COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 24 Signature
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Grade:
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9.8
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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1151474004
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Owner:
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DocGo
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Label Notes
Jeff Smith story, cover, and art
Synopsis
Lucius Down returns to Barrelhaven and finds Phoney acting as town dictator. Kicked out of his own bar, he goes to sleep in the barn and finds Fone Bone & Smiley, who tell him all they’ve learned about the Harvestar family. Meanwhile, The Hooded One joins forces with the people of Pawa and declares war on the Valley.
The Slab
Highest grade in Signature Series! My raw book signed with a Ted sketch by Jeff at a Chicago Comics appearance. Thanks to mschmidt for facilitating! Graded on November 19, 2013.
Inside The Comic
Twenty pages of story, two pages of letters, two Bone pin-ups, and eight pages of ads. The inside front cover has a drawing of Smiley and Fone with a lit candle from page 7. The brief prologue is on the top left and the credits are nearly the same as last issue: Written and Drawn by Jeff Smith, Cover Color by Drew (his first) for Extreme Color. For Cartoon Books: Vijaya Iyer as President, Karen Root as Assistant Publisher, and Andries Mulder as Archivist. For Image Comics: Larry Marder as Executive Director and 5 additional names for staff positions. The back cover has a panel from page 8 where Bartleby shows Smiley how smart he is.
Pin-Ups
The first pin-up is by Don Simpson with Fone Bone and Thorn among the Bizarre Heroes cast (Bizarre Heroes could be found at your local comic shop). The second was drawn by Frank Kurtz who was writing a comic named Creepsville at the time. It features Fone Bone reading Creepsville in bed while surrounded by various monsters from the comic.
Ads
There are five different ads for Bone stuff including a preview for Bone #25with the cover art and “Odd Man Out” scrolled across the top. The second has Bone-themed playing cards as well as magnets from Graphitti Designs. The third has the Fone Bone and Red Dragon poster, the fourth with t-shirts and pins, and the fifth with Bone: Dragonslayer collector cards. The non-Bone ads featured Big Bang Comics, the Spawn website, and The Book of Ballads and Sagas with scripts by Jeff in issue 2. One of the drawings in this ad has a nod to Jeff illustrating himself back in the Thorn comic strip days The inside back cover has an ad for the deluxe hardcovers of Out From Boneville and The Great Cow Race.
Bone-a-Fides
As the tradition continues for the Image Comics’ Bone-a-Fides, the letters are all from fans. One gentleman, who had a horrible last few months of real life, expressed his admiration for the Bone series which helped him through the rough times. He was also saddened about the subscriptions ending and not getting the Christmas cards any longer (the first mention of these goodies in the letters section). I’m sure he was ecstatic to hear that the subscriptions are back and that Jeff announced a new Randy Bowen statue of the Great Red Dragon, which he said is “massive”. There were also compliments for the Sim/Gerhard pin-ups and a fan from jolly old England called Jeff a “git” (for not beginning each issue with a rehash of the last). Jeff agreed ;-)
The last letter is from the wife of an obsessive comic buff who could never understand his world. That is, until he introduced her to Bone. Now they finally had something comic-related to talk about. He even bought her a Bone t-shirt for Christmas!
Estimated Copies Sold thru Diamond: 50700 (highest of any one issue)
Back Cover Collectible
Red Dragon & Ted Cold-Cast Statue by Graphitti Designs
As Jeff said in the Bone-a-Fides, this statue is massive! Official dimensions are 12” wide x 7" tall x 8" deep and approximately 10 lbs. The craftsmanship by Randy Bowen is top notch and Ted looks fantastic…even without legs ;-) The box also has the colored panels of the classic first meeting between Phoney, the Red Dragon, and Ted. The MSRP was $199 back in the day and this may have been a little too steep for most Bone fans at the time. From what I’m seeing, a little over half of these have sold (as of 4/2026). I assure you that if you buy one now, you won’t regret it.
They went on sale for its 25th anniversary (not sure this was intentional) when I finally picked one up. I think this is number 430 of 2000. I have yet to display it so the numbering may have been smudged by the styrofoam packaging.
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