After 9 years, Richard Moore is bringing the Boneyard series to a conclusion, but you can still get in on the fun with volume 7. And don’t worry if you haven’t read the previous 6: it’s easy to catch on to the characters and the story in this volume is complete in itself.

 

Boneyard is a fantasy comic which includes horror elements but isn’t particularly scary. Instead it’s hilariously funny and constantly inventive: you really never know what’s going to happen when you turn the page. The main character, Michael Paris, is a regular guy who inherited a cemetery or “boneyard” from his grandfather. He was planning to sell the property but became attached to the inhabitants—which include an extremely shapely vampire named Abby, a demon named Glumph who has a thing for Star Trek, a hipster werewolf named Ralph, a talking raven named Edgar and a stogie-smoking skeleton named Sid.

 

The action in volume 7 begins with the appearance of a fairy named Lita who was Michael’s “imaginary” friend in childhood. That’s what his mother termed her anyway. Lita is seeking sanctuary from an arranged marriage back in fairyland and Michael offers her a place to stay, a move Abby terms “generous to a fault” and it’s hard to disagree since Lita’s so fetchingly cute in an innocent country-girl sort of way. Next thing you know, some fairy soldiers show up in the boneyard to reclaim Lita and the battle’s on: Sid brings his bone-boomerang, Abby’s an all-around martial artist and Ralph is armed with adjustable wrenches from the garage (he was working on his car when summoned by Abby). Sadly, their efforts are insufficient and Lita is reclaimed for the fairy world. Michael, acting with perhaps more gallantry than brains, follows her. He dons a jester’s costume in the hopes of blending in and nearly precipitates a war, but I’m not going to spoil the fun by telling you how it all turns out.

 

Moore’s art is a good match for his story: it’s as if he digested all the fantasy-adventure and horror tropes of the comics world and then reimagined them while on an acid trip. Moore works in pure black-and-white—which gives his work a retro look and also reminds me of a coloring book—but the frames are highly detailed, and the more you look at them the more you’ll notice little touches which add to the reality of his highly imaginative world. The feeling of reality is also heightened by Moore’s habit of cutting off elements with his frames, suggesting that there is an entire world out there and you’re just seeing selective snapshots of it.

 

Boneyard is considered an all-ages comic but there is a fair amount of snappy sex talk about booty calls, blue balls and Sid the skeleton missing “the only bone that counts,” so if that’s too much for you or your kids, this might not be the comic for you. You can see a preview at http://www.nbmpub.com/humor/moore/bone28/pre1.html. |Sarah Boslaugh