Rose: Prequel to Bone

AUTHOR: Smith, Jeff

ARTIST: Charles Vess (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Cartoon Books

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 2000-2002

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2002

Publication History

The miniseries Rose, published by creator Jeff Smith’s company, Cartoon Books, was conceived as a single story arc that derived from a parent series, Smith’s Bone (1991-2004), and portrayed some of its backstory. Smith, who had both written and illustrated Bone, collaborated with illustrator Charles Vess to produce Rose. This arrangement worked well; Smith needed a respite from what had become an exhausting cycle of writing and drawing, and Vess was fascinated with the idea of depicting an episode from Smith’s microcosm and establishing his own version of its setting, the Valley. Smith was comfortable with sharing his creation, as he greatly respected Vess’s award-winning work on Neil Gaiman’s TheSandman (1989-1996) and Stardust (1999).

Rose was published initially in three square-bound, forty-eight-page books: Issue 1 was published in November, 2000; issue 2 in April, 2001; and issue 3 in February, 2002. After reprinting Bone in a new, full-color series of books, Scholastic, Inc., under its Graphix imprint, reprinted the three volumes of Rose as a single volume in 2009. This edition comprised fourteen chapters and 160 pages.

Plot

Rose opens with a history of the Valley that describes the ordering of the world, the life force underlying the universe, and “the dreaming.” This sequence is nearly identical to the creation myth described in Bone: A dragon, Mim, keeps the spiritual essence of life and death in balance by clenching her tail within her teeth—similar to the mythological figure of the Ouroboros. The Lord of the Locusts, a demonic spirit, enters the world by infecting Mim’s mortal body, driving her insane. The other dragons are forced to bring the world back into balance by turning Mim and her parasite into stone, a struggle that creates the mountain range that separates the Valley from the outside world. As the first episode of Rose opens, this history is being told to two young princesses as a part of their royal training.

The princesses, Briar and Rose, are sisters, but they are estranged from each other because of the competitive nature of their upbringing. Magical aptitude—the talent of “dreaming” and its related abilities—rather than seniority determines who will become crown princess and eventual queen of the ancient city of Atheia. As understood by the two girls, “dreaming” is not merely conscious awareness during sleep and the ability to manipulate dreams but a connection between the dream world and external reality that allows the dreamer to alter the “real world” by altering his or her dreams. The younger princess, Rose, is known to have a strong “dreaming eye,” which expresses itself as prescience about future danger and the ability to understand animals. The elder girl, Briar, is said to be “blind” to the dreaming world. Thus, since childhood, Rose has been favored over her older sister.

As both girls are reaching adolescence, which the book refers to as the time of “the turning,” the king and queen of Atheia decide that the time is ripe for a crown princess to be chosen from between them. Both are sent to “Old Man’s Cave” to have their final test, riding in the company of the young and handsome Lucius Down, the captain of the queen’s guards. Rose almost immediately develops a crush on the handsome soldier, but Briar, as envious as always, moves in to take away Lucius’s honest affection for Rose.

This story, as related in Rose, is not original; Smith revealed many elements of Rose as narrative sequences in Bone. The two princesses, Rose and Briar, and the captain of the guards, Lucius Down, although altered greatly by the passage of years, are all characters in Smith’s oeuvre. The Great Red Dragon, too, makes a significant appearance in Bone as he seeks to protect Rose’s granddaughter, Thorn, from danger. The plot of Rose, too, sheds light on enigmatic statements made by the older Rose and curious events occurring to the young Thorn and her friends.

While the girls are being tested by the headmaster, Rose has a waking dream of walking up a winding path. She hears someone cry for help and, out of pity, rescues a small river dragon from a swiftly running creek. Then, ignoring her dogs’ warnings, Rose follows the river dragon into a cave where her parents are standing in intense communion with a hooded figure and a giant locust—the Lord of the Locusts. Rose startles awake, immediately realizing that she is facing a spirit of great evil. The Lord of the Locusts is another character who provides continuity between Bone and Rose, serving as the primary villain of both series.

