PREVIOUSLY ...
Phoney isn't the only flaming motif in this chapter as Fone Bone and Thorn return to find her farm on fire.
Synopsis
So it turns out that Gran'ma is all right -- and happy that Thorn and Fone are safe. She addresses the Red Dragon, showing us that they know each other, and that something in their past means Gran'ma wasn't entirely happy to see him.
There's also a lot of history on Fone Bone's side as we finally hear about the horrific events that caused Phoney to be ran out of Boneville (ooh, almost a title drop). Here we see use of the techniques described back in Chapter 3, allowing lots of expositional dialogue to be covered without it standing out or becoming boring, because the characters are just as interested as we are in what is being told (and because Gran'ma and Fone are working with their hands it is believable that they have time to talk).
Meanwhile, Phoney and Smiley plan their Cow Race con as they work off their tabs at the Barrelhaven Tavern. The hooded figure from Chapter 4 appears before Phoney, in case you had forgotten that our villains wanted "the one with the star".
Eventually we meet one of the other Barrelhaven secondary characters, young Jon, and discover that Gran'ma has history with Lucius. But most importantly, Smiley and Fone see each other for the first time in months -- they call out Phoney (who is assaulted by Fone for wandering off, no less) and finally the three cousins are reunited.
But the hooded figure from Phoney's vision is just outside the tavern, watching and waiting ...
Pros
Chapter 6 showcases a return to more storytelling-heavy scenes after the mostly action packed Chapter 5 -- giving us a lot of cool/funny backstory and cathartic release. But the story makes it clear that the Bone cousin's troubles are far from over, while the human characters' storylines remain, growing in importance, in the background. All of this makes for a satisfying end of Volume 1, without dampening the excitement to see where the story goes.
Con
This chapter is fine, I've no big complaints. The only nitpick I could find was at the start. The Red Dragon warns Thorn about rushing out into the open, advice she ignores, and there are no consequences. While it was certainly in-character for the Red Dragon, it lacks an impact on the story and probably could have been cut (there is an alternative interpretation, but it seems rather subtle for a kid's story: that the Red Dragon -- knowing Gran'ma's fighting skills from experience -- didn't want Thorn to find her before he could leave and suffer her stink-eye).
This week's lesson -- pay off and revisiting mystery
Chapter 6 does not reveal important information about the Valley in the way Chapters 3 or 4 did, but there is a lot of pay off from the summary of the events leading up to the Bone cousins stuck in the desert. By using this mini-story as the reward for reaching the final chapter in Out from Boneville, we feel like a certain circle has been closed. This is also a good justification for reuniting the cousins so soon in the story. These circles give the book a feeling of completeness without finality, because the main characters are still in the middle of something huge and dangerous. This is incredibly important for the first part of an epic adventure! More so than in any other volumes in the whole series, these circles foster confidence in Jeff Smith's writing. As the audience, we're happy with his ability to connect motifs and develop themes in a six-chapter story -- so it follows that we're now on board for the remaining fifty-or-so chapters.
The other half of this week's lesson harkens back to the mystery first established with Chapter 1. Why has the Red Dragon been a constant fixture of the comic, and why is he disliked/disbelieved? What does the hooded figure want Phoney's soul for? And why does Thorn feel like the real hero of this story, having crossed a physical and metaphorical threshold by leaving home after a traumatic upset of her normality? Fuel for the engine that drives us into the rest of the adventure.
Without these questions, Out from Boneville wouldn't feel so much like the first step in a bigger story. Mastering this week's lesson means teasing a bigger story with unanswered questions while simultaneously creating circles that strengthen connection with the characters. You can identify these two techniques in pretty much any example of popular fantasy. Star Wars, Avatar: TLA, The Wheel of Time, The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings -- and remember, The Fellowship of the Ring isn't strictly the "first part" of LOTR. That would be Book 1, up until the hobbits reach Rivendell.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Out from Boneville Ch5: Barrelhaven
PREVIOUSLY ...
