Jeff Smith
Carry a Toon (book) in your pocket
Little Mouse Gets Ready, and he teaches French as well!
Toon Books, the early-reader comics imprint helmed by Francoise Mouly, is relaunching three of its iPhone apps: Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons, by Agnes Rosensteihl; Jack and the Box, by Art Spiegelman, and Little Mouse Gets Ready, by Jeff Smith. Yes, you can get comics by the creators of Maus and Bone for free! All are worth a look on their own merits, and they also make an excellent distraction should you find yourself in the company of bored, fidgety children.
Of course, the free app is just the start—as soon as you open it up, you get the option to purchase an audio version in English or a variety of other languages.
I looked over the Little Mouse app, and it looked good, although the automated page turns are a little disconcerting. (You can turn that off from the start menu but not once you are reading the book.) All three books were originally published in a landscape format so they fit nicely on the screen, and the resolution is good even when blown up to double size for the iPad. And compared to $12.95 for the hardcovers, the free app is a steal.
- May 21, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Six by 6 | Six noteworthy debut comics
Good-Bye Chunky Rice
Cartoonists rarely produce great work right out of the starting gate. It usually it takes lots of time and lots of effort for an artist to hone their style and storytelling abilities. Debut comics — even those made by the greats — rarely offer any indication of what type of treasures lie ahead. Even Chris Ware had to make Floyd Farland before he could produce Jimmy Corrigan.
Still, sometimes a cartoonist seems to spring out of the sea foam fully formed, producing a work that not only draws attention and great buzz, but also indicates exactly where they’re headed — what direction they plan to take as an artist and what you as a reader can expect from them.
Here then, are six debut comics that made people go “Who the heck is this guy? And why haven’t I heard of him before?” I’m sure I missed someone. I always do. Be a dear and let me know who I forgot in the comments section, won’t you?
- May 20, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Kirby King of Comics
Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? Our special guest today is Ryan Cody, creator of Icarus and illustrator of Villains and Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun. You’ll be seeing more of Icarus around these parts starting very soon …
To see what Ryan and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.
- March 27, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Pre-orders for Bone Full Color One Volume edition begin today
Bone Pewter Figures
Earlier this month Jeff Smith announced details on the three different versions of the Bone 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Edition that are coming out later this year. And starting today, Jeff Smith’s Boneville website is now taking orders for the two box set editions that can either be shipped to your home or picked up at various conventions later this year.
The Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Collector’s Box Set includes a hardcover collection of the series, a signed art print, pewter figures of the three Bone cousins (see above), a miniature facsimile of Bone #1, a new essay by Smith, an expanded cover gallery of the Bone comic books and graphic novels, an illustrated 20-year timeline, a copy of the DVD The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, BONE, and the Changing Face of Comics and a 22k gold-plated coin. It will come in a red box, is limited to 2,000 copies and will cost $350. There’s also a $1,000 edition that’s limited to 50 copies and includes original art by Smith instead of the signed art print.
Both of these will be available this summer, starting at the San Diego Comic Con. Fans can also pre-order and pick them up at the Baltimore Comicon, Fan Expo Canada and the New York Comicon. The $350 box set can also be ordered through your local comic shop (Diamond code MAR111015).
- March 18, 2011 @ 09:45 AM by JK Parkin
Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume debuts in San Diego
Bone: Full Color One Volume Collector's Box Set
I know what I’ll be saving my “splurge” money from our weekly Food or Comics? column for … Jeff Smith announced today full details on the Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume he’s planning for this year to celebrate, obviously, the 20th anniversary of the first issue of Bone.
There will actually be three different versions:
–Shipping this summer just in time for the San Diego Comic Con is the Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Collector’s Box Set. It includes a hardcover collection of the series, a signed art print, pewter figures of the three Bone cousins, a miniature facsimile of Bone #1, a new essay by Smith, an expanded Cover Gallery of the Bone comic books and graphic novels, an illustrated 20-year timeline, a copy of the DVD The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, BONE, and the Changing Face of Comics and a 22k gold-plated coin with Phoney Bone’s head on one side, and Fone Bone on the reverse giving the dates of Bone #1 July 1991, and the 20th Anniversary July 2011. It will come in a red box, is limited to 2,000 copies and will cost $350.
–Also shipping in time for SDCC is a version of the above that, instead of the art print, includes an original piece of art by Smith and hand watercolored by Steve Hamaker. These are limited to 50 copies and cost $1,000.
–Finally, a $150 version of the hardcover that includes the timeline and cover gallery will ship in November. It comes in a slipcase.
