Like a museum showpiece for one of the most significant comics works in the last thirty years, the IDW Artist’s Edition of Jeff Smith’s “Bone: The Great Cow Race” promises repeated riches for “Bone” aficionados and new readers alike.
Written and Illustrated by Jeff SmithIDW Publishing and Cartoon Books are pleased to announce Jeff Smith’s Bone Artist’s Edition, featuring one of Smith‘s most beloved stories: The Great Cow Race! Featuring Fone, Smiley and Phoney bone, Gran’ma Ben, the radiant Thorn, and, of course, those stupid, stupid Rat Creatures!
Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer launched Cartoon Books in 1991 with the release of the first issue of Bone. A certified smash-hit, Bone remains an evergreen standard for Cartoon Books, continuing to sell to children of all ages. Jeff Smith and Bone have won 10 Eisner Awards (while being nominated for another 11) and 11 Harvey Awards.
Jeff Smith’s Bone Artist’s Edition is 144 pages and measures 12″ x 17″.
Dear reader, you are at least one of three audiences for this evergreen review. First, maybe you’ve read and loved Jeff Smith’s “Bone” like so many comics lovers have. Maybe the adventure/comedy/fantasy series from the mid-90s that touched off the young readers Scholastic graphic novel industry was even the book that brought you into comics, or in my case, back into comics with a revived imagination about the kinds of stories comics could tell.
Or as a second audience, perhaps you’re reading this review because you’re aware of the IDW Artist’s Editions that reprint comics classics through full-sized reproductions of their original art, capturing those stray pencil marks and whiteout splatters and all. Perhaps you’re curious what Jeff Smith’s masterful cartooning looks like in this Artist’s Edition (2013), how the brilliant second volume of the saga (issues 7 to 12 of the original “Bone” single issues published in 1996) reads when printed in glorious 12″x17″ blue-line pencil and brushed ink with that distinctive lettering pasted onto the word balloons emanating from Gran’ma’s mouth.
I hope there’s a third audience here. Maybe somehow you haven’t read “Bone” yet. Maybe you’ve heard something about this “Bone” book everyone’s raved about, and you’re here to find out if it’s worth the effort. I hold out hope that you do exist, because I like to think that the wonder of this book will be a brand new experience for someone out there. I like to imagine that I get to be the one who convinces someone to wander back into that library book shelf or comic shop, to discover a series that’s both a seminal inspiration and a pinnacle of independent achievement in what’s now become a ubiquitous sub-genre of graphic novels for old and young readers. If you grew up on “Tintin” or “Pogo,” or you’ve loved “Amulet” or “The Nameless City,” and for some reason have never read “Bone,” let me try to convince you to rectify that.
But if you’ve never read “Bone”… don’t start with this Artist’s Edition! Beside the hefty price tag and size of this Artist’s Edition, IDW’s “Bone: The Great Cow Race” only collects the second of nine volumes, published by Cartoon Books and then Scholastic Graphix (and fun fact: once upon a time, Image Comics) that constitutes the full, original “Bone” storyline. Only after you’ve taken my eager recommendation, consumed the whole series in full binge-mode, and become an obsessed, instant mega-fan should you then pinch those pennies for this enormous showpiece of a collector’s item.
Reviewing this Artist’s Edition, I hope to serve all three audiences by considering three dimensions of the “Bone: Great Cow Race” Artist’s Edition. First, for that last group, the “Bone” curious, I’ll tell you why this chapter, “The Great Cow Race,” exemplifies what makes the whole saga remarkable, its perfect mix of genre elements. Then, for the “Bone”-lovers, I’ll explain why an Artist’s Edition so beautifully captures what makes this mix produce such magic, convincing you to make this the next savings-siphoning target of your collector’s addiction. Finally, for Artist’s Edition fans, I want to make the case for why “Bone” represents something special among these annals of great comics arts, why this one merits the Artist Edition treatment.
Continued below“Bone” came out at a time when comics needed an indie voice to defy the mainstream consensus of the era about what comics would sell and win readerships. In a time of bombast and boom-and-bust, “Bone” combined the best of past cartooning to launch a prototype for popular comics of the future, truly popular alternatives that would outlast and out-appeal the trendy dark superheroes and big-gun anti-heroes of 90s comic book culture. In contrast, Jeff Smith called up the adventurousness of the best Disney-style animation, the the whimsy of classic comic strip cartooning, and the scale of world- and myth-building that Spielberg, Lucas, and Henson kept prominent in the pop culture brain. These traditions all carried over from the serialized storytelling roots that also branched into comic books of all kinds, but by the time of “Bone” had splintered within most comic shop fare into very narrow, specific, Jim Lee- or Alan Moore-shaped veins. “Bone” was a throwback to the universal appeal of cartooning.
