Jeff Smith (cartoonist)
Encyclopedia
Jeff Smith is an American
cartoonist
, best known as the creator of the self-published
comic book
series Bone
. His current series, RASL
, focuses on an art thief who hops through dimensional barriers, hiding out on various parallel worlds
.
and grew up in Columbus, Ohio
, where he now lives.
Smith learned about cartooning from comic strips, comic book
s, and animated television shows. Smith has cited Charles M. Schulz
's Peanuts
as a very early influence on his understanding of comics He has also named Walt Kelly
's Pogo
, which he discovered at the age of nine when a classmate brought a collection of the comics to school, as his "biggest influence in writing comics." Smith began to create comics with the "Bone" characters as early as 1970, when he was about 10 years old.
Smith graduated in 1978 from Thomas Worthington High School in Worthington, Ohio
, a suburb of Columbus, where he was a classmate of Jim Kammerud
; later on, in 1986, Smith and Kammerud would co-found Character Builders, an animation studio in Columbus where Smith worked until 1992.
After high school, Smith attended the Ohio State University
, and while there he created a comic strip called "Thorn" for the student newspaper, The Lantern
, which included some of the characters who later featured in the Bone
series.
Smith was involved in the short lived revival of The New Sundial, during the beginning of 1986. Four issues were produced and Smith lent his artwork for the color cover of issue two (Vol 1 No 2 dated March 5, 1986). He also produced a “Thorn” page for the last three issues of that year.
. Smith published 55 issues of Bone between 1991 and 2004, blending influences from artists and writers such as Walt Kelly, Carl Barks
, and J.R.R. Tolkien. The black and white comic book proved very successful, and has been collected in a number of trade paperback and hardback collections, including a series of nine books that collect all 55 issues, originally published by Cartoon Books in black and white, and more recently reissued in color by the Graphix imprint of Scholastic. In 2004, when Cartoon Books released a "mammoth" one-volume black and white collection of the entire nine-volume series, TIME
critic Andrew Arnold called Bone "the best all-ages graphic novel yet published."
In 1994 Smith created an original cover for Dan DeBono
's Indy - The Independent Comic Guide (issue 13), and was interviewed to help to promote his and other alternative comics
.
Two additional volumes, Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails
and Rose
, collect a number of Bone prequel comics created by Smith, working with collaborators.
In 2003, Smith began work for DC Comics
on a miniseries starring Captain Marvel
, a superhero character Smith is a fan of. The series, entitled Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, was published in four prestige format
issues in 2007, and later collected into a hardcover edition.
In 2007, Fantagraphics Books
named Smith as the designer for an upcoming series of books collecting the complete run of Walt Kelly's Pogo
. He also designed the cover art for Say Anything's
album In Defense of the Genre
.
Smith released the first issue of RASL
, "a stark, sci-fi series about a dimension-jumping art thief with personal problems", in February, 2008. A six page preview was shown on the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. Originally intending RASL to be released in an over-sized format, Smith consulted with retailers who unanimously cautioned him against the unconventional size. Smith now self-publishes
RASL as a standard-sized, ad-free, black and white comic book. The first trade paperback, titled "The Drift", is in stores in the originally intended oversized format.
Smith's art was featured in a pair of museum shows in Columbus during summer 2008: "Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond" at the Wexner Center for the Arts
, and "Jeff Smith: Before Bone" at the Cartoon Research Library of The Ohio State University. The exhibits were featured in a segment on the PBS
news program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
on July 21, 2008.
In 2009, Smith was featured in The Cartoonist
, a documentary film on his life and work.
Smith also wrote Little Mouse Gets Ready, a 32-page children's graphic novel aimed at very young "emerging readers." This book was released in September 2009 from Toon Books
, the children's book line launched by cartoonist Art Spiegelman
and New Yorker
art editor Françoise Mouly
. In a February 2009 Newsarama
interview, Smith noted that the book featured another character Smith created in his childhood, "a little gray mouse with a little red vest."
s, among them ten Eisner Awards and ten Harvey Awards. In 1995 and 1996 he won the National Cartoonists Society
's award for Comic Books. The 1,332 page single-volume paperback was named one of Time
magazine's list of Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time.
Eisner Awards
Harvey Awards
Nominations
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
, best known as the creator of the self-published
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
series Bone
Bone (comics)
Bone is an independently published graphic novel series originally serialized in 55 irregularly released issues from 1991 to 2004. Bone was drawn and written by Jeff Smith....
. His current series, RASL
RASL
RASL is an independently published black and white comic book series, written and drawn by Bone creator Jeff Smith. The series showed Smith's "dark side", as it was much more mature than his previous works. The series originally ran with 3 issues a year with repeated delays, but has now been...
, focuses on an art thief who hops through dimensional barriers, hiding out on various parallel worlds
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
.
Early life and education
Jeff Smith was born in McKees Rocks, PennsylvaniaMcKees Rocks, Pennsylvania
McKees Rocks, also known as "The Rocks", is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, along the south bank of the Ohio River. The borough population was 6,104 at the 2010 census.In the past, it was known for its extensive iron and steel interests...
and grew up in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, where he now lives.