Phoney Bone has wandered off, and the rat creatures attack the farm in the dead of night!
Synopsis
Chapter 5 begins with the rat creatures crowded around the farmhouse -- but Gran'ma Ben has a plan:
Run.
More specifically, she tells Fone and Thorn to run while she fights off the rats. We also learn that she fought in the "Big War", at this point, presumably, the same one that Thorn has been flashing back to as a child. The two young 'uns run into the woods but there are too many rats, so much that Thorn is even worried for Gran'ma, so they try to go back and are soon surrounded.
Meanwhile, Phoney comes to Barrelhaven, a place we've already heard about but not seen. He reunites with Smiley, who is working off his bar tab for the tavern's owner Lucius, just in time to become likewise indebted to the apparently very angry man (thankfully, this is played for laughs).
Back in the forest, the Red Dragon does an Aslan and rescues Thorn and Fone Bone ... but when they return to the farm, the homestead is burning.
Locations
The new location for this chapter is the Barrelhaven Tavern, run by another major supporting character, Lucius Down. Let me just get this out of the way: Barrelhaven Tavern is utterly this series' "Prancing Pony". I especially like the looks the little Bone gets as he marches up to the bar. The other patrons already met Smiley, so just like Lucius their response is more like, "really, another one?". I had never thought of the parallel between Bones and Hobbits so much before but there you go.
For the rest of the issue, location is key for the action but otherwise not visually striking in the way say, the first time Fone looks out over the Valley in Chapter 1. The biggest sight along those lines would be at the end of the chapter. The reason why the last two issues gave us ample time to know the farm was exactly this: for Thorn's heroic journey this is her first major threshold and it is marked with the same "burning home" motif as Star Wars and countless Japanese RPGs.
Characters
Fone Bone
I thought that our meek, though plucky, hero's greatest moment came when Thorn "accidentally" uses him as a cosh to take out one of the pursuing rat creatures. Other than his ecstatic (and slightly premature) celebration for the dragon saving them from the rats, Fone is mostly just along for the ride in this chapter. And that's fine, because we spend a good long chunk of the issue with his cousins instead.
Phoney and Smiley
Ah Smiley, you happy-go-lucky, probably lung-cancer-having, fun-loving sneak. It's good to have you back in the story, and before the next book too. Together, the abrasive Phoney and the (slightly) more appealing Smiley hatch a plan to rig the Cow Race, giving us a glimpse at what might happen in the next story. As for this story, it began with the Bone cousins separated: so if anything was an indicator that we're about to shift the plot from "gotta get home" to something grander, it would be that all three of them have reasons to stay in the Valley longer than they had anticipated.
Whilst Phoney is certainly anxious to return to Boneville (perplexingly, as his cousins remind him, given how the other citizens ran them out of town to begin with), he also wants to earn a little on the side -- through unjust means, as he is constantly wont to do. Fone is pursuing Thorn, at least in his mind, and is currently running terrified through the woods, and even Smiley couldn't have left earlier if he wanted to thanks to his misunderstanding over beer credit with Lucius (though again, knowing Smiley at this point we suspect he doesn't mind at all, being quite used to having no worth to his name, whether money or barter).
As for Lucius, well I'm happy to say his character is no bit-part. But that would be talking spoilers ...
Pros and cons
Not much to complain about at all in this chapter: the one con below aside, the series is going strong and getting more and more interesting as book 1 comes to a close. One thing that re-reading this series has had me thinking (also by starting Amulet, another Scholastic comic) is how flexible the pace of an adventure comic can be: until Chapters 4 and 5, there had been so much character introduction, world building and mystery in each chapter that they seemed to have entire mini-arcs of their own.
