COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 53 Signature
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Grade:
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9.4
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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2769460006
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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
Thorn, Fone, and Bartleby begin their search for the Crown of Horns as they attempt to get past the Pawan Army and into Tanen Gard.
The Slab
Third highest graded Signature Series book! Raw book bought from paperheart and signed by Jeff at the 2023 Heroes Con. Thanks to Rich Henn for facilitating! Officially graded by CGC on September 21, 2023.
Inside The Comic
Thirty-one pages of story, one page of letters, and zero pages of ads. The inside front cover has a drawing of Fone Bone riding on Bartleby’s back from page 8 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 and Kathleen Glosan as Production Manager. 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 Thorn asking Fone Bone & Bartleby how they got out of the city.
Bone-a-Fides
The Bone-A-Fides…are back yet again! This issue only had 31 story pages (as opposed to 32 in the last) so Jeff had an extra page to spare. A letter from the late cartoonist Wes Anderson is one of the few industry letters that were included in the last twenty issues or so. He had effusive praise for #51 and the series as a whole. He thought Jeff would join the ranks of Windsor McCay, Will Eisner, and Jeff MacNelly as one of the greats to ever put pencil and ink to paper. Jeff thanked Wes for his kind words and directed people to check out his syndicated comic strip Stormfield (which reminded him of Morrie Turner’s Wee Pals). Wes passed away at 42 in 2008.
A fan from Illinois noted that Jeff had said in Bone #51 that the collection volumes were subject to “post-completion review and possible revision” so he had a couple suggestions. He wanted the only original work from the Disney Adventures magazine, The Powers That Be (originally titled May The Force Be With You), to be included in The Great Cow Race. It was originally included in the Complete Bone Adventures Volume 3 between Up on the Roof (#13 1/2) and Road Trip (#14) as part of the continuing story. In later editions, Up on the Roof was moved to the end of The Great Cow Race and The Powers That Be was completely removed. Jeff acknowledged the change and said that the mood of Powers didn’t properly fit into the story and lessened the impact of Fone Bone and Thorn’s map reveal to Gran’ma Ben that occurs a few pages after. He said it would ultimately reappear in future appendices. The fan also wanted a new Cartoon Books cover for #27 since Jeff had drawn new ones for the CB editions of Bone #21-26 (originally published by Image). Jeff did not comment on this suggestion.
*NOTE* The Powers That Be was included in Jeff Smith’s Bone: The Great Cow Race Artist’s Edition in its original spot after 13 1/2. It fit naturally since the story with the map revelation doesn’t appear at all. You can read about this book in my description of Bone #10 in the Back Cover Collectible section.
The final letter was from a Danish expat who’d always wanted to write in but was now forced to because the series was ending. When he first moved to the United States, he was surprised at the separation between comic books and other forms of literature which generally doesn’t occur in Europe. He was also fascinated by the Dreaming upon rereading the series a second time and wondered why Jeff chose locusts instead of butterflies as the guardians/controlling powers. He added a P.P.S. with a glowing endorsement for a “One Volume Edition” and asked when the color edition would hit the shelves. Jeff noted that Steve Hamaker had started working on the coloring of the Bone interior pages and that he would also be coloring Jeff’s next project - Shazam: Monster Society of Evil from DC Comics. Jeff thought that “butterflies could be the agents of the Dreaming if they wanted but butterflies are honest, gentle creatures. Locusts in the other hand, are selfish insects with ravenous appetites. Seems to me the butterflies have let the locusts take control…”
Ad
The inside back cover is half Bone-A-Fides and half a preview of the covers for #54 & #55 (with quotes from Colleen Doran and Steve McCloud praising the series).
Estimated Copies Sold thru Diamond: 13603
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