Smith learned about cartooning from comic strips, comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, and animated television shows. Smith has cited Charles M. Schulz
Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.-Early life and education:Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Schulz grew up in Saint Paul...
's Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
as a very early influence on his understanding of comics He has also named Walt Kelly
Walt Kelly
Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. , or Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip, Pogo. He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio and Fantasia. Kelly resigned in 1941 at the age of 28 to work at Post-Hall Syndicate,...
's Pogo
Pogo
Pogo is the title and central character of a long-running daily American comic strip, created by cartoonist Walt Kelly and distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate...
, which he discovered at the age of nine when a classmate brought a collection of the comics to school, as his "biggest influence in writing comics." Smith began to create comics with the "Bone" characters as early as 1970, when he was about 10 years old.
Smith graduated in 1978 from Thomas Worthington High School in Worthington, Ohio
Worthington, Ohio
-Dissolution of the Company:By August 11, 1804 the plat maps were completed, payments or notes promising payments collected and deeds prepared for all sixteen thousand acres of the Scioto Company's purchase...
, a suburb of Columbus, where he was a classmate of Jim Kammerud
Jim Kammerud
Jim Kammerud is an American director, writer, producer and animator, best known for his work with the Walt Disney Company.Kammerud attended the Ohio State University in the mid-1980s. There he developed his cartooning style by working as an editorial cartoonist, as well as creating the comic...
; later on, in 1986, Smith and Kammerud would co-found Character Builders, an animation studio in Columbus where Smith worked until 1992.
After high school, Smith attended the Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
, and while there he created a comic strip called "Thorn" for the student newspaper, The Lantern
The Lantern
The Lantern is the name of the official, daily student-published university newspaper at The Ohio State University. It is one of the largest campus newspapers in the United States, reaching a circulation of 15,000....
, which included some of the characters who later featured in the Bone
Bone (comics)
Bone is an independently published graphic novel series originally serialized in 55 irregularly released issues from 1991 to 2004. Bone was drawn and written by Jeff Smith....
series.
Smith was involved in the short lived revival of The New Sundial, during the beginning of 1986. Four issues were produced and Smith lent his artwork for the color cover of issue two (Vol 1 No 2 dated March 5, 1986). He also produced a “Thorn” page for the last three issues of that year.
Career
In 1991, Smith launched his company, Cartoon Books, in order to publish his comic book series BoneBone (comics)
Bone is an independently published graphic novel series originally serialized in 55 irregularly released issues from 1991 to 2004. Bone was drawn and written by Jeff Smith....
. Smith published 55 issues of Bone between 1991 and 2004, blending influences from artists and writers such as Walt Kelly, Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
, and J.R.R. Tolkien. The black and white comic book proved very successful, and has been collected in a number of trade paperback and hardback collections, including a series of nine books that collect all 55 issues, originally published by Cartoon Books in black and white, and more recently reissued in color by the Graphix imprint of Scholastic. In 2004, when Cartoon Books released a "mammoth" one-volume black and white collection of the entire nine-volume series, TIME
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
critic Andrew Arnold called Bone "the best all-ages graphic novel yet published."
In 1994 Smith created an original cover for Dan DeBono
Dan DeBono
Daniel DeBono is an American writer and novelist. He grew up in Chesterfield, Michigan. He graduated from L'anse Creuse High School North and attended Wayne State University from 1982 to 1985.-Career:...
's Indy - The Independent Comic Guide (issue 13), and was interviewed to help to promote his and other alternative comics
Alternative comics
Alternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
.
Two additional volumes, Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails
Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails
Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero is a prequel to the Eisner Award-winning comic book Bone by Jeff Smith...
and Rose
Rose (comics)
Rose is a prequel to the Eisner-winning comic book Bone. It was written by Bone creator Jeff Smith and illustrated by Charles Vess, who earned an Eisner nomination for his work on it...
, collect a number of Bone prequel comics created by Smith, working with collaborators.
In 2003, Smith began work for DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
on a miniseries starring Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel (DC Comics)
Captain Marvel is a fictional comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and later by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2...
, a superhero character Smith is a fan of. The series, entitled Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, was published in four prestige format
Prestige format
Prestige format is a term coined by DC Comics and later came into wider use to refer to a square-bound comic book with cardstock covers. A prestige format comic book is usually longer than a normal, stapled 32-page comic...
issues in 2007, and later collected into a hardcover edition.
In 2007, Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
named Smith as the designer for an upcoming series of books collecting the complete run of Walt Kelly's Pogo
Pogo
Pogo is the title and central character of a long-running daily American comic strip, created by cartoonist Walt Kelly and distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate...
. He also designed the cover art for Say Anything's
Say Anything (band)
Say Anything is an American indie-punk band from Los Angeles, California, fronted by Max Bemis. The band was formed in 2000 with Bemis and four of his friends. Within two years, they self-released two EPs, Junior Varsity and In Your Dreams, and the full-length Baseball: An Album by Sayanything.In...
album In Defense of the Genre
In Defense of the Genre
In Defense of The Genre is the third full-length studio album by American pop-punk band Say Anything, released on October 23, 2007 through J Records as a double disc album. It debuted at number 27 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 25,000 copies in its first week. The first single, "Baby...
