An interview of Jeff Smith by Jeff Mason.
Interview with Jeff Smith (Bone)
January 21, 1994
By Jeff Mason, editor of indy magazine, THE bi-monthly publication
dedicated to the coverage of independent comics. With news, interviews,
articles, tons of reviews, and more, indy magazine keeps you on top of
the world of alternative comics! Send e-mail to jrm@grove.ufl.edu for
more information!
This file is available as: http://grove.ufl.edu/~jrm/jeff.smith
A lot more available at: http://grove.ufl.edu/~jrm
A more recent interview with Jeff Smith appears in indy magazine #13,
November 1995.
With huge thanks to the folks on the net (Wayne Wong and all others).
This is the result of a two part interview with Jeff Smith, the creator
of the critically acclaimed Bone comic book series.
The first 7 questions were asked and answered through mail, and the rest
were done in a phone interview
1. Consider a person who has never read Bone, and would have never heard
about it except for word of mouth. What is it about? What makes it so
special? Why should the person try it?
Bone is the story of three BONE cousins who are run out of their
hometown of Boneville and find that the outside world is nothing like
they expected it to be. I ususally describe it as Bugs Bunny meets The
Lord of the Rings.
2. Where do you place yourself on Scott McCloud's pyramid?
Abstract
Art
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
Realistic-------Iconic
art art
Scott himself places me in the extreme lower right corner, with
only the example of a Smile face button as more iconographic than BONE.
It is difficult to make sure that the reader is concentrating on
what you want them to. One of the guidelines I use is an old animators'
rule of thumb that says that the emotion and action of your character
should read in silouette. In other words, get his or her hands out in
the clear and give them the appropriate posture. Within this broad
gesture, I'm free to be as subtle as I wish.
It is also important to guide your reader through the panels at
the correct speed, so that the 'timing' is right. 'Timing' is important
because it can create a mood or make a joke. In order to guide the flow,
it is important to be aware of the other panels in the sequence around
the one your reader is currently looking at. Scott McCloud calls this
completion of the action between any two panels 'closure'. I would carry
this concept a step further (in a storytelling sense), and suggest a
'complete closure' around an entire sequence. By keeping this 'complete
closure' in mind, I can view the flow or a sequence and determine where
it slows or stops. The flow can be accelerated or decelerated by
backgrounds, word count, shot distribution, and/or the similarities
between the panels.
3. Why do you write the book? What are your motivations?
I enjoy the process of storytelling and I have this story I want
to tell.
4. Did you picture it getting this far when you started?
Truthfully, no.
5. Where do you picture Bone going now?
The comic has a definite story to tell that could take as much
as five or ten years to complete. The ending is written and I have three
or four major subplots I have to tell in order to move the story toward
it's conclusion, but other than that, the outline is wide open for any
hijinx I can come up with.
6. What kind of training do you have?
Prior to BONE, I was working in animation. I co-founded
Character Builders animation studio in 1986. Myself and my two
partners, Jim Kammerud and Martin Fuller were all self taught, learning
everything we could from books like "Disney Animation: The Illusion of
Life." There never really was a place to get training for the skills of
writing and drawing together. And in the early '80's, cartooning was
even less respected than it is now, if you can imagine that.
7. Could you tell us more about the circumstances around your creating
Bone for a college newspaper, and is there any chance of seeing the
"Collegiate Bone" in some sort of collected format?
The Ohio State University 'Lantern' was a daily student newspaper
with a circulation fo 50,000. The daily deadline taught me a lot about
being creative on demand.
---
I spent a few hours on the phone with Jeff on January 8, 1994 talking to
him about Bone and comics in general. What is here is a subset of that
conversation (thank goodness for the delete key).
