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Jeff Smith (cartoonist)

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Jeff Smith (born February 27, 1960)[1] is an American cartoonist. He is best known as the creator of the self-published comic book series Bone.

Jeff Smith
Smith at the 2018 Texas Book Festival
Born (1960-02-27) February 27, 1960 (age 64)[1][2]
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, United States
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Cartoonist
Notable works
Bone, Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, RASL, Tüki Save the Humans
Awards2 National Cartoonists Society Comic Book Awards
11 Harvey Awards
10 Eisner Awards

Early life

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Jeff Smith was born in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania[1] to William Earl Smith and Barbara Goodsell.[3] He grew up in Columbus, Ohio.[4]

Smith learned about cartooning from comic strips, comic books, and animated TV shows.[5] The strip he found to be the most entertaining was Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, which he had his father read to him every Sunday, and which inspired him to learn to read.[6][7] Smith was also inspired by Scrooge McDuck creator Carl Barks,[6] whom Smith calls a "natural comic genius" for his ability to move characters effectively from panel to panel, and for their expressiveness. Alluding to the influence of Barks on Bone, Smith commented, "I always wanted Uncle Scrooge to go on a longer adventure. I thought, 'Man, if you could just get a comic book of that quality, the length of say, War and Peace, or The Odyssey or something, that would be something I would love to read, and even as a kid I looked everywhere for that book, that Uncle Scrooge story that was 1,100 pages long."[6] Another seminal influence was the television program The Pogo Special Birthday Special, which Smith saw at age nine. The show was created by Walt Kelly and Chuck Jones, whom Smith later called "two of my most favorite people". The day after that program aired, a girl brought her father's Pogo book to school and gave it to Smith, who says it "changed comics" for him. Smith keeps that book on a table next to his drawing board today,[6][8] and refers to Kelly as his "biggest influence in writing comics".[7]

Smith has cited Moby Dick as his favorite book, citing its multi-layered narrative and symbolism, and placed numerous references to it in Bone. He has also cited Huckleberry Finn as a story after which he attempted to pattern Bone structurally, explaining, "the kinds of stories I’m drawn to, like Huckleberry Finn, are the ones that start off very simple, almost like children’s stories...but as it goes on, it gets a little darker, and the themes become a little more sophisticated and more complex—and those are really the kinds of stories that just get me going." Other influences in this regard include the original Star Wars trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and the classic fairy tales and mythologies that inspired those works.[6]

Smith says the earliest forerunner drawings of what later became Bone and his cousins occurred when he was about five, and sitting in his living room drawing, and he drew what looked like an old C-shaped telephone handset receiver, which emerged as a frowning character with its mouth wide open. Elements of that character and its demeanor found their way into the character Phoney Bone, the upset cousin to Bone. His name is derived from Fonebone, the generic surname that Don Martin gave to many of the characters that appeared in his Mad magazine strips.[6] Smith began to create comics with the Bone characters as early as 1970, when he was about 9 years old.[9]

Smith graduated in 1978 from 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 co-founded Character Builders, an animation studio in Columbus where Smith worked until 1992.[10][11] 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.[12][13] He also studied animation.[6]

Career

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After graduating from college, Smith and his two friends, Jim Kammerud and Marty Fuller, started an animation studio called Character Builders Inc. Their first paid job was producing a 60-second animated opening for the TV series Super Safari with Jack Hanna. Other jobs followed for clients such as White Castle, sequences in films that the studio was given when other studios fell behind, and a claymation project that they were given following the rise in popularity of The California Raisins. Initial budgets were restrictive for the studio, which required the animators to be resourceful in order to meet their deadlines. Smith sometimes did the voice work as well as the animation on certain projects, and the animators sometimes had family members come in on some evenings to paint animation cells. Though Smith found the projects exciting, he realized that it was not the type of cartooning he wanted to do, which was complicated by periods in which the studio had no work. It was during one of these slow periods that Smith reconsidered his career. Drawn to the idea that he could produce his own animated-type story but in the comics medium, and convinced by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Art Spiegelman's Maus and Alan Moore's Watchmen that a serious comic book with a beginning, middle and end structure was both artistically and commercially viable, Smith decided to produce Bone.[6]

 
Smith in 1991

In 1991, Smith launched his company, Cartoon Books, in order to publish the series.[5] Initially, Smith self-published the book, which meant that he did all the work required to both produce and distribute the series as a business, including answering letters, doing all the graphics and lettering (which he did by hand), sending the artwork to the printer, handling orders and bookkeeping. This made it difficult to focus on writing and drawing the book, and as a result, he fell behind in his production. To remedy this, he asked his wife, Vijaya, to quit her lucrative job at a Silicon Valley startup company in order to run the business side of Bone as the President of Cartoon Books. As a result, Smith was able to refocus on drawing, and sales improved.[6] Smith published 55 issues of Bone between 1991 and 2004. 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 later 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".[14]

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 and his collaborators.

