Press Release
IDW Publishing and Cartoon Books are pleased to announce Jeff Smith’s Bone Artist’s Edition, to be released this fall and featuring one of Smith’s most beloved stories: The Great Cow Race! Featuring Fone, Smiley and Phoney bone, Gran’ma Ben, the radiant Thorn, and, of course, those stupid, stupid Rat Creatures!
It’s finally here! The universe hopping adventures of Dr. Robert Johnson come to a close with an explosive reveal you may have to read a couple of times to believe. Jeff Smith’s journey with RASL wraps and Major Spoilers has the review after the jump!
There’s movement on the Bone animated movie based on Jeff Smith’s comic book series. There’s a director.
This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the team celebrates the holiday by taking a super-sized helping of Jeff Smith’s Bone.
Bone: The Complete Volume
Art and Words by Jeff Smith
The series centers around the Bone cousins, white, bald cartoon caricatures. In the opening pages of Bone: Out from Boneville the three Bone cousins—avaricious Phoncible P. “Phoney” Bone, goofy cigar-smoking Smiley Bone, and everyman character Fone Bone—are run out of their hometown of Boneville after Phoney decides to run for mayor and built a balloon on top the head of a statue of Boneville’s founder. A strong wind made the balloon break the head off of the statue and all the townspeople ran Vincible, Smiley, and Fone out of town. After crossing a desert, the cousins are separated by a sea of locusts and individually ending up in the mysterious Valley and must make their way across the fantasy landscape pursued by rat creatures. They joyously reunite at a local village called Barrelhaven, where they are taken in by a mysterious girl named Thorn and her even more enigmatic grandmother. Fone Bone instantly develops a crush on Thorn when he meets her, and repeatedly attempts to prove his love through poetry. As they stay longer in the valley, they encounter humans and other creatures who are threatened by a dark entity, the Lord of the Locusts. The Bones are quickly drawn into the events around them, compelling them on a hero’s journey to help save the world.
Join in on the discussion by ordering the book here Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume (Vol 1)
As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.
Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts on this book, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (positive and negative) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!
While news that RASL (and BONE) is getting the digital comics treatment from comiXology is really cool, I couldn’t help but see this little bit of information from creator Jeff Smith that has me quite down.
In fact, RASL will probably be my last serialized comic book…RASL #15 will be the last issue.
If you haven’t read the book, then you are missing out on a fascinating story. Of course the every other month (or later) release schedule probably hurt ongoing sales.
On the plus side, the collected edition should be an awesome read.
“I think the RASL collection will be close to 600 pages when it’s all said and done, so it’ll look nice and chunky sitting next to BONE.
via comiXology
Jeff Smith has posted a sneak peek of RASL #11 that arrives in stores next week, that you can check out, after the jump!
Options can be had a dime a dozen, and there’s no guarantee that once a film is optioned that it will be made into a movie. According to Variety, Producer Lionel Wigram has picked up the rights to Jeff Smith’s RASL series.
The title character is a former military scientist who’s become an art thief with the ability to hide out in parallel worlds.
Wigram is the producer of the Sherlock Holmes movies, and he does have experience with comic book to movie adaptations, so here’s hoping RASL gets made, and is a huge success.
Jeff Smith is working on a Superman project that has not been officially announced by DC. However, Jeff did post a sketch of the Man of Steel that looks pretty good.
When you jump from one universe to another using Tesla technology, there’s a good chance you are going to make a few enemies, reacquaint yourself with friends thought gone, and maybe, just maybe, meet someone more powerful than you.
Are we really only up to issue #6 in one of the most interesting mystery sci-fi adventure stories being produced? The Rasl story takes an interesting turn as readers unlock the next clue to the technology that powers the universe jumping technology.
If you are the San Mateo, California area, and can get the Public Television Station KCSM, you might want to check out Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, Bone and the Changing Face of Comics.
THE CARTOONIST tells the inspiring story of Jeff Smith’s creation of the epic comic book, BONE, hailed by critics as one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Fellow cartoonists Scott McCloud, Colleen Doran, Harvey Pekar, Paul Pope and Terry Moore, and others share their stories of this worldwide phenomenon that began in small comics hobby shops and is now found in the homes of millions of adults and children in 25 countries. The film also provides a look at a unique industry and art form that continues to evolve as its audience expands.
The show airs at 9:30 PM tonight (Wednesday, January 20, 2010) and then again at 2:30 AM on Thursday January 21st.
Here’s an interesting bit of news via Collider in which Sherlock Holmes producer Dan Lin mentions a multi-part Bone movie based on Jeff Smith’s work.
Lin said Justin Monjo is writing the script and they already did a test with Animalogic (who did Happy Feet and Guardians of Ga’Hoole). He went on to say “it really looks like a mix of Shrek as far as the three Bone characters and their comedy, their Looney Tunes or Marx Brothers comedy set in a Lord of the Rings world. We’ve met with several directors and we hope to come to a director decision by January and Jeff Smith has been very intricately involved in the development process with us.â€
This might be a surprise to many Jeff Smith fans, as the creator has stated before he had no desire to see Bone turned into a film. However, Lin died say that Smith is “very intricately involved in the development process”, and that a director may be named as early as January 2010.
Having made it almost all the way through the giant Bone collected edition, I can’t wait to see how Lin will bring the look and style to the big screen.
