Three cousins from Boneville, small white cartoon creatures who look as though they have escaped from a Sunday newspaper, are run out of town and get lost in a valley full of dragons, rat creatures and a grandmother who races cows. What starts as a comedy becomes, over the course of 1,300 pages, a full-scale epic fantasy about war, destiny and a lost kingdom.
Smith's clean, expressive cartooning, with a debt to Walt Kelly's Pogo and Carl Barks's Donald Duck, makes the whole thing a joy, and the rat creatures' argument about quiche is one of the funniest things in comics. It is suitable for all ages and has been a gateway for millions of young readers, especially since Scholastic published it in colour.