And if you’re worried about how many trees this will cost the world, don’t worry –Smith says they’ll plant a tree through American Forests.org for every one they sell.
- March 2, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by JK Parkin
Get your monster-hunter on with Evan Palmer & Anna Bongiovanni’s “The Feast”
I’ve been meaning to send you all in the direction of “The Feast,” a short fantasy-adventure story about a bunch of village children and the giant forest monster that preys upon them, ever since it went up on Top Shelf’s webcomics portal Top Shelf 2.0 last week. Hopefully you’ll agree after reading it that cartoonists Anna Bongiovanni and Evan Palmer’s lushly illustrated monster romp was well worth the wait. You’ll catch a lot of Jeff Smith influence in the creature designs, action choreography, and elegantly inked black-and-white wilderness, but it took Bone a long, long time to get as unexpectedly dark as this gets by the end. This has “can’t wait to see more from this pair” written all over it. Sink your teeth into it.
- February 21, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Bone: Quest for the Spark
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Chris Mautner
If I had $15:
There’s quite a number of good books out this week, making for some tough decisions, but I think I’d initially go for either the third volume of Bakuman by Death Note creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata ($9.99) or Quest for the Spark #1 by Jeff Smith and Tom Sniegoski. The former is a series about would-be manga creators that I’m really starting to dig, the second is a new, official Bone (prose) sequel that, even though it doesn’t star all of the original cast and isn’t being written by Smith, should nevertheless be a worthy purchase, as Sniegoski is no stranger to the Bone universe (having penned the hilarious Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures spin-off).
- February 8, 2011 @ 03:57 PM by JK Parkin
Jeff Smith shows off Superman art from unannounced DC Book
Cartoonist Jeff Smith is best known for his creator-owned work, from his epic Bone to his current dimension-jumping series Rasl. But although he’s a big proponent of creator-owned comics and self-publishing, he still manages to find time in his day to do work on company-owned characters such as the memorable Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil which centered around DC’s Captain Marvel.
Well, as it turns out — he’s not done yet.
Last night on his blog, Smith posted a sketch from a new project he’s working on — a sketch of Superman. According to the cartoonist, it’s a sketch for an upcoming project for DC. Nothing else is said about the shape or scope of this upcoming work, but Smith does talk about his own personal connection with the character.
“One of my favorite memories of Superman,” says the artist,” is from when I was a kid was the character busting through walls, either on the TV show, or as a plastic Aurora model kit.”
This week is a big one for Smith — the new illustrated Bone novel, Bone: Quest For the Spark, hit shelves. Written by Tom Sniegoski with illustrations by SMith, it’s the first in a trilogy which introduces three new members of the Bone family.
- February 4, 2011 @ 03:15 PM by Chris Arrant
Full-color Bone One Volume Edition coming in 2011
BONE: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Edition
Is it okay to start making my Christmas wish list for next year?
2011 is the 20th anniversary of the publication of Bone #1, the comic that kicked off a Jeff Smith’s epic tale and launched his successful career. To celebrate, Smith announced today that a full-color version of the Bone One Volume Edition is coming next year.
“The technology has finally caught up!” Smith posted on the Bone site. “Through a combination of sewing and glue, we can make a nearly 1400 page color One Volume Edition that lays flat when open!”
The Bone One Volume Edition, previously only been available in black and white, collects the entire Bone comic series. Scholastic, meanwhile, has been publishing color collections of the story over the last few years. With a trio of Bone films on the horizon. the timing for this couldn’t be better.
- December 22, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Action Comics Annual #13
Welcome to another installment of “Food or Comics?” Every week we set certain hypothetical spending limits on ourselves and go through the agony of trying to determine what comics come home and which ones stay on the shelves. So join us as we run down what comics we’d buy if they only had $15 and $30 to spend, as well as what we’d get if we had some “mad money” to splurge with.
Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Graeme McMillan
If I had $15, I’d spend the first $2.99 on the last King City, which definitely appears on this week’s list. Yay! Then I’d split the remaining $13 between two DC Comics: Paul Cornell’s Action Comics Annual #13 ($4.99), in which a young Lex Luthor meets Darkseid (Editor Wil Moss promised me on Twitter the other week that this will fulfill my sick, sick desire for more comics like Jack Kirby’s Super Powers toy tie-ins from the 1980s, so I’m entirely sold) and Vertigo Resurrected: Winter’s Edge #1 ($7.99), a collection of long out-of-print seasonal tales starring Vertigo favorites and forgotten ghost characters from Christmas Past. Be warned: I’m a sucker for Holiday comics, so expect to see me picking those a lot in the next few weeks. It’s the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, after all.