In 1995 French publisher Delcourt acquired the rights to translate Bone into French. The translator of the first four French volumes was Alain Ayroles who would be inspired by Smith's storytelling and go on to write the very successful Garulfo series, among others.[15]

In 2003, Smith began work for DC Comics on a miniseries starring Captain Marvel, a superhero of which Smith is a fan.[16] 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 oversized format, Smith consulted with retailers who unanimously cautioned him against the unconventional size.[17][18] Smith later self-published 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 in mid-2008: "Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond" at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and "Jeff Smith: Before Bone" at the Cartoon Research Library of Ohio State University.[19] 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: Jeff Smith, BONE, and the Changing Face of Comics, a documentary film on his life and work.[6][20]

In September that same year, Toon Books, the children's book line launched by cartoonist Art Spiegelman and New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly, released Little Mouse Gets Ready, a 32-page children's graphic novel written by Smith and aimed at very young "emerging readers". 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".[21][22]

In March 2013, Smith said his next project would be a webcomic series called Tüki: Save the Humans, which tells the story of the first human to leave Africa.[23][24] The web publication began in November 2013[25] and the print version was first released in July 2014.[26] The fourth issue was delayed due to a hand injury, sustained by Smith,[27] but after its release in February 2016 the series was put on hiatus in June 2016 due to the need to rework the strip.[28]

Smith served on the board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization founded in 1986 chartered to protect the First Amendment rights of the comics community, from 2013[29] to 2018.[30]

Smith helped found the annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival, which debuted in 2015. He serves as artistic director of the convention.[31]

Personal life

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Smith lives in Columbus, Ohio,[10][32] with his wife and business manager, Vijaya Iyer.[6][33]

On August 13, 2023, Smith suffered a cardiac arrest. As a result, the remainder of his book tour was cancelled.[34][35]

Awards and accolades

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For his work on Bone, Smith has received numerous awards, among them ten Eisner Awards and eleven Harvey Awards. In 1995 and 1996 he won the National Cartoonists Society's award for Comic Books.[36]

In 2022 Tuki: Fight for Fire was included in the American Library Association's list of the Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List.[37]

Eisner Awards

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  • 1993 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication[38]
  • 1994 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story (for "The Great Cow Race"; Bone #7-11)[39]
  • 1994 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series[39]
  • 1994 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist[39]
  • 1994 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication[39]
  • 1995 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication[40]
  • 1995 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor[40]
  • 1995 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series[40]
  • 1998 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor[41]
  • 2005 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint (for Bone One Volume Edition)[42]
  • 2014 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint (for RASL)[43]

Harvey Awards

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  • 1994 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[44]
  • 1994 Harvey Award Special Award for Humor[44]
  • 1994 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work (for The Complete Bone Adventures. Reissued in color as Bone: Out from Boneville; [Scholastic Corporation])[44]
  • 1995 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[45]
  • 1996 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[46]
  • 1997 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[47]
  • 1999 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist), for his body of work in 1998, including Bone[48]
  • 2000 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[49]
  • 2003 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[50]
  • 2005 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)[51]
  • 2005 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work: Bone: One Volume Edition[51]

