Word: phoney
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Though the title sounds grim it actually refers to the stars of the series, cousins Fone Bone, Smiley Bone and Phoney Bone, who couldn't be less threatening. Like the Hobbits, the Bones are a peculiar-looking, diminutive race. They are pure cartoon - cute and pantsless, with four fingers on each hand and smooth, rounded, sexless bodies. At first their personalities are similarly simple. Fone, the dreamy one, must constantly get out of the scrapes created by Phoney, the avaricious schemer, and Smiley, a goofball comic foil whose tongue hangs out like a friendly dog's. Over the book...
...book begins with the three of them exiled from their home, Boneville, thanks to one of Phoney's ill-advised ruses. Lost and yearning to return home, they find themselves trapped in a secret valley full of dragons, talking animals and scary rat creatures. Humans live here too, including Thorn, a pretty farm girl whose parents have died, leaving her in the care of her apple-cheeked yet oddly strong Gran'ma Ben. As the Bone's lives become more entwined with Thorn's it becomes clear that she has a secret past that her Gran'ma has been keeping...
...remake it into something entirely his own. For one thing, it's funny. Nearly every page has some bit of business, like when Fone's hat spontaneously combusts upon catching Thorn preparing for a bath. Smith also puts together clever set pieces, such as the Great Cow Race, where Phoney introduces a "mystery cow" - actually Smiley in a costume - convincing the locals to go for this sucker bet over the favorite: Gran'ma Ben(!). The final race turns into a raucously funny slapstick worthy of a classic Chuck Jones cartoon. "Bone" keeps the comic in comix, without being juvenile...
...were willing to forgive him almost anything because of his gifts and because of an underlying innocent sweetness they saw in him. (Not everyone, though: the young Kenneth Tynan described him as "a surly little pug, but a master of pastiche and invective. Thinks himself the biggest and best phoney of all time, and may be right...
...Harvard students come into the store with phoney IDs, his first recourse will be to call the police on them...