Unfortunately, just as in Bone, waking from a nightmare does not provide an escape from a dreamer’s troubles. Rose’s “rescue” of the little dragon in her dream was, in fact, a sign of Rose’s maturing power of dreaming. She has truly freed a very troublesome, vicious river dragon named Balsaad. Rose’s decision to slay Balsaad by herself comes on the heels of her discovery that her sister, Briar, has seduced Lucius. Rose does not truly understand what she is facing, and in the process of tracking down Balsaad, she again encounters the Lord of the Locusts and is nearly seduced by him into giving up her quest.

This plotline explains why Briar is so committed to Rose’s destruction in Bone and rather blatantly reveals one of the parent series’ biggest plot twists: the connection of Princess Briar with the evil “Hooded One.” Rose stands before the Lord of the Locusts, utterly captivated by delicious images he has placed in her mind—images of Lucius loving her, rather than Briar. Only when Briar, inflamed with jealousy, thrusts her aside is Rose is able to break free of the evil spirit’s power and kill Balsaad in the swift waters, which prevent him from regenerating. The end of the novel places Rose’s coronation as crown princess in the context of the revelation of Briar’s treachery.

Characters

•Rose Harvestar, the protagonist, is the younger of the two princesses of Atheia and, by her own admission, not as smart as her older sister, Briar. She is physically strong and resourceful, understands the speech of animals, and has the ability to sense when bad events are about to unfold. She has a crush on Captain Lucius Down.

•Captain Lucius Down is the captain of the queen’s guard in Atheia and a huge man with broad shoulders and black hair. Although he is fond of Rose because of her sweet nature and friendliness, he is diverted into romancing her sister, Briar. He spends the rest of his life regretting his decision, not realizing that he was being controlled by magic.

•Briar Harvestar, an antagonist, is the elder of the two princesses of Atheia. She is highly intelligent and has the ability to magically influence human beings, but she is driven to evil by her jealousy of her younger sister. She swears her allegiance to the Lord of the Locusts in exchange for promises of power and vengeance against Rose.

•Balsaad, an antagonist, is a river dragon. By manipulating Rose’s dreams, he is able to leave his river, gaining his independence. He can immediately heal and reattach dismembered parts of his body.

•The Lord of the Locusts, an antagonist, is an evil spirit who is the primary villain of both Bone and Rose. Although he lacks a body, he tries to enter the mortal world several times. Initially, he infects Mim, the queen of the dragons. When she is turned into stone, he whispers to powerful dreamers, hoping to entice them into helping him escape. He frequently appears as a giant locust and can easily control swarms of locusts to do his bidding.

•The Great Red Dragon is one of the more ambiguous characters in Rose, which is a change from his heroic portrayal in Bone. He is the son of the great dragon Mim and, along with the others, decides to turn her into stone when she becomes possessed. He sets himself apart from the other dragons by attempting to guide and protect human beings. He tries to guide Rose, although she does not trust him and deceives him in order to protect her sister.

Artistic Style

Vess’s vision of the Valley in Rose is different from Smith’s depiction in Bone. Because of his history as a fantasy artist, Vess creates art more along the lines of that found in illustrated novels than that associated with the comic book format. His personal fondness for sculpting can be seen in his backgrounds; many of his scenes have a three-dimensional quality to them that suggests a reality beyond the edge of the panel.

Vess’s boundary pushing affects the pacing of his graphic panels. Regular, evenly spaced panels suggest an even passage of time. Thus, varying the size and position of panels within the outline of the page, as well as the amount and position of dialogue, changes the perceived time and movement of characters within the panels. Time seems to pause when Vess transitions between a series of short, interlaced panels and a full-page splash panel. Vess also plays with the selection and presentation of background figures and the careful use of color to vary the mood of each scene. For example, one can almost sense Briar’s vicious nature when observing her glowering in the background of a scene while Rose has some pleasant exchange in the foreground. The shift of light and dark colors also emphasizes the relative moodiness of the “darker” princess.

