COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 54 Signature
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Grade:
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9.6
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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2719540006
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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; “Deaths” of Kingdok, Lucius Downs, & the Hooded One
Synopsis
The penultimate issue in the series sees the death of Kingdok, by way of a sword to the head from Thorn, and The Hooded One as Lucius Down grabs her before she can land her strike on Gran’ma Ben. Lucius dies as a result but Thorn and Fone were able to touch the Crown of Horns and bring an end to Briar.
The Slab
Second highest graded Signature Series book! My raw book signed by Jeff at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con. Thanks to the great Rich Henn for facilitating! This issue has been the second toughest in the series to find high grade copies for me (first being #5). I knew this wasn’t a 9.8 when I sent it in but it was the closest I’ve ever had in my possession. The all-black front & back covers along with the sheer size of the issue make it extremely difficult. Graded on July 23, 2022.
Inside The Comic
Forty-eight pages of story, zero pages of letters, and zero pages of ads. The inside front cover has a drawing of Thorn’s feet stepping on the floor of the Crown of Horns from page 15 with the black & white “coloring” reversed. The brief prologue is on the top left and the credits are as follows: Written and Drawn by Jeff Smith, Cover Color by Steve Hamaker. For Cartoon Books: Vijaya Iyer as Publisher, Kathleen Glosan as Production Manager, and Todd Blind for Shipping and Archiving. The issue number appears on the back cover along with the publishing date and cover price. It also features a panel from page 8 showing a beat-up Fone Bone shouting for Thorn.
Bone-a-Fides
The Bone-a-Fides are back for the last time. I know…I said zero pages of letters, but I don’t count the inside back cover as an official page and this is where they’re located. The issue itself has 48 story pages which is 50% more than the second longest Bone comic up to this point (#52).
The first letter is from a fan whose mother used to read Bone #1-8 to her as a 6 year-old. She got them as a gift for her 13th birthday because of how much she coveted them (surprised they hadn’t worn away by now). She said that she had looked for the Bone titles in several comic stores but had never seen new issues until someone had given her #40-44 as a gift. She finally found Boneville.com…only to discover that the series was ending. She had enjoyed the ride though and, for someone with “crippling shyness and a tendency towards geekiness”, considered the Bone cousins her friends. Jeff appreciated the letter very much and explained that a lot of the letters he receives at the moment are from readers who had Bone read to them as kids. He “never pictured writing Bone for someone as young as 5 or 6”. He “always pictured my readers to be adults or at the very youngest 10”. He considered this great of course, but the only problem is that “now that they’re all growing up, I feel ancient!”
The last letter was from a father (33) and son (5) who were reading the series for a third time. The son asked what Boneville looked like and the dad said that there are no pictures of it. Jeff published the drawing that the son created on orange construction paper. It’s hard to make out anything in the piece save for some Bones skateboarding and what appears to be Moby Dick in the distant ocean.
Jeff closed with a shoutout to Dave Sim and Gerhard for making it to Cerebus #300. He explained that his problems with Sim were personal and not professional and he had to congratulate such a fantastic achievement, especially for an independent publisher.
Ad
The bottom quarter of the inside back cover had a preview of the #55 cover along with an announcement for the 232-page Crown of Horns TPB coming this summer (2004). It says it will include new art and extra pages! A small drawing of Phoney says “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
Estimated Copies Sold thru Diamond: 13490
Back Cover Collectible
Bone: More Tall Tales (Uncorrected Proof)
The official release of this book was in August/September 2023 and contains new art by not only Jeff Smith but also Katie Cook, Matt Smith, and Scott Brown. Jeff’s contributions are the interludes between the primary stories which feature Fone Bone, Smiley, Bartleby and a few camper kids. Bone Coda, Riblet, and Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails are presented in color for the first time with work completed by Tom Gaadt. In this uncorrected proof, however, only about 80% of the coloring for Coda was complete and the rest was in black & white. Tom Gaadt himself sent me this book for some minor help I gave him regarding background info for Thorn: Tales from the Lantern (ultimately used for the Thorn Kickstarter campaign). He signed and dated the interior.
For the first time in my collecting journey, I personally had two books signed by Jeff: this example and a Bone Coda (described in Bone #32). He had never appeared anywhere near my home so this was something I couldn’t miss. It was signed on the first day of the 2024 Bedrock City Con and he did a Smiley sketch for me as well. He truly is an incredibly nice guy and I’m very glad to have met him after all these decades. I sent this to CGC for both Signature Series and JSA (verification of the interior sig). Unfortunately, they didn’t make the effort to verify Tom’s autograph so it’s only a witnessed SS label. Big thanks to Dork Buzz for facilitating the autograph on the cover!
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