Nominations

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  • 1993 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist[38]
  • 1995 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue (for Bone #16: "Eyes of the Storm")
  • 1995 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Item (for Bone figurine, shared with Randy Bowen)[40]
  • 1996 Eisner Award for Best Title for Younger Readers[52]
  • 1998 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series[41]
  • 1998 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Product (for Bone Red Dragon cold-cast statue, shared with Randy Bowen)[41]
  • 1998 Eisner Award for Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience[41]
  • 1999 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Product/Item (for Phoney Bone inflatable)[48]
  • 2003 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album Reprint (for Bone vol. 8: Treasure Hunters)[50]
  • 2004 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist[53]
  • 2005 Eisner Award for Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience[42]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Biography: Jeff Smith Archived 2009-03-16 at the Wayback Machine. Scholastic. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  2. ^ Tom (February 27, 2009). "Happy Birthday Jeff!!!" Archived 2010-04-05 at the Wayback Machine. Boneville.
  3. ^ Smith, Jeff (2006). Bone: Eyes of the Storm. Graphix/Scholastic Books.
  4. ^ Szadkowski, Joseph; Smith, Jeff (June 16, 2007). "Mix of tradition, fantasy comics pays off for artist". The Washington Times.
  5. ^ a b "About Jeff Smith" Archived 2013-07-12 at the Wayback Machine. Boneville. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ken Mills (Director) (July 21, 2009). The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, BONE and the Changing Face of Comics (Documentary). Mills James Productions.
  7. ^ a b Lucy Shelton Caswell and David Filipi, Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond (Columbus, O.: The Ohio State University, Wexner Center for the Arts, 2008), ISBN 978-1-881390-46-6, pp. 7, 17.
  8. ^ "Jeff Smith's 'Bone' Goes From Comic Book to Gallery Wall". The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. July 21, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2009.
  9. ^ Jeff Smith, The Art of Bone (Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Books, 2007), ISBN 978-1-59307-441-8, p.19.
  10. ^ a b Candy Brooks, "Two cartoonists from Class of '78 are named distinguished alumni" Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine, ThisWeek Worthington, August 27, 2008 (retrieved January 27, 2009).
  11. ^ "Distinguished Alumni Award of Worthington Schools" Archived 2014-04-25 at the Wayback Machine. Worthington City Schools. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  12. ^ French, Kristin M. (October 2, 2001). "Comic man returns to roots" Archived 2009-03-15 at the Wayback Machine. The Lantern. Retrieved January 27, 2009.
  13. ^ Eichenberger, Bill (May 4, 2008). "Bone and beyond...Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Smith given his due with talks, exhibits at OSU" Archived 2011-05-23 at the Wayback Machine. Columbus Dispatch.
  14. ^ Arnold, Andrew (September 17, 2004). "No Bones About It". Time magazine.
  15. ^ "Alain Ayroles - Biographie". FNAC. Retrieved May 15, 2021.
  16. ^ Jennifer M. Contino. "Jeff Smith: Bone comics, games & Shazam". Archived from the original on 2009-03-15. Retrieved 2007-06-25.
  17. ^ Burns, Ian (April 29, 2010). "RASL #1-7 review by Ian Burns" The Comics Journal.
  18. ^ "It Came Out on Wednesday, presented by comixology" episode 19 interview with Jeff Smith Archived 2008-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ Exhibitions: Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond Archived 2008-08-01 at the Wayback Machine at Wexner Center website.
  20. ^ The Cartoonist Archived 2012-08-15 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  21. ^ "Jeff Smith Does New Children’s Graphic Novel". Toon Books press release. January 23, 2009.
  22. ^ Rogers, Vaneta (February 3, 2009). "Jeff Smith - From Bone to Little Mouse". Newsarama.
  23. ^ Johnston, Rich (March 31, 2013). "Jeff Smith’s New Comic – Tüki Save the Humans, A Free Webcomic". Bleeding Cool.
  24. ^ "CBR TV @ WC13: Jeff Smith on "Bone," "RASL" & "Tüki Save the Humans". Comic Book Resources. April 4, 2013.
  25. ^ "ICv2: First Collection of Jeff Smith's 'Tuki'". ICv2. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  26. ^ MacDonald, Heidi (15 May 2014). "Jeff Smith's Tüki Save the Humans gets a full color comic — The Beat". ComicsBeat.com. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  27. ^ "Jeff Smith Delays Tuki Save the Humans #4 Due To Hand Injury". Newsarama. April 27, 2015. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  28. ^ "Tuki Hiatus". Boneville.com. 30 June 2016. Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  29. ^ MacDonald, Heidi (October 2, 2013). "Jeff Smith Joins the CBLDF Board of Directors". The Beat. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  30. ^ Bunge, Nicole (August 30, 2018). "New President, Officers at CBLDF". ICv2. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  31. ^ Cavna, Michael. "‘Bone’ cartoonist aims to help create the South by Southwest of comics," Washington Post (Oct. 14, 2016).
  32. ^ Jeff Smith, Philip Crawford, and Stephen Weiner, Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom: A Guide for Teachers and Librarians Archived 2009-02-05 at the Wayback Machine (Scholastic/Grafix, n.d.), ISBN 0-439-82769-8, p.6.
  33. ^ Rogers, Aventa (May 8, 2013). "Superheroes Aside: JUDD WINICK Makes Dream Career Switch with HILO". Newsarama.
  34. ^ Johnston, Rich (August 19, 2023). "Jeff Smith Cancels Book Tour After Cardiac Arrest". Bleeding Cool. Archived from the original on August 19, 2023. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  35. ^ Glosan, Kathleen (August 19, 2023). "Special Announcement". Facebook. Archived from the original on August 19, 2023. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  36. ^ List of Comic Book Award winners at National Cartoonists Society website.
  37. ^ "2022 Best Graphic Novels for Adults". American Library Association. 25 April 2021. Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved February 4, 2023.
  38. ^ a b Eisner Awards for 1993. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  39. ^ a b c d Eisner Awards for 1994. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  40. ^ a b c d Eisner Awards for 1995. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  41. ^ a b c d Eisner Awards for 1998. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  42. ^ a b Eisner Awards for 2005. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  43. ^ Eisner Awards for 2014 Archived 2015-04-01 at the Wayback Machine. Comic Con 2014 Eisner Awards Winners. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
  44. ^ a b c Harvey Award winners for 1994 Archived 2008-07-19 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  45. ^ Harvey Award winners for 1995 Archived 2010-07-16 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  46. ^ Harvey Award winners for 1996 Archived 2010-11-09 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  47. ^ Harvey Award winners for 1997 Archived 2010-11-09 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  48. ^ a b Harvey Award winners for 1999 Archived 2010-11-09 at the Wayback Machine
  49. ^ Harvey Award winners for 2000 Archived 2010-11-09 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  50. ^ a b Harvey Award winners for 2003 Archived 2010-11-10 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  51. ^ a b Harvey Award winners for 2005 Archived 2010-11-09 at the Wayback Machine. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  52. ^ Eisner Awards for 1996. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  53. ^ Eisner Awards for 2004. Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
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