DocGo

The Bone cousins were involved in a couple crossovers in the mid-to-late 90s which contributed to the only interior pages by Jeff Smith that have ever been in the open market: Shi/Cyblade: The Battle for Independents #1 and Castle Waiting #1. By my guess, there’s no more than five of these pages out there including the one below. This is the first page of the Bones’ appearance in Castle Waiting which was a story written & drawn by Linda Medley and published by Cartoon Books for 4 issues. Our anonymous collector says Jeff pencilled and inked the Bones and created the lettering. Linda inked her characters and the backgrounds, and, impressively, does not appear to have pencilled anything first. Don’t know how these artists do it.

Pics of the #2 or it didn’t happen… Welcome!

One more…the massive Kingdok

The Kingdok is great! I’ve always been partial to the Phoney Bone as Ahab too since #13 was the first Bone comic I bought off the rack. I only have the blue vested Smiley because it included his cigar Fantastic collection!

$107 shipped. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this page colorized I’ve still only read Bone #1 in color when it came out in the 10th Anniversary edition. The background for the new One Volume Edition cover was part of a conceptual art piece done for the Nickelodeon movie that never came to be.

The last time I saw that Bone mug was in April 2021. Came with the box too but went for way more than I was willing to pay. I'm with you on another art-sized Artist's Edition, perhaps of the first eight issues. I’m surprised more people don’t talk about The Great Cow Race by IDW. It was spectacularly done. They need to do an art print of the newest cover to the One Volume Edition.

90 #1s

I really wish these artworks were up my sleeve rather than just their images and stories. Haven’t even touched the best stuff yet. The anonymous collector was both lucky and smart to acquire these when he did. Are you saying you have everything that you wish you did? I expect to see your list first…

Part 3 is up. It’s not Jeff Smith but I didn’t think anyone would mind

Here is a very early painting of Rose who is featured in the middle section with two characters from Stardust on the left and right (I think ). It was used for the Wonder Con 1998 program cover which is also pictured below. Charles Vess worked on these two properties around the same time so he combined them here as a preview of sorts. This image of Rose was ultimately published on the inside cover of each Rose issue. For a Bone fan like myself, the dragon is what intrigues me the most. It’s obviously not the Great Red Dragon (who appears in the series) nor the villainous dragon Balsaad who is green and acts as the primary baddie. Cartoon Books didn’t release the first issue of Rose until October 2000 so perhaps this was just an early mock-up of either Balsaad or Queen Mim, who’s also red but looked very different in the first few pages of Rose #1. The anonymous collector says that this is 13” by 16.5” so it’s a bit larger than the pages of Rose which were 10” by 14.5”. Just a fantastic piece IMHO

I tried to get it moved to Copper in 2010 I think, but they properly rejected my request. It’s definitely a Modern book by the current, overly long definition

Part 2 is now up. The delay was all my fault

Part 2 of the Bone OA Spectacular features a finished piece whose origins began all the way in Germany during September 2001. That particular month is probably memorable for most of you as it was for Jeff because he attended a comic book festival in Munich a few days before 9/11. The original owner of this artwork lived in Germany and helped with the con’s setup. He even drove Jeff and his wife Vijaya to Neuschwanstein Castle which was the inspiration for the castle design in Sleeping Beauty. The 9/11 attack occurred a couple days later and Jeff got stuck in Scandinavia during the suspension of air service. When he finally got back to the States, he drew the piece below for his host and sent it with a sketched-on cardboard protector for all his help at the con (also pictured). Thorn is obviously more difficult to draw than the Bones so I don’t see much of her in convention sketches or even finished pieces like this. The look on Phoney’s face is my favorite part

Good news is that there will be more than 4 pieces to show as he revealed a couple more to me yesterday. Bad news is that I was confused about the image that was set to be shown today and he hasn’t gotten back to me yet. I don’t want to get anything wrong so I may not post it until tomorrow.

Over the next four weeks, I’ll be showing some finished Bone OA that hasn’t been seen in decades in the Bone Appreciation Thread. First one is an original comic strip from Thorn completed by Jeff Smith while he was a student at OSU. Every Thursday if you’re interested!

I got a real treat for you guys. I recently met a fellow collector of Bone paraphernalia who showed me some amazing original artwork that probably hasn’t been seen in decades. He is graciously allowing me to showcase them here for your viewing pleasure as he'd like to remain anonymous. For those not in the know, very little of Jeff Smith’s original art has been released into the wild. He donated 99% of his work to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum on the Ohio State University campus where it can be accessed five days a week upon request. That other 1% are few and far between. Below is an original piece from the Thorn comic strip that was published in The Lantern on May 25, 1983. Our anonymous collector bought it in the 1990s from Jay & Kate who were friends of Jeff during his college days. Jeff needed the strip back at some point and gave them a copy of Thorn Tales from the Lantern as well as a first print Bone #1 as compensation (which Anonymous bought as well). I’ve included an image of the back of the piece and the originally published strip.

Thanks ADAMANTIUM! I spent a decent amount of time on it in June correcting and perfecting the blurbs for each book but never thought I was in the running for an award. It’s definitely a shock

As I said in the Bone thread, I wasn’t expecting to compete for something like this until my set was closer to completion but I really appreciate the recognition. Thank you very much to the judges for all the work you put into that article and I will definitely check out all the sets from my fellow winners. I’m sure I’ve annoyed @wytshus on occasion for the errors that creep up from time to time but his effort with the registry is much appreciated. Thanks again to all of you! ***I have one minor quibble with the write up: I started my set back in 2007 at the latest, not 2012. I’ll use my 2007 “Best Set” badge for Bone (Cartoon Books) as evidence

Ugh, this is awful. Try contacting HA anyway about the cracked slab. You never know… Thanks!

The September Signature Auction will have the latest Bone #1 CGC 9.8 officially on the block (21st Universal copy). According to CGCdata from when this copy was added to the census, I believe it was formerly an 8.5 that was cleaned and/or pressed into a 9.8 which is pretty impressive. Heritage doesn’t have their scan up yet but they do have a link to CGC’s scan here. IMHO, this is a superior 9.8 compared to the one auctioned off last November and I would put it in the top half of all the 9.8s I’ve seen. Who knows where collectors’ finances are at the moment but I think we can expect it to go a bit higher (just a guess). And no, this is not my book as I definitely wouldn’t let this sucker go . I’m fairly certain it’s not one of the Tuki copies either.

Finally…they kept teasing this yesterday It will likely be a larger book than most expect.

Last one from the latest batch going into the collection. I’ve had an interesting history with #29 and none of it good until receiving this beauty . Thanks again to Rich for the help!

Bring it to the attention of these folks:

This is one of the rare issues in the Bone set that I’ve never submitted myself. Had a pretty solid book in a slab that I sent to Heroes and came out okay

Who doesn’t love a cover with beer? This is another one of those issues where I never got a solid copy from all the different lots I’ve purchased over the years. Bought this as a slab and retained its grade