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Title: Dreams
Series: Bone #18
Author: Jeff Smith
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 22
Words: 1K
From Bookstooge.blog
Thorn realizes that all of her dreams have been memories and gets all butt hurt at Gran’ma Ben for not telling her all these years. Gran’ma goes stubborn and won’t talk, Thorn goes all stubborn and won’t talk and Fone is stuck in the middle. Meanwhile, at the bar Lucius reveals the bet between him and Phoney and when things start going bad for Phoney, he wishes that Fone’s Dragon was there. This leads everyone to start questioning him, rather threateningly.
Finally, the various Bone characters start getting on track into one plot. With Phoney’s reveal to the town folk that he knows about a dragon, and Gran’ma Ben revealing Thorn’s history, everybody is about to be on the same page.
But you know what? Not. Quite. Yet. Because Smith is a bonehead and spends 3 pages showing us what should take a mere panel. There are several pages where he re-uses the same art but changes how an arm is resting or where a character is looking and we get about 10 words of text. It is beyond blatantly obvious that he is either puffing things up or is floundering and trying to give himself some operating space.
It is amazing to me seeing how a story, spaced out in monthly installments, shows such a markedly different set of weaknesses from the collected story. This is why I am not a fan of serial fiction either. Even if the author knows exactly where they are going, it is still a big pain in the butt to read on THEIR schedule and not mine. Maybe that had as much to do with me not reading a lot of comics as much any economic reasons.
Like I have stated before, I’m going to read this comic, issue by issue, even if it kills me. It just might too, hahahahahaa 😀
★✬☆☆☆
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
Weird that he was just dragging things out. But that’s something a lot of serials struggle with.
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I don’t know if he didn’t know yet what direction he was going, or if it was something else, but man, it’s really obvious since I’m reading these on an individual level instead of the whole story.
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Happens with a lot of comics though. Even the best superhero comics just cycle through the same plot over and over.
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Yep. and if one is expecting that, you can kind of get along with it. But with the price Smith was charging (3-4 times the price of an average marvel/dc comic book), I expect premium content in every issue.
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Three bucks for 22 pages seems like a lot.
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And when it is obviously filler, that makes it even worse. I doubt I’d pay 3bucks for this even today!
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$2.99 is a minimum price point for most comics.
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Not in the 90’s. 75 cents, then a buck, and I can remember the furor when it went to 1.25….
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Oh, yeah, I was talking about today’s prices.
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I think DC has moved things up to 4 or 5 now. Wakizashi, a comics guy I follow who lives in Japan, has talked about this very issue. Comics aren’t for kids any more…
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oooph 1.5 stars? Hope it doesnt kill you just yet, we have other issues to still get through…
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I’m going to stick this year out with the individual issues, no matter what. If they all end up being like this, then next year I’ll seriously considering reading the various omnibus versions….
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Sounds like this reread is not going well for you. Is it because you space out the issues over time?
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That is exactly the issue. Like I told Dave (above/below?), I’m going to stick to this one issue a month for ’23 but if it is still driving me batty, I’ll seriously consider going to the smaller omnibus editions next year.
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Oh this isn’t going so well. I’m sure I’ve read some good reviews by you for some of your Boney/Phoney comics, fingers crossed for some more.
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Yeah, it’s the pace which is killing this for me. I hope things pick up soon, I could use it!
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It sure makes you wonder how successful it actually was when sold as issues back in the day.
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I know they started selling the omnibuses pretty quickly. I think I saw a couple for sale in this volume already. There were a total of 10 omnibuses by the end of the series, so about 6 issues per omnibus? That would have helped a lot for pacing I think. If it keeps being bad pacing, after this year I’ll start reading a bunch of issues at once….
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