COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 28 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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4028853005
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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
Fone Bone, Smiley, and Bartleby meet Roque Ja, Master of the Eastern Border, as they make their way into the mountains to return Bartleby to his kind.
The Slab
Highest graded Signature Series copy! My raw book signed by Jeff at a Chicago Comics appearance in 2013 (facilitated by Michael Schmidt). Was a 9.6 but wonderfully pressed by CGC and became a 9.8. Graded on January 5, 2023 by CGC.
Inside The Comic
Twenty pages of story, two pages of letters, eight pages of ads, and one pin-up. The inside front cover has a drawing of Fone digging through his backpack from page 3 with the black & white “coloring” reversed. The brief prologue is on the top left and the credits, obviously, don’t have anyone from Image Comics: Written and Drawn by Jeff Smith, Cover Color by Elizabeth Lewis for Lewis and Wilson Studio. For Cartoon Books: Vijaya Iyer as President. Dan Stout and Kathleen Glosan as Staff. The pin-up is by Scott Robert (Patty Cake) and has to be seen to be believed (features Thorn, Fone, a rat creature, The Great Dragon, and Gran’ma Ben). The back cover has a panel from page 3 where Smiley is covering Bartleby’s ears so he doesn’t hear the plan.
Ads
The non-Bone ads include Castle Waiting by Linda Medley, the 1997 Small Press Expo, and Charles Vess’ . The first Bone ad is for the Dragonslayer hardcover/TPB and the second has the other three collections. There’s a three page spread for the Trilogy Tour which featured Jeff, Charles Vess, and Linda Medley driving from Atlanta, to Louisville, to Chicago, to Nebraska, to Salt Lake City, to the Grand Canyon (for some R&R), and finally to SDCC from late June to late July in 1997. The show included a “sixteen foot storytelling tree with three-dimensional characters from Bone, Ballads and Sagas, and Castle Waiting!” The inside back cover has another ad for the Trilogy Tour which included all the sites and dates.
Bone-a-Fides
The Bone-a-Fides started with a message from Jeff explaining his vision problem during the end of 1996 that took him away from the drawing table for five months. Now that #27 and #28 were under his belt, he could get Bone back to a regular schedule. The first two letters addressed the delay, including one from a retailer who described a 12 year-old named Eli: “…every week when I have to tell him that I am sorry that I still don’t have BONE, he looks like I’m holding out on him.” She said that many had already taken it from their pull lists but Eli was still holding on. Fortunately, she had written back before #28 went to publication and said that #27 was loved by all including Eli. She even had to order more copies which is always a good sign.
A short letter from future Brazilian comic book creator Fabio Moon was included as well as an important message from the famous Page 45 comic shop in England. They said that Dragonslayer was advertised to have issues #20-27 while the first Volume 3 of the Bone TPBs (called The Complete Bone Adventures) had issues #13-18. Jeff explained that his reorganization of which issues belong in which volume will be good in the long run but he certainly sympathized with owners of his original volume 3. Thankfully, he included #19 in the Bone Reader so that readers didn’t have to purchase Eyes of the Storm just for a single issue, and they’d also get behind-the-scenes material as well as a reprint of the Bone Flip Book.
The biggest news of course was the winner of the Name the Cub Contest. Shaenon K. Garrity from Poughkeepsie, NY suggested the name Bartleby, which was aptly inspired by a character from Moby Dick. Jeff showed the new artwork for the print in the letter section featuring all three cousins below a starry night. He told Shaenon to expect the original art very soon (I have it on good authority that he still owns it to this day).
Estimated Copies Sold thru Diamond: 29101
Back Cover Collectible
Bone Reader
This is the first anniversary book put out by Cartoon Books to celebrate the 5th year since Bone #1’s release (a tradition that has continued every five years…with the exception of the 15th). The publication itself has all sorts of great stuff to recap the first trilogy, including preliminary sketches, original Thorn comic strips, the entire Solstice, Powers That Be, and #13 1/2 storylines, the first full page comic strip of the Bones from 1986, the entire Flip Book in the top right corner, and the promised 19th issue. Jeff provides captioning throughout with commentary about the artwork, story, and process. He ends the book with a preview of when Dragonslayer will finish (#28) and the title of the next chapter, Rockjaw: Master of the Eastern Border featuring Thorn, Fone Bone, Smiley, and the Little Rat Creature Cub. His original plan changed of course, with Dragonslayer ending in #27 and Thorn not taking part in Rockjaw ;-)
I still have my well-worn original copy, but also the one pictured above (which is an easy NM/MT). I may get it signed one day if Jeff ever comes back to South Texas!
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