Bone is an independently published comic book series, originally serialized in 55 irregularly-released issues from 1991 to 2004. Bone was drawn and written by Jeff Smith.
The series centers around the Bone Family, white, bald cartoon caricatures with big noses. In the opening pages the three Bone cousins—avaricious Phoncible P. "Phoney" Bone, goofy cigar-smoking Smiley Bone, and everyman character Fone Bone—are run out of their hometown of Boneville after Phoney decides to run for mayor with disastrous results.
After crossing a desert and ending up in the mysterious Valley, the cousins are separated by a sea of locusts, and must individually make their way across the fantasy landscape pursued by rat creatures. They joyously reunite at a local village called Barrelhaven, where they are taken in by a mysterious girl named Thorn and her even more enigmatic grandmother.
Fone Bone instantly develops a crush on Thorn when he meets her, and repeatedly attempts to prove his love through poetry. As they stay longer in the valley, they encounter humans and other creatures who are threatened by a decrepit dark lord, the Lord of the Locusts. The Bones are quickly drawn into the events around them, compelling them on a hero's journey to help save the world.