Jeff Smith (cartoonist): Difference between revisions
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*[http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22860 The Onion AV Club Interview] |
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*[http://www.a3upodcast.com/node/143 A3UPodcast.com Interview] |
*[http://www.a3upodcast.com/node/143 A3UPodcast.com Interview] |
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*[http://www.fictionalfrontiers.podcastpeople.com/posts/25876 |
*[http://www.fictionalfrontiers.podcastpeople.com/posts/25876/ Interview with Jeff Smith on Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib-Unedited], [[Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib]] |
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Revision as of 03:38, 19 June 2009
Jeff Smith | |
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![]() Smith at a book signing in Hamburg, Germany, on October 10, 2006, during his 2006–2007 Bone World Tour. | |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer, Penciller, Letterer |
Notable works | Bone, Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, RASL |
Awards | National Cartoonists Society Comic Book Awards (2) Harvey Awards (9) Eisner Awards (10) |
Jeff Smith (born February 27, 1960)[1] is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the self-published comic book series Bone.
Early life and education
Jeff Smith was born in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania[1] and grew up in Columbus, Ohio,[3] where he now lives.[4][5]
Smith learned about cartooning from comic strips, comic books, and animated television shows.[6] Smith has cited Charles M. Schultz's Peanuts as a very early influence on his understanding of comics[7] 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,[8] as his "biggest influence in writing comics."[7] Smith began to create comics with the "Bone" characters as early as 1970, when he was about 10 years old.[9]
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.[4][10]
After high school, Smith attended 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.[11][12]
Jeff was involved in the short lived revival of The New Sundial, during the beginning of 1986. Four issues were produced and Jeff 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.[citation needed]
Career
In 1991, he launched his company, Cartoon Books, in order to publish his comic book series Bone.[6] 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."[13]
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.[14] 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[15]. Smith now self-publishes RASL as a standard-sized, ad-free, black and white comic book.
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.[16] The exhibits were featured in a segment on the PBS news program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on July 21, 2008.
Smith is also writing Little Mouse Gets Ready, a 32-page children's graphic novel aimed at very young "emerging readers." This book is scheduled for release 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 said the book will feature another character Smith created in his childhood, "a little gray mouse with a little red vest."[17][18]
Awards
For his work on Bone, Smith has received numerous awards, among them ten Eisner Awards and ten Harvey Awards. In 1995 and 1996 he won the National Cartoonists Society's award for Comic Books.[19] The 1,332 page single-volume paperback was named one of Time magazine's list of Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time.[20]
Eisner Awards
- 1993 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication[21]
- 1994 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story: "The Great Cow Race"; 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[22]
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith
- 1995 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series[23]
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith[24]
- 2005 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint: Bone One Volume Edition[25]
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)[26]
- 1995 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[27]
- 1996 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[28]
- 1997 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[29]
- 1999 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith, for his body of work in 1998, including Bone[30]
- 2000 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[31]
- 2003 Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Jeff Smith[32]
- 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[33]
Nominations
- 1993 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Jeff Smith[21]
- 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[23]
- 1996 Eisner Award for Best Title for Younger Readers[34]
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Product: Bone Red Dragon cold-cast statue, sculpted by Randy Bowen, based on designs by Jeff Smith
- 1998 Eisner Award for Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience[24]
- 1999 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Product/Item: Phoney Bone inflatable[30]
- 2003 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album Reprint: Bone vol. 8: Treasure Hunters[32]
- 2004 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist: Humor: Jeff Smith[35]
- 2005 Eisner Award for Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience[25]
- 2006 Eisner Award for Best Coloring: Steve Hamaker, Bone: The Great Cow Race[36]
- 2008 Eisner Award for Best Coloring: Steve Hamaker, Bone (vols. 5 and 6) and Shazam: Monster Society of Evil[37]
References
- ^ a b c Jeff Smith biography at Scholastic website. Cite error: The named reference "scholasticbio" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "Happy Birthday Jeff" at Boneville.com (Jeff Smith official website).
- ^ "Mix of tradition, fantasy comics pays off for artist," Washington Times, June 16, 2007.
- ^ a b Candy Brooks, "Two cartoonists from Class of '78 are named distinguished alumni", ThisWeek Worthington, August 27, 2008 (retrieved January 27, 2009).
- ^ Jeff Smith, Philip Crawford, and Stephen Weiner, Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom: A Guide for Teachers and Librarians (Scholastic/Grafix, n.d.), ISBN 0-439-82769-8, p.6.
- ^ a b Smith biography page at boneville.com
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Jeff Smith's 'Bone' Goes From Comic Book to Gallery Wall", Interview from The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, original airdate July 21, 2008 (retrieved January 27, 2009).
- ^ Jeff Smith, The Art of Bone (Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Books, 2007), ISBN 978-1-59307-441-8, p.19.
- ^ Worthington City Schools, "Distinguished Alumni of Worthington Schools - 2008 Honorees" (retrieved January 27, 2009).
- ^ Kristin M. French, "Comic man returns to roots", The Lantern, October 2, 2001 (retrieved January 27, 2009).
- ^ "Bone and beyond...Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Smith given his due with talks, exhibits at OSU,", Columbus Dispatch, May 4, 2008.
- ^ Andrew D. Arnold, "No Bones About It," TIME, Sep. 17, 2004.
- ^ Jennifer M. Contino. "Jeff Smith: Bone comics, games & Shazam".
- ^ "It Came Out on Wednesday, presented by comixology" episode 19 interview with Jeff Smith
- ^ Exhibitions: Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond at Wexner Center website.
- ^ "Jeff Smith Does New Children’s Graphic Novel," Toon Books press release, January 23, 2009.
- ^ Vaneta Rogers, "Jeff Smith - From Bone to Little Mouse," Newsarama, February 3, 2009.
- ^ List of Comic Book Award winners at National Cartoonists Society website.
- ^ Arnold, Andrew; "All-TIME Graphic Novels"; time.com
- ^ a b Eisner Awards for 1993
- ^ Eisner Awards for 1994
- ^ a b Eisner Awards for 1995
- ^ a b Eisner Awards for 1998
- ^ a b Eisner Awards for 2005
- ^ Harvey Award winners for 1994
- ^ Harvey Award winners for 1995
- ^ Harvey Award winners for 1996
- ^ Harvey Award winners for 1997
- ^ a b Harvey Award winners for 1999
- ^ Harvey Award winners for 2000
- ^ a b Harvey Award winners for 2003
- ^ Harvey Award winners for 2005
- ^ Eisner Awards for 1996
- ^ Eisner Awards for 2004
- ^ Eisner Awards for 2006
- ^ "Your 2008 Eisner Award Winners" in Comics Reporter; July 26, 2008
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Boneville Jeff Smith's Blog
- Jeff Smith podcast interview on It Came Out on Wednesday from ComiXology
- The Onion AV Club Interview
- A3UPodcast.com Interview
- Interview with Jeff Smith on Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib-Unedited, Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib