Eye of the Storm (Bone #16) ★★☆☆☆

 

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Title: Eye of the Storm
Series: Bone #16
Author: Jeff Smith
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 22
Words: 1K

We get 22 pages of Gran’ma Ben, Thorn and Fone Bone running in the dark and rain away from a huge swarm of rat creatures and Gran’ma Ben being all angry about the red dragon. Fone hollers out for the dragon’s help, it comes and chases the rat creatures away, disappears and Gran’ma reveals that the dragon doesn’t always come and that’s why she is so angry at it. The issue ends with a big text “Next: Gran’ma’s Story”.

Gotta admit, if I had paid the cover price of $3 and this was all I had gotten, I’d have screamed bloody murder, called Smith some foul and uncomplimentary names and quit Bone and begin an Anti-Jeff Smith crusade to destroy him for taking my hard earned money and giving me nothing but this. I do not know how this comic survived, I really don’t! Smith is milking this like it’s a pregnant holstein cow (the black and white ones you always see in movies or cartoons giving milk) and he’s doing it shamelessly. I was actually tempted to just stop myself right now in a show of solidarity with my imaginary self. But of course I didn’t pay $3 for this and I am going to keep reading. But knowing that the next couple of issues will be prequel stuff about Gran’ma Ben means that not only has the forward motion of the plot (which we really haven’t had any of for quite a few issues it seems) stopped, but now we’re going backwards. Sigh.

That being said, while I really do try to keep the author out of the story in how I rate or review things, my opinion of Smith is about at its lowest so far. What he gave me could have been done in about 5 pages and the story line advanced a bit more. When I started reading this individual issue by individual issue I was wondering why there were so many (I believe there are 55 issues) and now I know.

I realize you might be wondering why I don’t just dnf this or read them all at once and call it a day. The truth is that I couldn’t afford comics until my later teen years and thus never had the experience of reading something on a monthly basis. That experience is what I am trying to capture by reading this series this way. While it is voluntary on my part, back in the day it wasn’t voluntary and I want to know what that was like, frustrations and all. So that is why. Whether it makes sense to you or not :-)

★★☆☆☆

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