In Chapter 5, though, the audience realises that this story is so much bigger than a few twenty-page adventures, because here is not a stand-alone adventure but a single bridging sequence (with interlude) between a killer cliffhanger in Chapter 4 and a big change for all the characters in Chapter 6 -- especially for Thorn and Gran'ma, but not forgetting that the Bone cousins' reunion is being set up sooner rather than later.
This flexibility can be contrasted with analogous cartoons on television like say, Avatar: TLA, whose adventures always have to have some sort of resolution at 11 or 22 minutes, and basically need at least one fight scene or it doesn't feel like a real "episode". True, there are exceptions everywhere, but in general one can see that cartoons are more structurally formulaic than comic books with similar story content.
The one con I felt in Chapter 5 is the lack of pay-off to the presence of Phoney during the first Kingdok scene in the previous chapter. I highlighted the suspenseful atmosphere of those few pages in the recap and was looking forward to seeing a reaction that I clearly thought I remembered, though now I realise it never took place. To be fair, the choice to omit an immediate response to Phoney's fear is an effective choice. Like the glazing over of the two-month gap between chapters 1 and 2, or like countless heroic fantasy stories that (while having a larger ensemble cast) still have to focus on the central hero, there are some creative reactions and conversations between side characters that just take up space in the story and we readers ultimately do better without.
Taking the example of this chapter, what we actually did get between Phoney and Smiley is far more entertaining than the dramatic and comedic consequences I was envisioning.
This week's lesson
I tossed up between two main take-aways for this issue -- the other being the lesson under the "Con" heading about picking your battles when it comes to what scenes we get between secondary characters.
In the end, I chose one that may seem more mundane but it is very important to remember, no matter what medium you are working in: that is, for adventure serials of all kinds you have to be able to take a breather.
Chapter 5 has three main scenes, two of which fit into the same action sequence. If the entire issue were that one action sequence, it would risk being either too stressful or too tedious for the length of the chapter -- and what's more, for the epic fantasy fans, it also risks taking on a lightweight appearance as it would be mostly wordless, sandwiched between two much more story-heavy chapters.
Instead, we break at the most effective cliffhanger when all hope seems lost for Fone and Thorn. The story changes gears completely as Phoney enters Barrelhaven, and the comedy and character development here lets the tension build silently in the background before the story returns to the forest.
This technique of cutting away from one action thread to a different kind of thread is used so often that it requires almost no more exploration; except to say that if you limit your perspective to a single character in a work, you are relinquishing this helpful tool, and will have to rely upon other means of breaking up the action -- for example, chapter breaks (see Harry Potter).
Now all is said and done, all aboard the hype train because the next chapter ends Out from Boneville; in other words, it's the end of the beginning with even grander adventures in the offing.
Phoney Bone has wandered off, and the rat creatures attack the farm in the dead of night!
Synopsis
Chapter 5 begins with the rat creatures crowded around the farmhouse -- but Gran'ma Ben has a plan:
Run.
More specifically, she tells Fone and Thorn to run while she fights off the rats. We also learn that she fought in the "Big War", at this point, presumably, the same one that Thorn has been flashing back to as a child. The two young 'uns run into the woods but there are too many rats, so much that Thorn is even worried for Gran'ma, so they try to go back and are soon surrounded.
Meanwhile, Phoney comes to Barrelhaven, a place we've already heard about but not seen. He reunites with Smiley, who is working off his bar tab for the tavern's owner Lucius, just in time to become likewise indebted to the apparently very angry man (thankfully, this is played for laughs).
Back in the forest, the Red Dragon does an Aslan and rescues Thorn and Fone Bone ... but when they return to the farm, the homestead is burning.
Locations
The new location for this chapter is the Barrelhaven Tavern, run by another major supporting character, Lucius Down. Let me just get this out of the way: Barrelhaven Tavern is utterly this series' "Prancing Pony". I especially like the looks the little Bone gets as he marches up to the bar. The other patrons already met Smiley, so just like Lucius their response is more like, "really, another one?". I had never thought of the parallel between Bones and Hobbits so much before but there you go.
