Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails

Stupid, Stupid Rat Tales
Cover of trade paperback
Publication information
Publisher	Cartoon Books
Format	mini-series
Publication date	1998-2000
No. of issues	3
Creative team
Written by	Tom Sniegoski
Artist(s)	Jeff Smith, Stan Sakai

Tall Tales: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero is a prequel to the Eisner Award-winning comic book Bone by Jeff Smith. It was initially published in 1998 as a three issue mini-series before being collected in a trade paperback () in 2000.

Whereas the other spin-off, Rose, focuses on the valley people from the story, Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails focuses on the formation of Boneville, the hometown of the Bones. The series is drawn but not written by Smith. The writer is Tom Sniegoski. The back-up feature included in the trade paperback collection, Riblet, is written by Sniegoski and drawn by Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai. The series was yet again reprinted in the collection Tall Tales, released in August 2010.

In the principal story, the Bones' culture hero, 'Big Johnson' Bone, has suffered the death of compatriot 'Gertie' Bone, and is traveling with 'Mr. Pip': a cantankerous capuchin monkey. En route, Jonson and Pip are blown by a tornado into the valley of the earlier Bone comics, where they learn that the antagonist 'Rat Creatures' are attacking every other inhabitant thereof. Accompanied by some local animals, and the miniature dragon 'Stillman', Jonson invades the Rat Creatures' territory to recover their hostages; but finds the latter imprisoned alive in the entrails of Tyson, the son of the Rat Creatures' Queen Maude. There, Jonson and his companions give Tyson indigestion, while Pip, Stillman, and the others are taken to Maude's dungeon. There, Stillman's fiery breath enables their escape, while Jonson's music prompts Tyson to disgorge him and the others. Trying to recapture them, Tyson severs his own tail, and Jonson severs Maude's to make a hat for himself. Thereafter Jonson and Pip establish a dry-goods store, which later becomes the center of Boneville. Upon their departure, Stillman is commended for protecting the animals by the 'Great Red Dragon' of the earlier series, and Maude orders that all Rat Creatures be deprived of their tails annually, to compensate for the loss of her own.