COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Bone 20
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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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1151475002
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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
The self-proclaimed Dragonslayer has an ethical discussion with Lucius regarding the secret knowledge of the dragons and whether or not it should stay a secret. Meanwhile, Gran'ma's traveling party is ambushed after her gitchy feeling returns.
The Slab
Highest grade Signature Series book! My raw book signed by Jeff at a Chicago Comics appearance on 10/5/2013. It was officially graded by CGC on November 19, 2013. Thanks to mschmidt for facilitating!
Inside The Comic
Twenty pages of story, three pages of letters and one page of ads. The inside front cover has a drawing of Smiley reading a notepad to Phoney from page 8. 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 4 showing Gran’ma Ben commenting to Fone Bone and Thorn “We’re not out of th’ woods yet.”
***STORY NOTE***
Two pages from the original #20 never made it to any printing of The Dragonslayer or One Volume Edition. Most of the content was a joke about Smiley keeping a notepad filled with Phoney’s failed scams over the years (pages 8-10). I thought it was funny but not exactly crucial to the story. Some of the dialogue was changed as well to reflect Phoney calling himself the Dragonslayer. No idea why the joke was taken but adding references to Dragonslayer makes sense.
Bone-a-Fides
Once again, the Bone-a-Fides section was all fans with a decent amount of females in the mix. Olav Beemer from the Netherlands makes his second appearance and slightly criticizes the Gran’ma & Thorn revelation as well as the Dreaming. Jeff assures him that the Dreaming won’t be used “like a broom to sweep loose plot points under the rug.” He also said that he had a phone conversation with Neil Gaiman (who famously uses The Dreaming in his Sandman comics) and Neil agreed that there was no reason to change the name on his account. In fact, both had stolen the idea from the Aborigines so all is fair in that regard.
A couple of ladies wrote in to declare their love for the Bone comics after stealing the issues from their comic collector boyfriends. Kathy from Hollywood said that the Dragon is her favorite (“those ears kill me”) while Chalise from Orem, Utah was drawn in by the comedy from the early issues. An entire page featured a scan of a letter from two boys who think that the body parts of the Bones are made from food: their heads are cantaloupes, Smiley’s nose is a zucchini, Fone and Phoney’s bodies are watermelons, Smiley’s body is a loaf of French bread, their feet are dinner rolls, their eyes are raisins, and their “mitts” are weird, deep sea polyps. Was definitely a unique letter and made me wonder what else Jeff had received over the years.
Ads
The last page has an all black background and declares “The newest hero in the Image Universe is not very strong”. Below these words is a small drawing of Fone Bone replying “Really?” The rest of the ad says “Look for the free Bone Sourcebook at your favorite comic shop!” along with “Bone #21 goes on sale Oct. 1995”. The inside back cover has an ad for the Out From Boneville hardcover.
Estimated Copies Sold: 31,920
Back Cover Collectible
Bone Series 2 Autographed Card
This is 1 of 500 autographed cards from the second Bone card series by Comic Images. They were produced as an All-Chromium set and they really are impressive. The illustration on this particular card reminds me of the Thorn comic strips he used to draw in The Lantern where “Jeff Smith” frequently became a character in the story (often seated behind his drawing table). On nearly all of the signed cards, you’ll see some of the silver ink on the backside. Apparently, he stacked them on top of each other immediately after autographing them. This isn’t the first or last time he’s done this (see my Hooded One card in Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails #1). ;-)
I did not find this in a pack. I bought it second hand on eBay. The only packs I ever bought were from the first series as I wanted to find that damn sketch card.
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