I am jm = Jeff Mason, he is js = Jeff Smith.
jm: I've come to realize that a number of self-publishers have formed a
community of sorts, how would you describe it?
js: When I first started self-publishing, I didn't meet any other self-
publishers for about a year. Then I took the initiative to go to a
distributor/retailer conference and show Bone. That same year, Martin
Wagner and Dave Sim had the same idea and they showed up also. So I
met them both then, just briefly, I didn't really get to sit down and
talk to either one of them or anything, but I did give Dave a set of
the Bone books at that time, and then after that he called me up. The
phone rings one day while I'm sitting at my desk and I pick up the
phone and hear "Hi this is Dave Sim," and I'm like "OOOMP! Yes?!" I
almost wet my pants! [laugh] He said "I really like this."
jm: This was when Bone was up to issue number three?
js: It was up to number five at the time.
jm: That's when I saw Bone #3 in the back of Cerebus #161.
js: We actually ran number three because he said he wanted to do a preview
in Cerebus and he asked "What's the funniest stuff?" I said "Well,
people have told me that number three was the funniest." He ran a
huge chunk of number three in Cerebus. So then the next show I went
to I saw Dave and talked to him again, and we just kind of hit it off.
We think along very similar lines. So they asked me to participate in
a jam drawing, Martin Wagner, Dave Sim, Colleen Doran, and James Owen.
So that's how the five of us started hanging out together because we
were going to these retailer shows, they are really publisher shows
where publishers set up booths. So self-publishers are not only the
publishers but they're also the creative people, we kind of banded
together, we got to know each other.
jm: Nobody else had the artists or writers show up?
js: Not really, not that I recall the very first year. Maybe they would
have someone come in maybe for an hour or something, but we were there
for the entire sales conference.
jm: So do you think it helped?
js: I would say that if I had not gone to the sales conferences, Bone
would have puttered out entirely. Not only did I meet Dave, but I
also met Don and Maggie Thompson with the Comics Buyers' Guide, and
they did a review which came out the same month as the Cerebus
preview. The two things together at the same time really helped.
jm: I really think that a lot of people underestimate the power of Don
Thompson's reviews.
js: Yeah, I would have to say that Don Thompson did a phenomenal review of
Bone. It was a full page review with a photo and examples of the art,
and that was really pretty much what did it. I'd have to say that
once that review hit, I went from getting something like ten pieces of
mail a week to ten pieces of mail a day, and all saying that they read
it in Comics Buyers' Guide. Shortly after that I started getting
letters from overseas from places like Australia, they're saying "Oh I
read it in the Cerebus preview." That was fun, getting letters from
overseas.
jm: So are you now selling a lot overseas?
js: I was actually selling overseas already. I was already getting
letters from places such as Germany and Belfast.
jm: When did you decide to get into self-publishing? Did you say to
yourself one day "Gosh, I should publish this book?"
js: Originally I wanted to do a comic strip in newspapers. I went to
visit the editors in New York. They liked Bone, they wanted to do it,
but they had some suggestions. Basically it came down to that they
didn't want it to be an adventure strip, they wanted it to be a joke-
a-day strip, and they wanted to own it. So I knew I wanted to self-
publish right away. I never, never even wanted to show it to another
company.
jm: What are the major limitations of self-publishing?
js: Some of the limitations are obviously that you have to do everything
yourself, so time is very difficult. Money is a limitation. You have
to do black & white, which was fine with me, I wanted to do a
newspaper strip so black & white was what I wanted to do anyway. But
when you do a black & white self-published book and you enter the
market, you have to remember that the retailers are under no
obligation whatsoever to buy your book, let alone support it. So it
is up to you to get out there and convince people that it's going to
make money for them, and that's a lot of work. So the drawback is
just an incredible amount of work, but the rewards far outweigh it. I
can decide, "Well, I think we can still sell this book, and I'm going
to put it back into print and sell more of them." So I've been
selling Bone #1 for two and a half years now, and I've made money on
it every single month since I drew it.
jm: What printing is it up to now?
js: Sixth printing.
jm: So Bone #1 is going to be in print until the end of time.
js: No, probably not, it will definitely be in print at least for another
year. I'll probably keep the first six issues, that are in the trade
book, in print as comic issues for at least another year. Then I'll
probably let the first six issues go out of print, but I'll keep Bone
#7 and up in print for a while.
jm: So as the Complete Bone Adventures trade paperbacks come out, they
will replace the reprints of the comic issues?
js: Slowly, not immediately. That goes back to the control issue. Had
another publisher published Bone, even if they had allowed me to own
the rights, it would not have survived. The reason it survives is
because we've kept it in print, I've kept it in print. I say "we" now
because Vijaya is my business partner, my wife, but at the time it was
just me. I was keeping it in print. New people were able to hear
about it through word of mouth and pick up on it. So even a year
after I started, people are able to jump on the bandwagon, so to
speak, and order the first six issues and have them in there store.