.
Smith released the first issue of RASL
RASL
RASL is an independently published black and white comic book series, written and drawn by Bone creator Jeff Smith. The series showed Smith's "dark side", as it was much more mature than his previous works. The series originally ran with 3 issues a year with repeated delays, but has now been...
, "a stark, sci-fi series about a dimension-jumping art thief with personal problems", in February, 2008. A six page preview was shown on the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. Originally intending RASL to be released in an over-sized format, Smith consulted with retailers who unanimously cautioned him against the unconventional size. Smith now self-publishes
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
RASL as a standard-sized, ad-free, black and white comic book. The first trade paperback, titled "The Drift", is in stores in the originally intended oversized format.
Smith's art was featured in a pair of museum shows in Columbus during summer 2008: "Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond" at the Wexner Center for the Arts
Wexner Center for the Arts
The Wexner Center for the Arts is The Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art...
, and "Jeff Smith: Before Bone" at the Cartoon Research Library of The Ohio State University. The exhibits were featured in a segment on the PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
news program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
PBS NewsHour is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. The show is produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, a company co-owned by former anchors Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil, and Liberty Media, which owns a 65% stake in the...
on July 21, 2008.
In 2009, Smith was featured in The Cartoonist
The Cartoonist
The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, Bone and the Changing Face of Comics is a 2009 documentary about the life and art of Jeff Smith, the creator of the Bone graphic novel series and regarded as one of America's greatest living cartoonists...
, a documentary film on his life and work.
Smith also wrote Little Mouse Gets Ready, a 32-page children's graphic novel aimed at very young "emerging readers." This book was released in September 2009 from Toon Books
Little Lit
Little Lit is a comic book anthology series published by New Yorker art editor, Françoise Mouly, and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Art Spiegelman...
, the children's book line launched by cartoonist Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
and New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
art editor Françoise Mouly
Françoise Mouly
Françoise Mouly is a Paris-born French artist and designer best known for her work with RAW, a showcase publication for cutting edge comic art, and as art editor of The New Yorker, a position she has held since 1993...
. In a February 2009 Newsarama
Newsarama
Newsarama is an American website that publishes news, interviews and essays about the American comic book industry.-History:Newsarama began in Summer 1995 as a series of Internet forum postings on the Prodigy comic-book message boards by fan Mike Doran. In these short messages. Doran shared...
interview, Smith noted that the book featured another character Smith created in his childhood, "a little gray mouse with a little red vest."
Awards
For his work on Bone, Smith has received numerous awardAward
An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signifiedby trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons...
s, among them ten Eisner Awards and ten Harvey Awards. In 1995 and 1996 he won the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
's award for Comic Books. The 1,332 page single-volume paperback was named one of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's list of Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time.
Eisner Awards
- 1993 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story: "The Great Cow RaceThe Great Cow RaceThe Great Cow Race is the second book in the Bone series. It collects issues 7-11 of Jeff Smith's self-published Bone graphic novels, along with the short story "Up on the Roof" which was originally published in Wizard Presents: Bone 13½. The book was first published by Cartoon Books in its...
"; Bone #7-11 - 1994 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Jeff Smith
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith
- 2005 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint: Bone One Volume Edition
Harvey Awards
- 1994 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 1994 Harvey Award Special Award for Humor: Jeff Smith
- 1994 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work: The Complete Bone Adventures; reissued in color as Bone: Out from Boneville (Scholastic Corporation)
- 1995 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 1996 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 1997 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 1999 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith, for his body of work in 1998, including Bone
- 2000 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 2003 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 2005 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith
- 2005 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work: Bone: One Volume Edition
Nominations
- 1993 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Jeff Smith
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue: Bone #16: "Eyes of the Storm"
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Item: Bone figurine, sculpted by Jeff Smith and Randy Bowen
- 1996 Eisner Award for Best Title for Younger Readers
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Product: Bone Red Dragon cold-cast statue, sculpted by Randy BowenRandy BowenRandy Bowen is an American pop culture sculptor and the founder of Bowen Designs.Originator and pioneer in the field of limited edition sculptures based on pop-culture icons. Primarily noted for the innovation of the mini-busts and statues of characters from films as well as characters from comic...
, based on designs by Jeff Smith - 1998 Eisner Award for Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience
- 1999 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Product/Item: Phoney Bone inflatable
- 2003 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album Reprint: Bone vol. 8: Treasure Hunters
- 2004 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith
- 2005 Eisner Award for Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience
- 2006 Eisner Award for Best Coloring: Steve Hamaker, Bone: The Great Cow Race
- 2008 Eisner Award for Best Coloring: Steve Hamaker, Bone (vols. 5 and 6) and Shazam: Monster Society of Evil
External links
- Boneville Jeff Smith's Blog
- WelcomeToBoneville.com - unofficial Jeff Smith/Bone community forum
- Jeff Smith podcast interview on It Came Out on Wednesday from ComiXology
- The Onion AV Club Interview
- Burns, Ian. "RASL #1-7 review by Ian Burns" The Comics JournalThe Comics JournalThe Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
, April 29, 2010