COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails 3 Signature
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Grade:
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9.6
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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2236225006
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Owner:
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DocGo
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Label Notes
Tom Sniegoski story, Jeff Smith cover and art
Synopsis
Big Johnson Bone runs into Tyson, the rat creature son of the Queen…and he’s humongous. Includes a reprint of the Winter Solstice story from the Holiday Special.
The Slab
Currently the highest graded SS! My raw copy signed by Jeff and writer Tom Sniegoski at the 2014 Boston Comic Con. Big thanks to dscott for facilitating! There are no Grader’s Notes but it’s genuinely a 9.6 in my eyes. Pressing cannot help its problems. Graded on October 6, 2014.
Inside The Comic
Twenty two pages of story, two pages of letters, two pages of ads, a one page preview of Rose, four pages of a reprinted story from the Holiday Special, and a page of Season’s Greetings from Cartoon Books. The inside front cover has a drawing of Big Johnson Bone and Mr. Pip from page 15 with the black & white “coloring” reversed. The same prologue from issue #1 is on the top left and the credits are as follows: Written by Tom Sniegoski, Drawn by Jeff Smith, Cover Color by Elizabeth Lewis with “Happy Solstice” Written and Drawn by Jeff Smith. For Cartoon Books: Vijaya Iyer as President, Jeff Smith as Series Editor, Lopa Mukherjee for Marketing and Public Relations, Kathleen Glosan as Administrative Assistant and Kevin Spain for Shipping and Archiving. The back cover previews the return of Bone in the long-awaited issue 38 shipping June 2000. A small sketch of Phoney in the bottom right corner sneers “It’s about freakin’ time.”
Bone-a-Fides
Like the last issue, the Bone-a-Fides opened up with a review. This time, it was from Randy Lander of Snap Judgements for issue #2. He loved it of course and gave Jeff his due for the wonderful art. He praised Sniegoski as well for the dialogue (especially from the Big Johnson Bone character). In the intro, Lopa announced that all three issues of Rose won’t be available before Bone #38 ships as originally planned. Charles Vess informed the crew that it will take him at least another year to complete the pages from Jeff’s scripts (in actuality, it took two years for Rose #3 to release). She also mentioned that the Bone movie was proceeding but Jeff was more focused on drawing the books at the moment.
The actual letters also heaped praise on Big Johnson Bone with a few compliments for Mr. Pip as well. And surprise, surprise…after a three year hiatus…Olav Beemer was back! Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails #1, which he said was a callback to the earlier issues of Bone, inspired him to return to the Bone-a-Fides. He thought that a story like this was desperately needed after the more serious tone of the last few Bone chapters and lauded Boneville.com as well (after visiting for the first time).
Ads
The page with the Rose preview showed pencil sketches for each of the covers and stated that Book One would start shipping in September 2000. The Bone Stuff ad is the same as the last two issues as is the TPB ad for the six individual chapters. The last page has “Season’s Greetings from Cartoon Books” below a familiar image of Bone drinking tea with Miz Possum in a snowy forest. The inside back cover has a preview of a 3-D Bone Adventure that would appear on Boneville.com. It says that with a “push of a mouse or joystick you can move through the forest! Make your way to Gran’ma Ben’s cabin or the fairgrounds — or even discover the lair of the two Stupid Rat Creatures near the Great Falls.” The graphics in the ad look pretty rough by today’s standards and I don’t remember interacting with it back in the day.
Estimated Copies Sold thru Diamond: 15,700
Back Cover Collectible
The Hooded One from Cards Illustrated
In the April 1994 issue of Cards Illustrated, previews of the upcoming Bone Series 1 set were inserted into the polybag. It included one of three cut-out cards (Fone Bone, Smiley, or Phoney) and two of seven standard cards (Lucius, The Great Red Dragon, Thorn, Rat Creatures, Gran’ma Ben, The Hooded One, or a checklist card with Jeff & the Bone cousins). It’s unclear why The Hooded One cards weren’t packed into any of these magazines but they quickly became a noticeable omission. When Jeff realized what had happened, he signed a bunch that he had in his possession and sent them out to select retailers. As he would do the following year with the Series 2 autograph cards, he stacked them on top of each other after each one was signed which left gold residue on the back of each card ;-)
There are some out there that were never signed but the one I have has a spotty signature on the front and an sig impression on the back. Big thanks to the anonymous collector for including this in a trade and giving me some of the info above!
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