Bone #5: Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border Book

Yuck.

There was something so very enticing about the previous BONE comics; reading them was a treat. Sadly, that is gone from ROCK JAW.

Firstly there's the problem of balance. The first four BONE books had something grand and mysterious about them: cosmic forces, mysterious backgrounds, a landscape with ancient history.



Of course, the grandness was balanced with some very down-to-earth silly humor. But while we have the plain Bones running around, we also have more mysterious, more compelling characters - Lucius, Rose, the Great Red Dragon, even Thorn.

ROCK JAW's main flaw was this lack of balance. The whole story was about Phone Bone and Smiley Bone running around the mountains, trying to escape the Rat Creatures and Rock Jaw/Roque Ja. But the part that made me headdesk was the cutesification of the whole thing. In OUT FROM BONEVILLE, there were cute little animals, and they helped balance out the darker edges of the story. Here, however, our friends the Bones and their cute animal pals (don't ask) must use the power of teamwork to defeat the bully Rock Jaw and the mean Rat Creatures who ate their poor parents!

Even the more deliciously mysterious elements do not make it through unharmed; the hum of the earth can apparently be heard by the cutie patootie animals, and guess what they call it? Hum-hum. Yes. I'm serious. The spirit worlds, the magic... all these things which helped the world feel grand and mysterious, are reduced to some hum-hum nonsense.

Cheap, stupid humor also overrides this volume - I usually HATE "idiot characters" used only for comic relief, but I actually liked Smiley Bone... until his idiocy started running rampant in this volume, and I actually considered DNFing, even though the BONE series are one of my favorite comics ever.

Then there's the problem of plot, where Jeff Smith eschews a beautiful, elaborate, complex plot, such as those in previous BONE books, for a straightforward "OMG ESCAPE THE BAD GUYS!!" plot. Then things started falling apart. There are plot holes. The twist about Phoney Bone is ridiculous. The Rat Creatures are turned from a serious threat who's plans are hard to guess into a silly bunch who can't do anything right. The story is overly exposition-y, which bogges down the story. Yuck.

The art is still dynamic and expressive, but even that... the mountains are plain and rocky, so even in the occasional larger panels, there's nothing eyecatching. Even the temple is plain and unmysterious.

If there's one good thing I'll say, it's that there was a little, little, tiny little bit of good/evil exploration that I always look for in books. However, it's not even explored well here.

No matter how much it pains me to say it, don't waste your time with this one and read a summary instead.