For the rest of the issue, location is key for the action but otherwise not visually striking in the way say, the first time Fone looks out over the Valley in Chapter 1. The biggest sight along those lines would be at the end of the chapter. The reason why the last two issues gave us ample time to know the farm was exactly this: for Thorn's heroic journey this is her first major threshold and it is marked with the same "burning home" motif as Star Wars and countless Japanese RPGs.
Characters
Fone Bone
I thought that our meek, though plucky, hero's greatest moment came when Thorn "accidentally" uses him as a cosh to take out one of the pursuing rat creatures. Other than his ecstatic (and slightly premature) celebration for the dragon saving them from the rats, Fone is mostly just along for the ride in this chapter. And that's fine, because we spend a good long chunk of the issue with his cousins instead.
Phoney and Smiley
Ah Smiley, you happy-go-lucky, probably lung-cancer-having, fun-loving sneak. It's good to have you back in the story, and before the next book too. Together, the abrasive Phoney and the (slightly) more appealing Smiley hatch a plan to rig the Cow Race, giving us a glimpse at what might happen in the next story. As for this story, it began with the Bone cousins separated: so if anything was an indicator that we're about to shift the plot from "gotta get home" to something grander, it would be that all three of them have reasons to stay in the Valley longer than they had anticipated.
Whilst Phoney is certainly anxious to return to Boneville (perplexingly, as his cousins remind him, given how the other citizens ran them out of town to begin with), he also wants to earn a little on the side -- through unjust means, as he is constantly wont to do. Fone is pursuing Thorn, at least in his mind, and is currently running terrified through the woods, and even Smiley couldn't have left earlier if he wanted to thanks to his misunderstanding over beer credit with Lucius (though again, knowing Smiley at this point we suspect he doesn't mind at all, being quite used to having no worth to his name, whether money or barter).
As for Lucius, well I'm happy to say his character is no bit-part. But that would be talking spoilers ...
Pros and cons
Not much to complain about at all in this chapter: the one con below aside, the series is going strong and getting more and more interesting as book 1 comes to a close. One thing that re-reading this series has had me thinking (also by starting Amulet, another Scholastic comic) is how flexible the pace of an adventure comic can be: until Chapters 4 and 5, there had been so much character introduction, world building and mystery in each chapter that they seemed to have entire mini-arcs of their own.
In Chapter 5, though, the audience realises that this story is so much bigger than a few twenty-page adventures, because here is not a stand-alone adventure but a single bridging sequence (with interlude) between a killer cliffhanger in Chapter 4 and a big change for all the characters in Chapter 6 -- especially for Thorn and Gran'ma, but not forgetting that the Bone cousins' reunion is being set up sooner rather than later.
This flexibility can be contrasted with analogous cartoons on television like say, Avatar: TLA, whose adventures always have to have some sort of resolution at 11 or 22 minutes, and basically need at least one fight scene or it doesn't feel like a real "episode". True, there are exceptions everywhere, but in general one can see that cartoons are more structurally formulaic than comic books with similar story content.
The one con I felt in Chapter 5 is the lack of pay-off to the presence of Phoney during the first Kingdok scene in the previous chapter. I highlighted the suspenseful atmosphere of those few pages in the recap and was looking forward to seeing a reaction that I clearly thought I remembered, though now I realise it never took place. To be fair, the choice to omit an immediate response to Phoney's fear is an effective choice. Like the glazing over of the two-month gap between chapters 1 and 2, or like countless heroic fantasy stories that (while having a larger ensemble cast) still have to focus on the central hero, there are some creative reactions and conversations between side characters that just take up space in the story and we readers ultimately do better without.
Taking the example of this chapter, what we actually did get between Phoney and Smiley is far more entertaining than the dramatic and comedic consequences I was envisioning.
This week's lesson
I tossed up between two main take-aways for this issue -- the other being the lesson under the "Con" heading about picking your battles when it comes to what scenes we get between secondary characters.
