Bringing Home the BONE, Part 2

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Saturday, September 07, 2002

Last time, we began our look back at 12 years of BONE, Jeff Smith's cartoonish fantasy saga. It remains one of the few prominent comic book titles not overrun by spandex-wearing, pituitary cases, and Smith sees the series as one of the serious alternatives to the still-powerful superhero genre.

"I suppose there is some kind of a line drawn in the sand between the underground artsy comics and the mainstream superhero comics," says Smith. "But I've always straddled that fence. I'm sure many superhero readers who look at BONE because they think it's Casper or Huckleberry Hound - they're the ones that I think will get the message that this is exactly the kind of comic they would like. I don't know how I slipped through - there were definitely some pitfalls that I missed accidentally in the beginning - but I got the same kind of good treatment from the alternative press, which didn't treat me like a fantasy story. They approached it as a Walt Kelly or a Carl Barks type of story."

For Smith, evoking that golden age of cartooning was a major part of what made BONE worth doing. It also meant going solo, which was another automatic assumption on Smith's part.

"That was never in question," says Smith. "It didn't even occur to me [not to go it alone]. The cartoons I liked the best like the comic strips like CALVIN AND HOBBES - the same guy writes and draws it. The same thing with POGO - Walt Kelly writes it and draws it. Even in comic books, what took my focus in the mid-'80s away from comic strips toward comic books was Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. I looked at that and thought, 'Wow, this guy just showed the world how you can really tell a narrative in a way that's more like a film than a comic book,' and again [it was] the same guy writing and drawing it."

Smith also feels a certain responsibility to insure that the series welcomes new readers at every juncture.

"One thing I've done with every issue - and I think this is important if you're working serially like this - is you have to assume that there's going to be a certain amount of new readers," says Smith. "Even for regular readers, it's been two months since they've read the book, so you have to get everybody back up to speed and you have to do it invisibly. Whether it was #3 or #37, I try to make sure that in every issue, if somebody jumps in, they'll know that there's a bigger story going on but they'll be able to follow it. [They'll] know that there's more, and hopefully they'll want to go see more."


The story is definitely barreling toward a big finale, and the climax comes in #50 just prior to the series conclusion in #55. According to Smith, there will be a big battle...one he didn't even plan!

"I have an ancient city," says Smith. "All of the characters are together. There's been a hostile takeover within the city, and on the outside all the bad guys have the city surrounded, so a huge battle breaks out. I've done an awful lot of action sequences in the last ten years, like the Great Cow Race, and I'm going to do my best to top all of them in #50. I think anybody reading it will have a good time."

But what's this about not planning the climactic war in the original outline?

"Some things have caught me off guard," admits Smith. "Some of the darkness I didn't really see coming. I didn't really know there was going to be such a big battle at the end. I didn't realize there would be any bloodshed. I didn't want there to be a big battle - that seemed moribund, and isn't what I thought the story was, but the conflict between all the characters was on that scale and I couldn't avoid it."

This isn't the first time the saga dictated its own direction. Without that magic of creative serendipity, there wouldn't have even been a Great Cow Race.

"[That's] probably the thing I'm most known for," says Smith. "It was not even in the original outline. It was a joke toss-off line that this old lady raced cows, and I got a lot of fan reaction to it. 'I can't wait to see Gran'ma race the cows!', and before I knew it I had painted myself into a corner. It was great."

Next time, we find out what the future holds for Jeff Smith without BONE!

TO BE CONTINUED