- November 30, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim | Jill Thompson
Beasts of Burden/Hellboy (one-shot)
The Monday before Halloween, as well as the Monday before the release of the Beasts of Burden/Hellboy one-shot (Set for release this Wednesday from Dark Horse), was the ideal time for an interview with writer/artist Jill Thompson. October has been busy for Dark Horse and Thompson, given that earlier in the month the publisher released the new hardcover Scary Godmother collection of the four “Eisner Award-winning, fully painted children’s books … (Scary Godmother, Revenge of Jimmy, The Mystery Date, and The Boo Flu)”. The prospect of new Scary Godmother was a great topic to cover with Thompson, as well as learning her thoughts on how she creates certain tales and how organic the creative process is for her. Thanks to Dark Horse’s Jim Gibbons for arranging this interview, and I offer a great deal of gratitude to Thompson for this discussion.
Tim O’Shea: How satisfying is it to have all of the fully-painted Scary Godmother stories repackaged into one book? You considered teaming with different publishers to collect the stories, but what factors motivated you to go with Dark Horse?
Jill Thompson: Well, the original books, published by Sirius Entertainment had been out of print for a long while and I was very anxious to find a way to get them back out to the reading public. Since there are two animated specials in seasonal rotation on the Cartoon Network I knew there were a great many new fans I could introduce or reintroduce to the original material. I’m so happy that the book is back in print and available at comic shops and bookstores and online.
- October 25, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Bone: Tall Tales
Welcome once again to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy based on certain spending limits — $15, $30 to spend and if we had extra money to spend on what we call the “Splurge” item.
So join Brigid Alverson, Chris Mautner and me as we run down what we’d buy this week, and check out Diamond’s release list to play along in our comments section.
Chris Mautner
If I had $15:
This one’s easy, as Wednesday sees the arrival of Jeff Smith’s latest Bone-related project, Tall Tales ($10.99 paperback, $22.99 hardcover — I’m obviously going for the paperback here). My daughter has become obsessed with Bone — to the point where she’s started making her own Bone-related comics (complete with theme music) — and is eager to pick up the latest volume, even if it does mostly collect material she and I have read before (namely the Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails series). I’ll probably pick it up on the sly this week and give it to her for for her birthday next month.
- August 10, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Enter the Heroic Age
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? where we ask, “If you were stuck on an island with the smoke monster, what would you bring to read?” Yes, that was my lame attempt to make today’s edition topical. Sorry. Let’s just write that off as me being really excited to see the end of Lost.
This week our special guest is comics retailer Randy Lander, who you can find selling comics at Rogues Gallery Comics & Games in Round Rock, Texas or blogging over at Inside Joke Theatre. To see what Randy and the rest of our merry castaways have been reading, click the link below …
- May 23, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Jeff Smith’s ‘Read’ poster for ALA
Jeff Smith's poster for the American Library Association's "Read" campaign
The American Library Association asked Bone creator Jeff Smith to participate in its “Read” campaign, which promotes the joy of reading. The result is this original art of Smiley Bone, available from the ALA website as a poster or a bookmark.
- May 7, 2010 @ 02:25 PM by Kevin Melrose
Jeff Smith responds to effort to remove Bone from school district’s libraries
Bone: The Dragonslayer
During his spotlight panel at C2E2, cartoonist Jeff Smith reacted to Friday’s news that a parent in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul is seeking to remove Bone from the school district’s libraries.
“It just broke yesterday; I don’t know anymore about it than you do,” Smith said on Saturday, responding to a question from the audience. “She objected to the gambling, smoking and drinking and the sexiness. I feel sorry for her son. He’s going to be really embarrassed, but you know, not everybody has to like my stuff. That’s fine. But I really can’t go along with this un-American concept of banning books. Let the Nazis do that.”
The parent, Ramona DeLay of Apple Valley, Minnesota, filed a formal request with the school district last month asking that Bone: The Dragonslayer be “withdrawn from all students” because it depicts drinking, smoking, gambling and “sexual situations between characters.”
According to KSTP TV, DeLay is seeking to remove the entire series from the district’s 18 elementary schools; 12 of those schools have at least one volume of Bone available to students.
The district’s Reconsideration Review Committee will meet on April 27 to consider DeLay’s request. The good news is that of the 20 similar cases heard by the committee since the early 1990s, materials were removed from library shelves in just three instances.
- April 19, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose