Jeff Smith Answers Your Questions on 'Bone' Comics

JEFF SMITH: Well, they came very early. I -- I was trying when I was like five to create my own character, because I was very aware of Walt Disney being on television back in the sixties. You know, every Sunday night, he was on television, and he was introducing his characters that, you know, he made up -- Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There was also Walter Lance, who made up Woody Woodpecker. So, I knew that cartoonists -- and, you know, Charles Schultz made up 'Peanuts,' he made up Snoopy -- so I had this idea that it would fund to make up -- make up my own character, when I was like, you know, like five or something. I mean, I didn't know I was going to still be drawing him 40 years later, but I am.

JEFFREY BROWN: A number of people asked about, I guess, the process, you know, how you go about doing this.

Allen Gary from Huntsville, Ala., writes, "Could you list the processes of a single frame?"

JEFF SMITH: I thought that was a --

JEFFREY BROWN: -- story has been formed. So, I guess, the assumption is you have in your head, well, you tell us. I mean, do you have in your head the story idea? And then, what goes into a single frame?

JEFF SMITH: I actually think this is a really interesting question.

Yeah, he actually really just wants to know, technically what -- how do you get that frame built, any single frame. Like, he's assuming I've already figured out what's -- you know, what the story is.

The first thing I have to say is you never draw -- you never think in terms of a single frame, in comics. You have to think in, at least, two frames. Any two given frames creates, you know, the equivalent of a sentence in a novel.

You know, say you have, I'm drawing a story about Bone. Well, I have Bone in one panel with his eyes closed, and the next panel, I draw him with his eyes open. And you have to have any two panels to create, you know, movement or life within the comic.

But, having said that, the first step in creating the pictures is, I draw a little thumbnail sketch. And, as I'm writing, I very quickly jot down what their words are going to be in the little balloon, and a really fast gesture drawing of what the characters' faces are, what I think their position in the panel is.

And it's -- it's important to point that out, because I think a lot of people probably imagine the script for a comic book would look like a screenplay for a movie -- but it doesn't. Comics have to have the words and the pictures together. So, when I write, I have to think in terms of pictures and words at the same time.

The next step is to, you know, take out a big sheet of, you know, 14-by-17, two-ply Bristol board out of my pad, and I measure off the panels. You know, now you use rulers and straightedges to make everything nice and clean, and I just kind of transfer that image that I've drawn -- that little doodle -- into a nicer drawing at the full size. And I usually do it in a blue pencil.

The next step is, you have to get the lettering in place. Some people will, you know, take a, you know, pen and dip it into ink, and very carefully, you know, hand-letter it. I use a computer font, you know, with my own lettering, I can just type out what the character's going to say, and I can just paste it down.

Then the last step, is really the finishing touch. You've got to just ink the panel in, you know, take your -- I use a paintbrush, and I dip it in ink, and you just surround the balloon, and give it a little pointer, to show who's talking, and then you have to ink the characters.

And the reason we use ink is because it's the thing that the camera can see the easiest -- it's much cleaner to reproduce a crisp ink line then, you know, the jagged, rough pencils lines.

JEFFREY BROWN: But you still -- so, going back to this notion of always thinking about two or three panels, it's this idea of a sentence, as you say, but also a kind of pacing, I remember you and I talked a lot about that.

JEFF SMITH: Yeah. Well, I think of it as any two panels as the smallest unit of comics. You -- anytime the reader is looking at one panel, he has to move to the next panel, and it's that jump, over that little gap between the two panels, that is where all the magic lies hidden in comics. That's where you take the two images -- one where his eyes are open, and one where his eyes are closed. Or one where he's, you know, standing, and the next one where he's falling down. You jump that gap, and in your imagination, you turn it into movement -- you make him open his eyes, you make him fall down.

So, that's really the magic of comics, right there. Is you get a little movie going inside your imagination.

And the comic book drawer, or artist, he has to get the reader to kind of do this with him. If the reader doesn't go along with me, I don't have any movement, I don't have any life.

JEFFREY BROWN: John Sibley from Ashford, U.K., nice to hear from him, says, "I'm a huge fan of 'Bone,' I just can't seem to stop re-buying the series in all its various formats." So I guess you like to hear that?

JEFF SMITH: I love to hear that.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then he says, "Do you prefer working in black and white?" Now explain, you do work in black and white, but the -- Scholastic has put it out in a colorized version, right?

JEFF SMITH: Yeah. I think his question is how do I prefer seeing it? Do I like to see it in black and white or do I like seeing it in color?

And the truth is, I never thought I would see "Bone" in color. I thought it would be black and white like a newspaper comic strip.

But having seen it in color, I think you can do a lot of things with color. You can set the mood, you can, you know, put really dark, mysterious colors in there, and really change the way people read the materials. So, I like them both.

JEFFREY BROWN: But you don't care how people -- how your readers buy it?

JEFF SMITH: If you -- well, I think that if -- no, well -- both versions are available. You know, we have a -- you know, if you go into a bookstore, you're going to find a graphic novel section that has, you know, Manga and, you know, Batman, and you're going to find a big, fat, black-and-white 350-page "Bone" book.

Then if you go to the children's section, you'll find "Bone" broken up into smaller volumes -- the same story, but with color. So, both versions are out there, and people can just take the one that they gravitate to.

JEFFREY BROWN: Emily from Hotchkiss, Colo. Now, she wondered what you meant when you said, in our interview, you said something about "keeping the punk in your work."

JEFF SMITH: Yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now this, as I recall, was we were standing there in the museum --

JEFF SMITH: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: -- we were talking about the notion of, oh, I don't know, finding your work in a museum, and how strange that was, and you said you liked it, but you also wanted to make sure that you didn't lose the "punk" element.

JEFF SMITH: Well, it's a careful balance. Having comics be -- having them taken seriously is wonderful, and I think that they should be.

But there's something about flying a little bit under the radar, being a place where people aren't watching you, and making sure that you're doing things the way they should be. I like the freedom that comics have to talk about real things, and not -- not feel like they have to, you know, dress things up, and be proper.

So, that's what I mean. I like the fact that comics are a little bit disrespectful -- I said that wrong. Not that they're disrespectful, but they're slightly -- what am I trying to say? Not respected?

[Laughter.]

JEFFREY BROWN: You're ambivalent about it, right?

JEFF SMITH: I am very ambivalent about it. I like it that you have to hide your comics, and that they're not quite kosher.

JEFF SMITH: Well, it had never -- honestly, it had never really occurred to me before, because I didn't think it was possible. When we started in, you know, 1991, you know, comics were very much blocked off in a little niche market, a little collectors' hobby market. I mean, there's like, you know, you can go to a coin shop, or a baseball card shop, or a comic book shop -- and, you know, I thought, "Well, we need to expand this, we need to expand readerships."

I mean, everyone likes comics. Americans, especially, love cartoons. I mean, look at the Simpsons, and the Lion King, and Pixar, right? I mean, Americans love cartoons.

So, I couldn't understand why comic books as a medium were so locked away, you know? In this little tiny ghetto.

And so I tried, you know, to figure out a way to, you know, to make the format a little more less alien, you know, get that spine on there. I mean, I didn't invent any of this, but I was trying to push it out of the comic book stores into libraries, and into bookstores. And then we did it. And then, all of a sudden, you start seeing tours of original art, things like the "Bone" thing, or the American Masters Exhibit. And so, it didn't even occur to me that we would have this problem.

But, here's the thing that really popped it over for me, Jeffrey, was children and parents, kind of finding the Bone books, in these little black and white versions that were being sold only in comic book stores. Finding them, and then claiming them as their own, and the next thing I know, I'm a role model.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, you know, you told me -- tell that story you told me about going to the Library Association, was it?

JEFF SMITH: Yeah? Oh, yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: And you got invited, and you thought --

JEFF SMITH: I was asked, along with Art Spiegelman, and Neil Gaiman, and Colleen Doran to speak to the American Library Association's big annual meeting. I think it was in Atlanta that year, it was in 2002, I can't remember exactly where it was, maybe it was in Cleveland, but I can't -- I travel so much, I don't remember.

But, I do remember that Art Spiegelman, and Colleen and Neil and I all got together beforehand, that morning. And we were saying, "OK, this is our big chance to convince librarians, of all people, that comics are good, you know?" They have this reputation of causing illiteracy, but really, everyone who reads comics knows that you actually learn to read from comics.

So, we went in, and we were ready to just, you know, really hit them with our best material, and say this is great. But we were absolutely flabbergasted that, within 10 minutes of us opening our mouths, the librarians were way ahead of us.

They knew that comics were reading, they were already stocking them, and they just wanted to know, how do we figure out what books to get, and how do we get them? And it was amazing.

I think 2002 was really the turning point, I think. When comics started to get this respectability, or acceptance, is probably a better word.

JEFFREY BROWN: And you were saying you found yourself, suddenly, a role model.

JEFF SMITH: Well, when I say role model, I don't mean, like Michael Jordan or something, I mean, I was, you know, there are children reading my books. I need to think about what I'm saying.

Fortunately, "Bone" was already finished, when it was picked up by kids and parents, and Scholastic, so I wasn't under any obligation to change anything.

But, you know, my next project is not a kid-friendly thing; it's a very adult-oriented, noir mystery story. And I see parents buying it for their kids, and I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what's happening? Don't! Stop!"

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, you know, on this theme, though, of the development of the graphic novel and comics, here's one from a teacher.

Gwen Tarbox, [a] professor [in] Wyoming, Mich. And she says, "I'm going to be teaching a graduate, undergraduate course in the graphic novel this fall," well there's another sign of the respectability, right?

JEFF SMITH: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: And she says, "As I've studied the genre, it is clear that the development of the graphic novel divisions in the major publishing houses is a growing trend. What are your hopes and concerns regarding this new development? It is something that I want my students to consider seriously."

So, I think she's asking about this, you know, the hopes of buying that respectability, but are there some current concerns about it, as well?

JEFF SMITH: Well, I'm not too concerned about, you know, somebody launching a book from a major company and them getting respect -- I hope that happens. And it seems to be happening, quite a bit. When you had Allison Bechdel's "Fun Home," which is a beautiful, beautiful graphic novel about her father when she was growing up, and that was actually named Time [magazine]'s Book of the Year last year. Not their graphic novel of the year, but their book of the year. And I think that that's just going to lead to more and more publishing houses to start these divisions.

And my -- I have no real fears, other than -- let me put it this way -- it's hard to make a graphic novel. It is much more work than writing a novel.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why?

JEFF SMITH: You have to draw it.

[Laughter.]

JEFFREY BROWN: I was playing straight-man, because I knew the answer.

JEFF SMITH: Yeah, right, right, right.

JEFFREY BROWN: But I was playing anyway.

JEFF SMITH: And it takes a -- I'm not saying it's, takes -- it doesn't mean you're smarter or more talented, but it takes literally more time. And I used to talk with Art Spiegelman about this all the time, he was like, "We're getting there, we just have to have a dependable library of books that people can go to, you know, to get that shelf built up." You know, he would tell me, you know, "'Bone' took you over 10 years." 'Mouse' took him over 10 years. Christopher's 'Jimmy Corrigan' took him over 10 years.

I mean, it takes a long time to make, you know, graphic novels. And my fear is that in the excitement of this new field opening up, a lot of publishers will not understand that they cannot get a book in six months, from a cartoonist. And I'm afraid some things are going to get rushed out, and people are going to be disappointed and -- so that's my only concern.

Other than that, it's all straight up, up, up for me, because this really is an art form that everybody can get into.

JEFFREY BROWN: You know, there's a lot of questions here about people thinking about getting into it, and you just starting talking about how hard it is. So, give some people some sense of your work life, I mean, how disciplined are you, how do you -- are there certain hours a day that you set aside to work? How does it work for you?

JEFF SMITH: It takes a lot of discipline. I mean, you have to actually treat it like a job, which is hard, because you don't actually go to work. You don't clock in, you don't have a boss. But you do have to get up in the morning, and get to work, at, you know, a given time, and get your work done.

And it does take a lot of discipline -- it's an art form, but you've got to figure out a way to, you know, get your thoughts down on paper, and not only organize them, but then organize your workload. So, you've got to figure out when you're going to be writing it, when you're going to be lettering it, when you're going to be drawing the pencils and -- in the middle of all of that, you've got to worry about the distribution systems, and when the book has to get to the printer in order to fulfill your promises to the comic book store people, stuff like that.

And there's so much promotion you have to do, I mean, you can't just -- you can't just put out a comic book and expect people to come flocking to you.

You've got to go out to San Diego, to the Comic-Con that's out there, and set up and get people's attention. That's a pretty big show, so you might not want to start there, you might want to start in your local area, where -- there's a comic book show, probably, every weekend. You know, go visit that, and go see, you know, look for the comic book dealers that are swapping issues of Spiderman No. 1, or whatever. Probably not swapping those, but you know what I mean.

So, it takes a lot of discipline. I probably -- when I'm, when my little deadline is coming up close, I probably spend anywhere from 10 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, probably in the last three or four weeks of any issue of a comic book that I'm working on.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ten to 15 hours?

JEFF SMITH: It's pretty brutal. You've got to really love it.

And another one, Robert Grubbs from Forest City, Ark., "What field of training would you need to become a comic artist, or graphic artist?"

What do you tell young people?

JEFF SMITH: Well, I think these are great, and I think they tie into the last thing that we were talking about, the amount of work you have to put into it.

It only comes when it's something you really love, and you feel like you have to do it. And I think that all these questions from young people are about, you know, people's young kids, is because when you want to be a cartoonist, I mean, it's something that hits ya.

And really, there aren't too many schools, or classes, or programs. I mean, you can't go to school to be a comic book writer, the way you can, you know, kind of growing up and learning how to, you know, be a scientist, or something.

And especially in college, you know, there's just really no -- there's very few, anyway, vocational paths you can take.

People become cartoonists just because they're just driven to do it -- they can't stop themselves. And I think that's wonderful, and that's probably why we can do it.

But, the thing for kids to do is to just find the comics or the cartoons that they like -- find an artist. Like, for me, I've talked about Walt Kelly, and Pogo, or Peanuts by Charles Schultz. I just got all the books by them I could, and I just -- you know, I studied them, I just looked at them, "How do they work?" And I traced them, and I copied them. You know, and tried to write my own stories with the characters. You know, you just -- it's really up to you to do it, since it's not, like a normal -- it's not a normal thing to do.

JEFFREY BROWN: You know, there's one other interesting question along these lines, I find it quite interesting, in terms of, you know, people and getting into this. It's from Ron in Lansing, Mich., "My son is pursuing a career as a graphic artist," and what Ron is asking is, "How important is it for you to read outside your artistic interest? I worry about his lack of literary depth as he tries to become a storyteller."

Now, I find this interesting, because you -- I remember you and I talked so much about the kind of literary side to this -- you were trying to create a true story, and you cited things from 'Huck Finn' to, clearly, 'Lord of the Rings,' and how important is this sense of outside -- this sense of literature and storytelling, is it for you -- and what do you advise for -- ?

JEFF SMITH: As you just mentioned, I obviously think it's very important. And I do think there are cartoonists that, you know, they just get inside that little bubble of, you know, the X-Men, or Spiderman or something, and they just learn everything about comics, from reading comics. And I think they probably will have a fine career at Marvel, if they want.

One of the -- I remember, one of the things that people would write about my comics, early on, was they were surprised that I wasn't -- there was nothing in my comics that looked even remotely like, you know, "The 'Hulk," or the kind of storytelling you would find in the X-Men.

And I think you should, I mean, the storytelling traditions are in all sorts of media. I'm a huge fan of "Huckleberry Finn," and "Moby Dick," and "King Arthur," and fairy tales, and movies. I get a lot of input from movies, you know, like Humphrey Bogart movies, and "Jaws," for that matter.

So, I do think you should try to get outside influences. Well, really, it's just what you like, is what's I think, is the most important.

So, if you really just, is digging is other comics, then he's probably going to get some good stuff out of that. But it isn't going to hurt him to go read "Huckleberry Finn."

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, we just have a few more minutes, and there's a few more questions here about you and your own future.

First, you just mentioned the movies, and Mark from Nashville, Tenn., says, "'Bone' is my favorite comic series; I began reading it over a decade ago. With the massive success of other comic book movies, like 'Dark Knight' and 'Spiderman,' are there any plans to translate the Bones series into a movie?"

JEFF SMITH: Well, you know, I've had many offers over the years, but I have never really met the right filmmakers, I didn't think they really quite got it. So, I've avoided it.

But, just recently, I was approached by Warner Brothers, and I was impressed with their approach to the whole "Bones" saga. So, we're negotiating, and we're very close to cutting a deal. And I know that, probably everybody is very close to cutting a deal at some point, so I probably shouldn't be all -- but yeah, it's possible -- I guess my answer is yeah, it's possible. I would like it to happen, and it might.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what -- tell us a little bit more about what you are working now, or where you see yourself down the line?

JEFF SMITH: Well, it's pretty obvious that I'm going to be known as the 'Bone' guy for the rest of my life, and I'm very happy for that to be the case. I poured everything I had into "Bone," it was -- the characters that I've had with me since I was, you know, in kindergarten. And I'm very, very pleased that I actually was able to complete it, and get it done.

Now, I'm completely absorbed in this new project, which I mentioned earlier, which is this, kind of an adult noir concept. While I was working on "Bone," I would have hours and hours at the drawing board where I was just inking, and most of the thought process is done with by that point, and I've written it, and I've done all the compositions in pencil, and everything's done, and now I'm just tracing it, basically, with ink. I mean, there's a lot of art that goes in with inking, I don't mean to -- I don't want any inkers to get upset with me. I worked very hard on my inking.

But, I can watch movies while I'm doing it, is what I'm saying. And I really got into the "Maltese Falcon," and "The Big Sleep," you know, this kind of these, these tough detectives who are dealing with mysteries, and stuff. And the really almost Byzantine plots that these movies would have. And I took that whole idea of this maze, literally, of the plot. And I decided that I would have this -- this art thief who would get caught in a maze of multiple dimensions, like parallel universes, where he could go to these other universes and steal art, and get involved in, like, a big murder mystery.

So, I'm having a lot of fun with that, I'm -- I'm spending all of my time working on it. Except when I'm talking to you about "Bone."