That way their customers started buying them, and they were now
selling Bone.
jm: Speaking of the money issue. I'm sure you've heard of sales of some
of the early first prints. Bone #1 I've seen for $150.
js: I know a retailer who's told me he had a couple of them and he sold
them for $200.
jm: How do you feel about this?
js: You can probably guess, just from the book and other things, how I
feel about comics being treated like junk bonds. I don't like it. I
do see a difference between speculating and collecting though. I
would be lying if I said I didn't get a kick out the fact that Bone #1
first printing is going for a lot of money. I mean it's a little
dinky black & white self-published book and it's going for prices as
if it was a real comic or something! I kind of get a kick out of
that. It's actually going up kind of ridiculously, but that's not all
bad. First of all, the interest in the first printing helps me sell
the current issues. So that's helping me continue to make Bone.
Also, it's a true case of market supply and demand. As opposed to a
speculated hot title, or something, where it is $250 before it even
gets to the store, for Bone, the first print run was 3,000. That's a
pretty low print run, that about as rare as it gets in the modern age
of comics. From talking to retailers, and the editors at Hero
Illustrated and Wizard, because I was asking too, I was like "What the
heck? Where are these numbers coming from?" It was just like out of
nowhere, they've told me one of the reasons that the price is
escalating is because there was such a small amount, and most of the
copies are already in the hands of readers who won't part with them
for any price.
jm: The die-hard readers.
js: The people who actually like Bone and they want it. Bone #1 is
available at cover price.
jm: Because of your animation background do you anticipate any kind of
animation future for Bone?
js: Probably not, but never say never. I have already been approached by
animation studios, but I'm just not interested in a 4:00 in the
afternoon series. It's just badly animated. That's different than
Ren & Stimpy and The Simpsons. Ren & Stimpy and The Simpsons are
limited animation but they are designed to work in limited animation,
like Rocky & Bullwinkle. I mean they work. Something like the Batman
Animated Adventures is really good, but you've got some brilliant,
genius people behind it putting in a lot of mood and things, but even
so the animation is still limited, they send it off to the Pacific Rim
to be in-betweened. So I'm saying no, I am not interested even though
I've already been approached and had offers, I've turned them down for
the time being.
jm: So perhaps five years in the future, maybe you'd do a movie?
js: I wouldn't mind doing a movie. It's just such a big project. Having
been in animation and having worked on feature films, I know how deals
are made in Hollywood and how you put things like that together. It's
an extremely iffy situation. Look at Marvel, they can't get a good
movie made of their books. Nothing is too stupid for Hollywood. You
can get a project off the ground and the producer will get fired, the
next guy comes in and takes over his desk. He looks at all the
projects that the other guy was working on and he says "Hey, I don't
want to touch anything this loser was working on," and he wipes it off
his desk. Two million dollars worth of work, gone. In my heart of
hearts I'd like to do an animated feature, but it's too big to worry
about now when I still have to worry about just the book. I know it's
getting a lot of hype right now, but it's still not that big of a
success story. It looks like a bigger success story than it is.
jm: Do you think that Cartoon Books will do anything other than Bone?
js: Oh no, no no no. You mean like publishing other titles? No, from
beginning it was just to self-publish Bone cartoons. I may do other
things, but no, Cartoon Books is for publishing Bone. I do have an
end to the story. So once I get there, I have other projects I want
to do. Then Cartoon Books can publish them [laugh].
jm: In terms of you doing other stuff, I've noticed the Death Gallery,
I've seen that you are doing the cover to the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles Special #9.
js: Yep, I did that for a friend.
jm: What other things can we look for like that?
js: Generally, just as a guideline, I only want to do things that are
going to in some way sell the books. And by that I mean you as a
retailer, you bought the book, you paid for it, it's sitting on your
shelf. I want to try to do something that's going to get people
interested in coming to your store and buying the book that you paid
for. I did the Holiday Special for Hero Illustrated. That was three
weeks out of my production schedule, but I have a feeling that a lot
of retailers were able to get rid of their Bone #11 because of that.
I did a little trading card to get blown in with Wizard, and I am
going to do two merchandising things next year.
jm: What are those?
js: I'm going to do a trading card set, and I'm going to do a Bone
figurine.
jm: Are those going to be licensed though another company?
js: They'll be licensed. I haven't actually signed the deals although
I've seen the contracts and they're very good, and it's almost for
sure going to happen. I won't attach names until it's a done deal.
jm: How about Cards Illustrated, are you doing something with them?
js: Cards Illustrated, which is Hero Illustrated's spin-off, wants to do a
nine card set. I'm going to do that. They want to do little chase
cards. I'm trying to decide if that's ok or not, I haven't decided.
jm: The chase cards?
js: Yeah, but it's cards, and I don't know anything about cards [laugh].
I wouldn't put chase cards in my comic books. I can't decide if
that's uncool to make chase cards. People on the internet, let me
know. Chase cards in a card set, is that ok? I'm already doing it,
but should I do it again?
jm: Is that the equivalent of a cover enhancement?
js: I would not do that with Bone, the comic.
jm: Why a bi-monthly schedule for Bone? Do you ever think you'll ever get
on a monthly schedule?
js: Ha! When am I going to get on a bi-monthly schedule?! [laugh] It's
been coming out closer to two and a half months or three. I'm getting
out five issues a year instead of six. Which isn't quite quarterly
and not quite bi-monthly. It actually takes that long to do an issue.
I could probably write it and draw it on a monthly basis, but that
doesn't give you time to think about it. It helps to write it, and
get it going, and then think about it a little bit. Get a little
distance, go ahead and do some more pages then go back and think "That
dialogue could be a little more natural if somebody said that." If I
was doing it too quick, I wouldn't have time to reflect on it and see
those kinds of things. It just takes two months for each issue.
jm: Talk about Bone reprints in Disney Adventures.
js: I forget the actual issue number but the first one has a cover date of
April. They are only going to reprint the first issue. They are
going to serialize it into three parts. It will be in color. The
Disney folks hired Tom Luth, the guy who does Groo and Usagi Yojimbo.
I've seen the first installment and it looks very good.
jm: Did you decide where to cut the story to be serialized?
js: Yes. I divided it up into three pieces and I made new splash pages.
I did something that you won't see in the regular comic book ever. I
did a little narration box. In part two, I didn't do any new art, I
just took images from the story and recapped it. I did a little
narration box like "After they were lost out in the desert, Fone Bone
is separated from his cousins, and wandering with nothing but cigar
butts..." You know I did the little narration thing. I don't do that
at all in the comics. Absolutely no exposition boxes at all.
jm: How do you think this will affect the regular Bone series?
js: I originally didn't think that it would affect it at all. I thought
it would be a fun thing for Bone readers to see it in color, that it
would be a little extra fun, a little extra PR. Now I'm getting the
idea that it may be a bigger deal than I realize.
jm: Yeah, you see Disney Adventures in supermarkets at check-out lines.
js: Yes, but every time you read a little something in a magazine do you
really go seek out the source? I'll just put it this way, it could be
a really big deal, or it could be not that big of a deal. Other
people think it's definitely going to be a bigger deal. They're
starting to get me all worked up about it. [laugh]
jm: [laugh] And you are trying not to get your hopes up?
js: Yeah, I am trying to be calm about it.
jm: Does anybody get you confused with the Frugal Gourmet?
js: You'd be amazed at how few people at comic book shows make PBS jokes
[laugh]. I think this is only the third time I've heard the Frugal
Gourmet joke. I've been waiting for it for two years [laugh].
jm: If you had to make a reading list of the best comics to read right
now, what would you include?
js: Well, I'm very big on, you're not going to believe this, the "Marvels"
series that just came out.
jm: Why shouldn't I believe it? "Marvels" is wonderful.
js: Well, it's a super-hero book which is not my cup of tea, but "Marvels"
really taps into everything I loved about comics when I was about
nine. I remember Don Thompson came out with book called "All in Color
for a Dime," and the world of the golden age of comics was exploded to
me. The Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, there they are! In a little
world that makes sense. And it's painted... it's painted! He paints
reflections in people's camera lenses. Well I was just blown away by
that book. Ma½s is a favorite book. I am reading Cerebus now. I'm
really liking that.
jm: From the beginning?
js: From the beginning. I'm just starting it and it's really good. I
keep wanting to peek ahead, but I'm refusing to do that. Mostly what
I read are reprints of newspaper strips, like Krazy Kat, Pogo, and
Popeye.
jm: I love the old Segar stuff.
js: Oh yeah! I'm a huge Segar fan.
jm: I used to collect the reprint books.
js: The set that Fantagraphics put out? I thought that was fantastic.
And they finished it. I'm mad at all these other people who have
started these complete runs and aren't going to finish it.
jm: By the way, the Rat Creatures are my favorite characters.
js: I really like them too, did you like them in Bone #11?
jm: Yeah, they were great!
js: That's the kind of thing I really like to do with them.
jm: They play off of each other so well.
js: Yeah, I have a lot of fun with them. All of the wonderful things
about relationships, I can put between Fone Bone and Thorn, but all of
that hairy, ornery stuff inside me, I can put in all of that kind of
stuff with what I do with the Rat Creatures.
jm: Who are your influences?
js: Joe Kubert and Neal Adams, in comic books, were huge, huge, influences
on me. I don't know how much of that still shows, but I still see it
in things I do. Dick Giordano's inking style on Neal Adams is a huge
influence on me. But more than that, really my influences come from
comic strips, like Pogo, Peanuts, and Doonesbury.
jm: Do you think of things in three or four panels at a time?
js: It depends on what I am doing. I definitely do Doonesbury jokes, four
static panels and the joke has to be told purely verbally with a
subtle expression change. I try to do that all the time. On the
other hand I'll have the Rat Creatures and Fone Bone running around
through the woods falling off waterfalls too, and as dramatic and wild
shots as I can get. That probably comes more from watching cartoons
on TV.
jm: Are there any things you wish you could go back and change from old
issues?
js: Very little. I want to go back and fix an eye, or something like
that, or I wished I had put a background in on that panel. But I
would have to say I am amazingly happy with most of the stuff that
I've put out in the book.
jm: Do you go back and look at it?
js: Well, obviously I do, but I don't want to tell you what I don't like.
jm: Except for those psychotic shadows you sneak into Bone.
js: I used to make my animation partners, and the animator that worked for
me, I used to make them nuts. They couldn't understand the shadows.
They are just my shadows.
jm: What things do you do that people would be surprised that you spend so
much time on?
js: There are three of them, that when I am doing them, I can't believe
how long it takes. Inking the borders on the panels. Once I decide
how many panels on a page and which panels are going to be which size,
I have sit down and take a ruler and line up the things, and then
you've got to ink them. And that takes forever, because the ink wants
to slide under the ruler. It takes a whole day, practically, to do
that. Lettering used to take a very long time, but I've since scanned
my lettering and that takes less time now.
jm: And what's the third?
js: Probably drawing the Bones now. It used to be that Thorn used to take
me the longest to draw, because she had to be a pretty human, and that
would be really difficult. But now it's easier to draw her than it is
the Bones, because with Thorn all of the brush strokes are so short.
One quick short stroke and that's her nose, one stroke up the side of
her face. But with the Bones, I have to keep my hand steady and make
that curve all the way around the top of their heads and then all the
way around their nose and all the way down the back. I always end up
putting off the Bones until the last thing. [laugh]
jm: [laugh]
js: Actually, that's not true, but almost.
jm: You wish you could.
js: I wish I could.
jm: How is your interaction with your fans?
js: It's been really fantastic. When Bone was really making no money, the
only that really kept me going was mail from people. The mail has
escalated to a point that it's unbelievable. I insist on answering it
all myself and it's piling up. Garrett comes in twice a week and goes
through all the mail that comes in and he makes sure that everybody
that wants a book gets their book and gets the checks processed and
stuff. If it's just something that says I want Bone #3 and Bone #7
and here's a check for $6.00, then I don't need to see it. But if it
in any way talks to me or says something to me, then he has to put it
in my box. I am supposed to respond to it but it's really starting to
pile up on me. I've been doing the on-line thing.