In the end, I chose one that may seem more mundane but it is very important to remember, no matter what medium you are working in: that is, for adventure serials of all kinds you have to be able to take a breather.
Chapter 5 has three main scenes, two of which fit into the same action sequence. If the entire issue were that one action sequence, it would risk being either too stressful or too tedious for the length of the chapter -- and what's more, for the epic fantasy fans, it also risks taking on a lightweight appearance as it would be mostly wordless, sandwiched between two much more story-heavy chapters.
Instead, we break at the most effective cliffhanger when all hope seems lost for Fone and Thorn. The story changes gears completely as Phoney enters Barrelhaven, and the comedy and character development here lets the tension build silently in the background before the story returns to the forest.
This technique of cutting away from one action thread to a different kind of thread is used so often that it requires almost no more exploration; except to say that if you limit your perspective to a single character in a work, you are relinquishing this helpful tool, and will have to rely upon other means of breaking up the action -- for example, chapter breaks (see Harry Potter).
Now all is said and done, all aboard the hype train because the next chapter ends Out from Boneville; in other words, it's the end of the beginning with even grander adventures in the offing.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Out from Boneville Ch4: Kingdok
Happy 2016 -- the time has come for another Bone re-read post. In order to avoid my positive comments being hyperbolic or various notes becoming repetitious, from now on I'll be structuring these Bone recaps with proper headlines and everything!
PREVIOUSLY ...
While Thorn and Fone Bone get along quite well, Gran'ma Ben and Phoney have gotten off to a rotten start -- and Phoney hates the idea of sleeping in the barn before they go to Barrelhaven for the Cow Race.
Locations
First of all, I love the idea of starting this chapter with a wide shot of the farm. Interestingly, as the last few pages set up, it is important for us to know and like this place so that when the literal "burning homestead" portion of the Hero's Journey comes around, we care, same as the characters.
As for other locations in this chapter, we get some more well-drawn woods and finally a new setting; the mountains where the Hooded One and thousands of other rat creatures meet. Ominous!
Characters
Fone Bone
We know by now that Fone, despite slightly askew motivations where Thorn is concerned, represents our chivalrous hero against the forces of ... well, his nasty cousin right now, but also the forces of evil later on. He doesn't develop a whole lot over the course of Chapter 4, and he doesn't have to: he's helpful, polite and trying very hard not to take advantage of a beautiful young woman. Which often means he's boring. I say he's trying to be a good guy, which is fine, because we also get Phoney.
Phoney
Speaking as an adult, Phoney Bone is just so bad without relief that at this point he might as well be the villain. And this all works very well, because he's hilarious and horrible in equal measure. Luckily for anyone reading Bone to their kids, the complete amorality of the character is so heavy-handed that it's a running joke, and is obviously not the sort of behaviour to mimic.
After the meeting between our stupid, stupid rat creatures and Kingdok, Phoney is completely silent as he hides behind the tree . This teases us with potential development of "the one with the star on his chest", now that Phoney knows that he's who everyone wants to find and is probably terrified.
Thorn
Leaning into the "bits for kids, bits for the parents" ethos of family entertainment, we get one sequence that greatly serves both. Thorn doesn't have a lot of story in this chapter until the very end, but in the middle when she and Fone go for a skinny dip to clean up, she might as well be a Disney character.
Bouncing happily through the woods and describing her plan to sew a bright blue dress, it almost feels like Kingdom Hearts, with our (metaphorically) three-dimensional human princess at ludicrous juxtaposition to the puffy skeletal version of Mickey Mouse. A cartoon who, we are reminded soon after, is more Roger Rabbit than Disney as Fone literally chokes down his libido with a bar of soap. Yeah, that scene is strange.
Regardless, by the end of the chapter, things take a turn for the very serious and there is a wonderful, anime-esque use of flashback that helps develop a sense of context -- if not for the world then at least for Thorn herself. We'll get more on this in the books to come ...
Kingdok
At last, in this chapter we start to meet our bigger baddies -- particularly Darth Vader here, apparent leader of the rat creatures, giant and toothy. Sure, he doesn't have the complex past of a certain Star Wars villain (that part will go to our Emperor Palpatine stand-in, the Hooded One) but at least Kingdok has his own character arc throughout Bone. I'll try not to give too much away for those reading along, just suffice it to say that I recall that this is the most he ever speaks in the series.
Gran'ma Ben
Ah, the anomalous "gitchy feeling" -- possibly one of her best secondary skills, if you could call it that. Things are going to get much, much worse before they get better, and Gran'ma Ben feels it.
The Possum Kids
Glad to see these guys hanging around (oof, that might be one pun too many) and happy to know they'll have more of a role to play in a later book.
Pros
Once again, I am floored by how well Mr Smith weaves quite a lot of dialogue into so many panels per page. It really works, even though it goes against common wisdom of comic writing.
Conversely, in the low- to no-dialogue moments, we see a suspenseful use of silence. Not just Phoney hiding from Kingdok, but the later scene of the moon rising over spooky mountains and the horde of rat creatures.
On the visuals alone, the rat creatures must really, really stink. I mean, they certainly look gross enough -- it helps to multiply their fright factor when they finally attack the farm en mass.
Finally, tying into this week's lesson, another pro is the continued dropping of names and places in the name of world building (and to a lesser extent, foreshadowing). We learn that the Hooded One knows of the dragons, and of Gran'ma. We hear places like Deren Gard and Old Man's Cave mentioned, and we're introduced to Gran'ma's Spidy-Sense, the "gitchy feeling". As the world around the protagonists seems more dangerous and more complicated, our absorption into the story is almost complete.
This week's lesson
I thought that, without a doubt, the lesson of this chapter is about how the momentum set up by the initial "find the Bone cousins" motivation has continued to turn, all fuelled by the jigsaw of what has already been laid out in the previous three chapters. Making use of the downtime between chapters, the story so far has kept from becoming too breakneck or overly complicated. Instead it remains focused squarely on the characters that we've been attached to since Chapter 1.
In fact, at the start of this chapter you could be forgiven for thinking that the story had slowed down, settling into some sort of pastoral comedy where Fone and Phoney bicker as they wait to be reunited with Phoney. But enter the first really big baddies and a few more hints as to the deeper back-story and off we go again.
Basically, Jeff Smith has now transmuted the foreshadowing and character relationships into a straight-as-an-arrow action beat: the Rat Creatures are coming to wreak havoc. Tune in next week.
What a cliffhanger.
PREVIOUSLY ...
While Thorn and Fone Bone get along quite well, Gran'ma Ben and Phoney have gotten off to a rotten start -- and Phoney hates the idea of sleeping in the barn before they go to Barrelhaven for the Cow Race.
Locations
First of all, I love the idea of starting this chapter with a wide shot of the farm. Interestingly, as the last few pages set up, it is important for us to know and like this place so that when the literal "burning homestead" portion of the Hero's Journey comes around, we care, same as the characters.
As for other locations in this chapter, we get some more well-drawn woods and finally a new setting; the mountains where the Hooded One and thousands of other rat creatures meet. Ominous!
Characters
Fone Bone
We know by now that Fone, despite slightly askew motivations where Thorn is concerned, represents our chivalrous hero against the forces of ... well, his nasty cousin right now, but also the forces of evil later on. He doesn't develop a whole lot over the course of Chapter 4, and he doesn't have to: he's helpful, polite and trying very hard not to take advantage of a beautiful young woman. Which often means he's boring. I say he's trying to be a good guy, which is fine, because we also get Phoney.
