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A wonderful comic book by Jeff Smith, in which the three Bone Cousins, Fone Bone, Smiley Bone, and Phoney Bone get lost in a forest and find themselves caught up in an epic fantasy. Published by Cartoon Books, it is one of the most well-regarded independent comics today.
A decidedly unromantic euphemism for committing a physical act.
There are only two types of bones. They are the nosebone and the tailbone. As they would suggest they use either the nose or tail.
To do a bone you must simply extend your leg completely. If you are doing a nosebone then you extend your front leg, if you are doing a tailbone then you extend your back leg. The most common useage of this is the Indy Nosebone. Other uses include: Nose Tailbone, Tail Nosebone, Japan Nosebone etc.
On his journey, Fone unknowingly awakens the Red Dragon, the guardian of this Valley that Fone has found himself in. After saving a family of possums from a group of Rat Creatures, Fone meets Ted the Bug and later Thorn Harvestar, who he immediately falls in love with. Thorn takes him to Barrelhaven to meet her grandmother.
Phoney later encounters the Dragon, and is saved from destruction by Ted the Bug. Ted brings Phoney to meet Gran'ma Ben, who brings him back to the house where the two cousins reunite. They later find cousin Smiley tending bar in Barrelhaven.
Together they learn of The Great Cow Race, in which Gran'ma Ben races all the cows in town (and usually wins). Phoney, con-man to the end, decides to find a way to throw the race. Everything seems happy and idyllic. However, in the mountains, trouble is brewing. The Bones are being hunted by the Rat Creatures; specifically, they are looking to find 'the one with the star' (Phoney wears a shirt with a star on the chest) and to eat the other two (preferably in a quiche). A sinister-looking person in a hooded robe is starting to attract allies. The group returns to Gran'ma Ben's farm only to find it burned down...
This is the beginning of the comic book series Bone, by Jeff Smith. The tale is told of these three cousins and the Harvestar family and the troubles that plague the Valley in which they all live.
The saga starts out somewhat light, especially through the Great Cow Race. However, as you get sucked into the story, it turns slowly darker. It is, however, consistently funny. Starting at the beginning is somewhat necessary, since the events all build on each other; there are very few freestanding parts. Cartoon Books has been very good at keeping everything in print, though, so finding the first few issues (especially in collected form) should not prove too difficult.
The series started life as sketches Smith did in kindergarten, and they stayed with him through much of his adolescence. In college, the characters starred in a daily comic strip published in the student newspaper. But the idea never really took shape until 1991, when Bone #1 was published through Smith's own Cartoon Books. The series has since seen 44 issues in the Saga, two spin-off miniseries, several toys and statues, and was almost turned into a television series and feature film.
It seems hard to imagine an extremely engrossing series with characters as cartoony as the Bones, but the stories are very well written and hook you almost immediately. The detailed backgrounds draw you further into the world, and you actually stop noticing the contrast after a few pages. The simple style makes it seem like these are "kid's books", but much like a good cartoon, the storytelling works for those much older.
Bone
Bone is an impressive structural material: it is light yet strong, flexible in joints, and hard where support is needed. It regenerates over time and also contains the bone marrow, a vital part of the body.
Function
The primary function of bone is to support the body and to serve as a mount for muscles, which then use a lever action against the bone to make your body move. Bones also protect important organs (lungs, heart, brain) from damage. The centre of most large bones also houses bone marrow
Structure
Bone is essentially a composite material: composed of hard calcium phosphate (in a form known as hydroxyapatite, formula Ca5(PO4)3OH) and flexible and strong collagen protein. The proportions of the two materials vary depending on the qualities required in the bone: major structural bones such as the femur contain lots of calcium phosphate and relatively little collagen. The structure of the bone also changesdepending on the stress on it: unstressed bone has a more spongy texture, while areas that get a lot of stress become completely solid. As bones become older the proportion of calcium phosphate in the bones also increases, leading to brittle bones.
growth
Bone growth is produced by cells known as osteoblasts, which produce collagen and calcium phosphate, and secrete them outside the cell, until the entire cell, except for gaps for blood vessels is surrounded by a thick layer of bone. As the bone matures, the osteoblasts become osteocytes, which maintain the bone, but do not produce any new growth. The surface of the bone is maintianed by cells called osteoclasts, which keep the surface of the bone smooth and under control by destroying excess bone.
bone marrow
The bone marrow is one of the most important parts of the body because it contains haematopoietic cells, a form of stem cells, which produce new red and white blood cells and platelets, vital for the maintainence of the blood
Bone (?), n. [OE. bon, ban, AS. ban; akin to Icel. bein, Sw. ben, Dan. & D. been, G. bein bone, leg; cf. Icel. beinn straight.]
1. Anat.
The hard, calcified tissue of the skeleton of vertebrate animals, consisting very largely of calcic carbonate, calcic phosphate, and gelatine; as, blood and bone.
⇒ Even in the hardest parts of bone there are many minute cavities containing living matter and connected by minute canals, some of which connect with larger canals through which blood vessels ramify.
2.
One of the pieces or parts of an animal skeleton; as, a rib or a thigh bone; a bone of the arm or leg; also, any fragment of bony substance. (pl.) The frame or skeleton of the body.
3.
Anything made of bone, as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.
4. pl.
Two or four pieces of bone held between the fingers and struck together to make a kind of music.
5. pl.
Dice.
6.
Whalebone; hence, a piece of whalebone or of steel for a corset.
7.
Fig.: The framework of anything.
A bone of contention, a subject of contention or dispute. -- A bone to pick, something to investigate, or to busy one's self about; a dispute to be settled (with some one). -- Bone ash, the residue from calcined bones; -- used for making cupels, and for cleaning jewelry. -- Bone black Chem., the black, carbonaceous substance into which bones are converted by calcination in close vessels; -- called also animal charcoal. It is used as a decolorizing material in filtering sirups, extracts, etc., and as a black pigment. See Ivory black, under Black. -- Bone cave, a cave in which are found bones of extinct or recent animals, mingled sometimes with the works and bones of man. Am. Cyc. -- Bone dust, ground or pulverized bones, used as a fertilizer. -- Bone earth Chem., the earthy residuum after the calcination of bone, consisting chiefly of phosphate of calcium. -- Bone lace, a lace made of linen thread, so called because woven with bobbins of bone. -- Bone oil, an oil obtained by, heating bones (as in the manufacture of bone black), and remarkable for containing the nitrogenous bases, pyridine and quinoline, and their derivatives; -- also called Dippel's oil. -- Bone setter. Same as Bonesetter. See in the Vocabulary. -- Bone shark Zool., the basking shark. -- Bone spavin. See under Spavin. -- Bone turquoise, fossil bone or tooth of a delicate blue color, sometimes used as an imitation of true turquoise. -- Bone whale Zool., a right whale. -- To be upon the bones of, to attack. [Obs.] -- To make no bones, to make no scruple; not to hesitate. [Low] -- To pick a bone with, to quarrel with, as dogs quarrel over a bone; to settle a disagreement. [Colloq.]
© Webster 1913.
Bone (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Boned (); p. pr. & vb. n. Boning.]
1.
To withdraw bones from the flesh of, as in cookery.
Soyer.
To put whalebone into; as, to bone stays.
Ash.
To fertilize with bone.
4.
To steal; to take possession of.
Bone, v. t. [F. bornoyer to look at with one eye, to sight, fr. borgne one-eyed.]
To sight along an object or set of objects, to see if it or they be level or in line, as in carpentry, masonry, and surveying.
Knight.
Joiners, etc., bone their work with two straight edges. W. M. Buchanan.
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