Bone (comics) - Spin-offs & Special One-shots - Spin-offs

Spin-offs

Both prequels and sequels to the main storyline.

• Thorn: Tales From the Lantern: During college, Jeff Smith produced a series of comic strips that serve as a beta-version of the Bone series, though with the Bone siblings Fone and Phoney as supporting cast members and Thorn as the main character. The strips correspond with the first 28 issues of the Bone series. The series was collected as a trade paperback after Smith graduated in 1989 with a very small print run. Out of Print.

• Rose (with Charles Vess)

• Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero (with Tom Sniegoski and Stan Sakai)

• Bone: Tall Tales, the events show Smiley and Bartleby after the events in the main series. It features them telling tall tales to three bone brothers (Ringo, Bingo and Todd). It is a repackaging of Stupid, Stupid Rat Tales, including a Disney Adventures short and new material. It was released on August 1, 2010. This spin-off mainly focuses on Big Johnson Bone's (ancestor to the Bone cousins) adventures, some time before the cousins' adventures in the Valley, though there is one short with Fone and Phoney follow a 'treasure map', which is later revealed as a joke by Thorn, who wanted the two to do the laundry. One story with Big Johnson Bone is when he discovers the Valley with his monkey, Pip (whose name Big Johnson constantly forgets). In the Bone Vol. 7, Ghost Circles, Bartleby mentions that before Rat Creatures had 'long, beautiful, hairless tails,' which have to be cut off when the Rat Creature reaches one year, and also mentions 'the Jekk,' a monster who Rat Creatures fear will drag them away by their tails, thus the reason they cut off their tails. In Tall Tales, the Jekk is revealed to be Big Johnson Bone, who swung them around by their tails when they attacked him, and due to that (and the fact the Queen and her son had their tails removed by Big Johnson) they decided to cut their tails so they could never be used against them again. In this, the Royal Rat Creatures grow to be quite large, possibly explaining Kingdok, the Rat Creature ruler, to be of such great size comparatively to the other Rat Creatures. The Red Dragon is also in this, though he looks the same.

• Bone Handbook is a 128-page handbook that chronicles the series and is accompanied by sketches, interviews, etc. The book was released in February 2010.

• Bone: Legacy, a trilogy of illustrated prose novels, written by Tom Sniegoski, following the adventures of new Bones in their quest in the valley. The first volume, Quest for the Spark, was released on February 1, 2011. A few of the characters from the original series are in the story, such as the Two Stupid Rat Creatures and Roderick the Raccoon, from the 5th Bone book, Rock Jaw, Master of the Eastern Border. Thorn Harvestar and Rose (Gran'ma Ben) Harvestar are also in the trilogy. And in the book, the Bone cousins are mentioned in passing, though have no major part in the volume. Part II: Quest for the Spark was released on February 1, 2012. The story continues from Part 1 against the Nacht, a dark creature that puts nearly everyone in the valley to sleep.