Bone - First Appearance (Cerebus the Aardvark)

By Jeff Smith

I haven't read Bone before and so starting with the first issue, we see Phoney Bone walking out of a forest and complaining about his cousin, Fone Bone who may be at Phoney's home now eating his food and ditching him to make his way back alone. In Bone's opinion he's the wealthiest of Boneville and pities his predicament when he runs into a dinosaur-seeming creature and asks if he knows about his cousin's whereabouts, which doesn't get answered, until a little guy gets his attention and tries to get Bone to move further away from possible trouble, Bone not paying him any mind and asking the same question of him. When he doesn't get any real clues though, he then demands to be taken to his leader, which the bug supposes the closest to a leader would be someone called Thorn's Grandma. So they head off to uncover her where-abouts and then run into her coming back somewhere down the road.

The Grandma then threatens bodily harm to Bone when he doesn't take her kind offer of riding one of her racing cows, kindly, where we then see her grand-daughter is in her grandmother's abode and Fone Bone is with her, seemingly love-struck as they wait for her return to see if she'll agree to Fone Bone's being able to stay there. Then they first hear and then see the cows and her grandmother running beside them, with Phoney Bone taking the cow for a ride as they come back, to Fone Bone's surprise. Phoney Bone does not making a graceful entrance, since the cow seemed to have gone out of control and threw Phoney through the front door whilst the grandmother yanked the tail of the cow to keep it from slamming through the door as well. Then the grandma meets Fone Bone and whilst they seem to get along better, she deduces why her grand-daughter had brought him over and squashes the thought straight from the start and then Phoney Bone is trying to get out of there as quickly as possible whilst Fone Bone believes the grandmother can help them get back to Boneville.

Phoney Bone is then introduced to Thorn and he embarrasses Fone Bone, but first they'd discuss whether either had seen the third in their party, their other cousin, Smiley, who neither knew the whereabouts of. This is when the grandmother relents to the two staying, but in the barn and Thorn and Fone discuss the plan of trying to keep their relatives calm until they can go to town together, which is when Fone goes to powwow with Phoney, but finds him dismantling the delicious pie Thorn had made for her grandmother, due to hunger and Thorn discovers them both sitting there, with the rest of the pie shaping Fone's head with Phoney sitting pretty claiming not to know anything about it, ending the first issue. I understand now why this is entertaining at least. I'll be interested in seeing where it goes.