Bone Comic Book Archive
Bone 18
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COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 18 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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2815225002
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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
Luther and Phoney begin their contest to see who can make the Barrel Haven tavern the most profitable while Fone Bone and Thorn wrestle with the truth of her heritage.
The Slab
Highest grade! For some reason, from all the raws I’ve ever bought over the years, I could never find a copy worthy of a NM/MT grade. Bought this one as a CGC 9.8 from eBay and sent it to the 2023 Heroes Con to be signed by Jeff. Big thanks to Rich Henn for facilitating (and preserving the condition)! Officially graded by CGC on June 29, 2023.
Inside The Comic
Twenty pages of story, three pages of letters and one page for an ad. The inside front cover has a drawing of Lucius wringing Smiley’s neck from page 3. The brief prologue is included as well as the credits: By Jeff Smith at the top and Cover Airbrush by David Reed on the bottom. The back cover has a panel from page 11 showing Fone Bone asking Thorn about her latest dream.
Bone-a-Fides
The Bone-a-Fides section is nearly all fans save for a short letter from Kurt Busiek (with praise). Everyone wanted to know who this Lord of the Locusts was but Jeff was tight-lipped. One fan mentioned being a reader since the first comic strip was published in Ohio State’s student newspaper (September 1982) and getting a copy of Thorn: Tales from the Lantern signed by Jeff. He even cut out all of the strips while attending OSU and counted over 250 of them still in his possession. Another reader had an interesting story about his work tutoring a 13-year old whose reading level was seriously behind his classmates. One day, they started to read Bone together and the child’s enthusiasm for reading increased dramatically, which is always the first step toward improvement. Another great story from the readers!
Ads
The ad on the last page is for a slew of Bone t-shirts and pins. The inside back cover has an ad for both Bone TPBs as well as information about buying a subscription and back issues.
Estimated Copies Sold: 10938
Back Cover Collectible
Jeff Smith - Before Bone
In the days before the release of Thorn: The Complete Proto-BONE College Strips, fans who didn’t live near OSU in the early 80s had to spend big money on Thorn Tales From the Lantern OR purchase one of the 500 Before Bone books that were released in 2008 to read the early incarnations of the Bones. Both publications had far less than half of the total strips but were enough to give fans an idea of what the saga was like before the comics. Jeff wrote a short introduction that basically said how much he hated going back to these things but did enjoy the days hanging out with his fellow cartoonists ;-) Artist, business partner, and contemporary Jim Kammerud as well as mentor Lucy Caswell were a bit more philosophical with their essays and certainly more complementary. The strips themselves looked great in printed form and the inside front cover had an example of a newspaper page from The Lantern that showed how the strips were placed. I’ve always loved this book and still do.
I have two of these: one I bought from the OSU Cartoon Research Library when they were released and one I purchased on eBay that doesn’t have a number or sig. I’d say both are NM- at best (originally sent in a padded envelope unfortunately).
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