COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 26 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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2815225004
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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
Phoney gathers the townsfolk for their upcoming battle with the dragon while Fone Bone & Smiley attempt to take Bartley back to the mountains. Meanwhile, Thorn meets the Great Red Dragon once again but this time in a dream. Some Venu crossed her path while she was asleep and left her a sword, which she takes with her on the journey to Gran’ma Ben’s farm.
Note: This comic marked the start of some release delays due to a vision problem that Jeff experienced in the winter of 1996/1997. He said that it took him away from the drawing table for 5 months. 1997 only saw the publication of 3 issues as opposed to the usual 6.
The Slab
Highest grade! Bought from an auction as a CGC 9.8 and had it signed by Jeff Smith at the 2023 Heroes Con. Big thanks to Rich Henn for facilitating! Graded by CGC on June 29, 2023.
Inside The Comic
Twenty two pages of story, two pages of letters, and eight pages of ads. The inside front cover has a drawing of Phoney barking commands at Jonathan Oaks from page 5. 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 Elizabeth Lewis for Lewis and Wilson Studio. 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 2 showing Fone Bone, Smiley, and Bartleby vainly waiting for Thorn before taking off.
Ads
There are six different pages of ads for Bone stuff including an all black page with just the URL for Boneville.com, marking the first month of its existence (December 1996). The second is for a Bone poster with the cover art for #24 and the third is for another Bone poster with the cousins under a giant tree in the forest. The fourth is a double paged ad for The Bone Reader which features preliminary sketches and scripts from the story so far. It will also have the famed Flip Book in the top right corner of some of the pages so people could see the animation for themselves. The last ad is for the official 1997 Bone calendar which not only contains panels and hilarious quotes from the saga but also birthdays of Jeff’s favorite cartoonists. The non-Bone ads feature A Distant Soil #17 by Colleen Doran and The Wizard’s Tale from Kurt Busiek and David Wenzel. The inside back cover has an ad for all three deluxe hardcovers of the first three Bone chapters.
Bone-a-Fides
The Bone-a-Fides was all fans once again. A 14-year old asked what Pogo was after seeing it mentioned in the letter sections numerous times in previous issues. Jeff wasn’t surprised he hadn’t heard of it before since it hasn’t been in the newspapers for 25 years at that point. Another gentleman referenced Jeff’s announcement that he already knew how the story will end and begged him not to conclude the saga like the Quantum Leap TV show which “inflicted unmeasurable harm on the viewers all over the country”.
People continue to mention Bone becoming an animated movie or Saturday morning cartoon. Jeff still had not addressed these speculations but did reveal that the next storyline after The Dragonslayer would be about a humorous villain named Rockjaw, Master of the Eastern Border. He also hinted that the “Name the Rat Creature Contest” would be updated in #27 and encouraged everyone to keep him sending potential names.
Estimated Copies Sold thru Diamond: ????
Back Cover Collectible
1996 Holiday Card from Cartoon Books
With the December 1996 issue of Bone, here is the Holiday Card that the Cartoon Books crew sent out to comic shops and subscribers. It’s signed by the entire staff listed in the credits: President Vijaya Iyer, Assistant Publisher Karen Root, Archivist Andries Mulder, and some guy named Jeff. Proof that they’re still alive with plenty of work to do (and not sellouts to Image)!
This is the last issue with Karen Root in the credits. I do not know where she ended up but I hope she’s doing well. Her work was certainly appreciated.
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