Themes

Like Bone, Rose is a study of the maturing of a young woman. Rose is a dynamic, original character placed alongside fairly static fantasy stereotypes. Briar, the villain of the piece, is almost a stereotypical scheming blond. Likewise, Bone’s bartender-turned-hero, Lucius, is transmuted into a handsome captain of the guards, noted as looking markedly similar to Marvel Comics’ hero Superman. The king and queen of Atheia are somewhat flat also, as they are engaged in the suppression of one daughter for the benefit of the other.

The unique aspect of Rose is the presentation of the titular character. She is not especially feminine, not especially attentive to her study of magic, and utterly outmaneuvered by the clever machinations of the humans and creatures around her. The fact that she grows out of amazing naïveté into the deceptive wisdom of her later self, Gran’ma Rose Ben of Bone, suggests a keen appreciation of the demand for more prevarication and less idealism in the harsh world of reality as opposed to the absolute idealism of traditional fantasy.

Another theme, again reminiscent of Bone, is the keenly felt awareness of the destructive power of myth in shaping human life. The humans of Atheia live and die according to tradition and prophecy. It is painful to watch how these very traditions become barriers between people who should, by all rights, love and trust one another. Because only one princess can become the next ruler of Atheia, Rose and Briar are set at odds with one another from early childhood. The kinship of their names is also at variance with their roles here; in traditional stories, the briar nurtures and protects the rose, whereas here, Rose is the target of Briar’s suppressed rage. Rose struggles against the expectations of her spiritual teachers just as Briar struggles against the disappointment of her parents.

Impact

Rose is a work typical of the post-1980’s Modern Age comic book in that it challenges some of the conventions of the genre in previous eras. For example, the terms of the collaboration between Smith and Vess allowed Smith to act as writer and storyboard director while handing over the penciling, inking, and painting to Vess. In comparison to some of the fixed roles that Golden Age and Silver Age writers and illustrators accepted, this flexibility of responsibility between collaborators within a single microcosm seems startlingly unusual in what has sometimes seemed a particularly territorial artistic venue. Some modern graphic artists, including Smith and Vess, have resisted the “Marvel versus DC” or “superhero comics versus alternative comics” sort of binary that is the norm in the comics world; both Bone and Rose seem to challenge that fixity of purpose.

The intertwining plots of the two works, however, also caused problems. Vess and Smith discussed the possibility of creating Rose prior to 2000 and determined that the plot of the prequel necessitated revealing several key plot points significant to, but not yet revealed in, Bone. As a consequence, the prequel could not be published until after the relevant plot points were no longer “secrets.”

Vess took over the artistic reins of Rose with an attitude of reverence for Smith’s characters. Both works, for example, not only attract and appeal to a larger number of female readers than most other graphic novels but also have broad “acceptable age” ranges. On the other hand, differences have been noted between Smith’s and Vess’s respective visions of the characters and scenarios. Rose is decidedly somber and lacks Bone’s lighter, humorous touch. Rose also is a “purer” work in the sense that it does not cross genres; Rose’s adherence to fantasy conventions strictly regulates the appearance and behavior of most of the characters.

Further Reading

Lee, Tanith, and Trina Robbins. TheSilver Metal Lover (1985).

Pini, Richard, and Wendy Pini. ElfQuest (1978-1985).

Speigelman, Art. Maus (1980-1991).

Bibliography

Arnold, Andrew. “No Bones About It.” Time, September 17, 2004, 26-27. http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,698456,00.html.

Nolen-Weathington, Eric. Charles Vess. Modern Masters 11. New York: TwoMorrows, 2007.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Jeff Smith. Modern Masters 25.New York: TwoMorrows, 2011.

Smith, Jeff. “Interview with Jeff Smith.” Interview by Jeff Mason. Indy Magazine, January 21, 1994.