening of reading the comics with an assembly line system where I was one volume ahead and we kept trading between the color and black and white copies. It was so cute
Anywayyyyy this was super cute and fun!! It follows 3 bone creatures (not sure what they are) who have a much more cartoony style than any of the other characters. THey have an Edd ed & eddy dynamic– Phoney Bone is like Eddy where he has a single minded focus on attaining money and power, and he’s always got some get-rich-quick scheme that usually has disastrous results. Smiley Bone is the Ed, he’s larger than the others and is the “dumb one” although he frequently shows kindness and caring which he doesn’t get enough credit for. Fone Bone is the everyman, he’s kindhearted, morally upright, down bad for a girl, and obsessed with reading Moby Dick. The Bone cousins get run out of town due to one of Phoney Bone’s schemes, and they stumble upon a mysterious valley. At first things are cute and funny and they fall into the shenanigans of the valley. These include Phoney Bone commiting fraud and a gambling scheme, and running a protection racket. They stay with a kindly badass old lady named Grandma Ben and her granddaughter Thorn, who Fone Bone is obsessed with.
Halfway through the series there’s an abrupt shift in tone and it becomes a fantasy epic with quests and factions and battles and war and usurpers and dragons and secret monk orders and all that stuff. Which I tend to love. (spoiler alert but not really because it’s obvious from the beginning) Thorn and her Grandma are actually part of a government in exile, Thorn is the princess and Granma Ben was the Queen Mother until they were betrayed. The villain of the story is the Lord of the Locusts, an almost Lovecraftian entity who doesn’t have a physical form and is seeking a ritual sacrifice so he can get a physical body and rule. He’s currently trapped inside the Original Dragon who is an ouroboros named Mim but they’ve turned to stone so he can only show up in the form of a swarm of locusts or if he takes on a host body. The residents of the valley are also facing the encroachments of the Rat Creatures who are not respecting their treaty to stay out of the valley. (The rat creatures are mostly idiots, including two especially lovable idiots that have a running gag about eating Quiche that made me laugh every time. But I am still confused about the timeline of their treaty and who was inhabiting the valley first… if they were there first then I see why they’d be upset that the humans live there… Justice for the Rat Creatures idk we don’t get to learn all that much about their society).
It has lots of tropes and cliches, but the characters are very lovable and the humorous moments make it stand out. I started getting a little lost in all the lore because of the way the lore dumps are, and usually that is what I love about fantasy stories but here I was just getting a bit confused. The ending was abrupt–like all of a sudden if she just finds the crown of horns everything will be solved, but the crown of horns wasn’t brought up until very near to the end? Still, I really liked reading this. My roommate was very stressed out taking their prelim exams this week and was excited to see that I had them because they had enjoyed the series as a child. We had a very wholesome evening of reading the comics with an assembly line system where I was one volume ahead and we kept trading between the color and black and white copies. It was so cute