Phoney
Speaking as an adult, Phoney Bone is just so bad without relief that at this point he might as well be the villain. And this all works very well, because he's hilarious and horrible in equal measure. Luckily for anyone reading Bone to their kids, the complete amorality of the character is so heavy-handed that it's a running joke, and is obviously not the sort of behaviour to mimic.
After the meeting between our stupid, stupid rat creatures and Kingdok, Phoney is completely silent as he hides behind the tree . This teases us with potential development of "the one with the star on his chest", now that Phoney knows that he's who everyone wants to find and is probably terrified.
Thorn
Leaning into the "bits for kids, bits for the parents" ethos of family entertainment, we get one sequence that greatly serves both. Thorn doesn't have a lot of story in this chapter until the very end, but in the middle when she and Fone go for a skinny dip to clean up, she might as well be a Disney character.
Bouncing happily through the woods and describing her plan to sew a bright blue dress, it almost feels like Kingdom Hearts, with our (metaphorically) three-dimensional human princess at ludicrous juxtaposition to the puffy skeletal version of Mickey Mouse. A cartoon who, we are reminded soon after, is more Roger Rabbit than Disney as Fone literally chokes down his libido with a bar of soap. Yeah, that scene is strange.
Regardless, by the end of the chapter, things take a turn for the very serious and there is a wonderful, anime-esque use of flashback that helps develop a sense of context -- if not for the world then at least for Thorn herself. We'll get more on this in the books to come ...
Kingdok
At last, in this chapter we start to meet our bigger baddies -- particularly Darth Vader here, apparent leader of the rat creatures, giant and toothy. Sure, he doesn't have the complex past of a certain Star Wars villain (that part will go to our Emperor Palpatine stand-in, the Hooded One) but at least Kingdok has his own character arc throughout Bone. I'll try not to give too much away for those reading along, just suffice it to say that I recall that this is the most he ever speaks in the series.
Gran'ma Ben
Ah, the anomalous "gitchy feeling" -- possibly one of her best secondary skills, if you could call it that. Things are going to get much, much worse before they get better, and Gran'ma Ben feels it.
The Possum Kids
Glad to see these guys hanging around (oof, that might be one pun too many) and happy to know they'll have more of a role to play in a later book.
Pros
Once again, I am floored by how well Mr Smith weaves quite a lot of dialogue into so many panels per page. It really works, even though it goes against common wisdom of comic writing.
Conversely, in the low- to no-dialogue moments, we see a suspenseful use of silence. Not just Phoney hiding from Kingdok, but the later scene of the moon rising over spooky mountains and the horde of rat creatures.
On the visuals alone, the rat creatures must really, really stink. I mean, they certainly look gross enough -- it helps to multiply their fright factor when they finally attack the farm en mass.
Finally, tying into this week's lesson, another pro is the continued dropping of names and places in the name of world building (and to a lesser extent, foreshadowing). We learn that the Hooded One knows of the dragons, and of Gran'ma. We hear places like Deren Gard and Old Man's Cave mentioned, and we're introduced to Gran'ma's Spidy-Sense, the "gitchy feeling". As the world around the protagonists seems more dangerous and more complicated, our absorption into the story is almost complete.
This week's lesson
I thought that, without a doubt, the lesson of this chapter is about how the momentum set up by the initial "find the Bone cousins" motivation has continued to turn, all fuelled by the jigsaw of what has already been laid out in the previous three chapters. Making use of the downtime between chapters, the story so far has kept from becoming too breakneck or overly complicated. Instead it remains focused squarely on the characters that we've been attached to since Chapter 1.
In fact, at the start of this chapter you could be forgiven for thinking that the story had slowed down, settling into some sort of pastoral comedy where Fone and Phoney bicker as they wait to be reunited with Phoney. But enter the first really big baddies and a few more hints as to the deeper back-story and off we go again.
Basically, Jeff Smith has now transmuted the foreshadowing and character relationships into a straight-as-an-arrow action beat: the Rat Creatures are coming to wreak havoc. Tune in next week.
What a cliffhanger.
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