jm: And that just escalates the pile.
js: It escalates it but on the other hand I answer it a little better. I
can get up in the morning with a cup of coffee while I'm waking up and
I can go through and very quickly respond to 16 letters a day.
jm: You are on Compuserve now?
js: That's on Compuserve, although half of my mail comes though Internet.
jm: Imagine that I have an idea for a comic, and I've already done my
little comics for myself and for my friends, now what can I do? Would
you advise self-publishing?
js: I do not paint self-publishing like some kind of panacea. It's not
magical, it's very hard work, and it's extremely competitive to get in
a catalog. Like I said earlier, the rewards far outweigh the
difficulties, but there is so much homework to be done that I am
hesitant to tell someone "Oh, just go self-publish," unless they
understand how much pre-work they have to do. First they have to draw
the book. I spend a lot of time, over and over, saying the same
things, to so many people, that if they don't have the book done that
they should finish the book and then talk to me. Then there's a ton
of people that want to know what to do and they've got a finished
book. That's the first thing. The second thing is I'll usually tell
people that if you want to self-publish there are certain things you
have got to do. You've got to the library and you've got to figure
out how to do a business plan, and you've got to be able to know how
to talk to a bank. If you don't know how to do that and you're not
willing to find out, then don't bother, because this is real. It's
not that difficult. I think anybody can do it, but a lot of people
close their ears as soon as you start talking about anything other
than drawing the comic book. There's a lot of work to be done and it
all can be found in the library, which is where I found out about it
all. There are people who really want to self-publish and they've got
their stuff, and I do tell them what to do. I tell them "Here are the
distributors, here are the catalogs, here's how it works, here's the
phone number. Call the distributor and ask them how to get in the
catalogs and they'll send you information that will tell you. You can
do it on your own from there." That's what everybody does, that's
what I did. I'll go out of my way to tell anybody anything they want,
I'll give them all of the information. A lot of times I can tell that
someone isn't looking to self-publish, because it's not for everybody.
Instead of telling them what I think about their book, I'll say "Call
or write a letter to Dark Horse or DC or whoever and ask how you can
submit a proposal." These are really simple things, but a lot of the
people that want to do this are people just like you and me, who are
still be in high school, and the whole thing is very magical still.
It's just a very simple process of getting an address and writing for
information.
jm: So do you think this is going to last ten years?
js: I'd say that I have five or six full years of ideas in my head right
now, and I'm speculating that I can flesh that out. [laugh]
jm: [laugh]
js: I have the end, so somewhere in the middle there I've got to come up
with five years worth of material. That's no problem.
jm: Do you feel like sometimes you have to keep yourself from advancing a
little bit too fast?
js: That's a good question. I think most people are going to be worried
that I am going too slow in telling the story, but actually it is very
tempting for me to leap forward and start telling the story, and I
don't want to do that. I very intentionally want to keep it as
spontaneous for the characters, and of course then for the readers, as
possible, so that each moment that Fone Bone lives through is what's
going on in his life and the whole thing isn't this overwhelming story
he's involved in all the time. He can forget that there are events
leading him, just like in real life. Events led up to World War II.
Nobody thought "Oh we're trapped in the beginnings of World War II
now." World War II was going on for years before the US actually got
involved in it, and people didn't realize that they were involved.
-------
For your information:
You can order the latest printing of each issue of Bone for
$2.95 which includes shipping and handling.
You can get the Complete Bone Adventures Volume 1 (issues 1-6)
for $12.95 plus $1.50 postage and handling.
You can also subscribe to Bone for one year (6 issues) for
$18.00 in the U.S. and Canada. Foreign subscriptions are $24.00
a year.
Just send a list of the items you want with a check or money
order to:
BONE
c/o Cartoon Books
P.O. Box 1583
Los Gatos, CA 95031-1583
Make sure you tell them that Jeff Mason sent you!
This page last modified 8/98 by wunder. Mail me!