And “The Great Cow Race” is a perfectly mixed soup of cartooning excellence. “Bone” follows the three Bone cousins, Fone (good-natured, sweet, sappy in love), Phoney (scheming, greedy, star on his shirt), and Smiley (tall, bowler hat, great company for trouble), who between them resurrect that array of character trio triangulations and comedic duo tropes that everything from Vaudeville to Mutt’n’Jeff, from Tom and Huck to Perfect Strangers had left in our memories. Through the dark woods they meet the winsome and mysterious young Thorn and her Gran’ma Ben, along with the village they hail from, all forming the peopled setting for this volume. The Cow Race of the title is the annual town event where fierce Gran’ma Ben races a raucous herd of cows. The townspeople and its outlandish characters blend shades of influences from “Li’l Abner” to the Seven Dwarves. Also in the scene are the Rat Creatures who ominously but stupidly machinate to do the will of the sinister hooded villain, that dosage of villain horror and humor that peppered The Wizard of Oz and .
These classic character ingredients come together in an exquisitely paced crescendo of a story-with-the-saga, which is what makes “The Great Cow Race” a great capsule of what makes “Bone” great. There’s the momentum of the race itself. There’s banter that you can’t resist smiling at. There’s intrigue from the shadows of the forest. There’s slapstick chases and awkward flirtations. And the journey reads so buttery smoothly that its artistry can be easily overlooked.
That’s why an Artist’s Edition is so nice. “Bone” is a page-turner, but huge pages force you to pump the brakes and savor the art, like you would walking through a museum and seeing old animation cells for classic cartoons, like you would studying a Rembrandt or even a Jack Kirby page on display. These days, Graphix reprints “Bone” in color, which adds to the relish and vibrancy, the smoothness that makes it a fast, absorbing read. But the size and scope of the Artist’s Edition lets you soak in the evocative, Walt Kelly-like brush strokes. The intricate background detail arranged architecturally on the page like a Hal Foster broadsheet. The minimalist use of negative space to attune us to a funny exchange or emotional beat, like the cartoonist minimalist greats Schulz or Watterson. The judicious use of black and white and the crafty hatching work that Smith utilizes from the legacies of those Wally Wood or Will Eisner types. These features of Smith’s art, which make “Bone” such a culmination of cartooning traditions that it played a huge role in resurrecting in comics, can easily overlooked. After all, the book is fun and fast-paced. The Artist’s Edition slows you down to examine those riches.
As Artist’s and Artifact Edition collectors will tell you, that’s the advantage of any of these collector’s items, as costly as they can be. They furnish an experience. And I would argue that Smith is a cartoonist well worth experiencing in this way.
I’m embarrassed to admit how many of these Artist’s Editions and their like that I own and have pored over. Some of the original art pages are fascinating to see in how they reveal the collaborative insides of the publishing process, as when notes are scribbled on margins between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, or when inkers seem to have gone one way in the finished book while the original pencils reveal a different intention.
Continued belowBut for cartoonists like Smith, what’s visible on the page is not the process of back-and-forth between collaborators, but the emerging confidence of an independent cartoonist whose expertise is being honed on a rough deadline. Issues 7 to 12 represent the stretch when Smith, who did seem to start off “Bone” already very mature as an artist, nevertheless seems to elevate to the masterful level that he maintains for the rest of the run. Observe the following two samplings, the first from an earlier page of the Artist’s Edition, the second from a later page:
Both panels feature that distinctive Jeff Smith characterization through brilliant body and facial acting, that balanced proportion and space. In the earlier panel, though, light touches of gesture and subtle balloon placement and wording adjustments seem visible between the blue-line and the final inks. In the Rat Creatures panel, like many of the panels surrounding it later in the the 144-odd pages of art, Smith’s art looks more assured, as though the inevitable errors will be rectified but a strong, clear conception goes almost un-negotiated from layouts to inks.
Add in this comparison of a page later in the Artist’s Edition where the paste-up of a revised Thorn can be seen, playing amidst the Bone cousins.
And one feels the sense that these Artist’s Editions give you, true or false, that you get to be intimately up close with the creator at their drawing table, peeking at the process behind their brilliance.
I contend that Smith is a perfect cartoonist to see with this level of scrutiny. He’s a pure original, which every art theorist knows just means that he assembles a variety of influences into a singular vision. And he sits just before the availability of digital efficiency will make original art like this hard to find. Soon, various artists like Kazu Kibuishi, Raina Telgemeier, and Ben Hatke will come along and make cartooning for all ages dominate sales and shelves again. But this is the watershed of that rebirth, and Smith’s labors at the art board distill that century of pop culture and pop art influences into some amazingly meaningful lines.
That’s what makes IDW’s “Bone” Artist’s Edition a special thing to witness. Seeing the auteur of a masterpiece in such a naked form. It just reinforces the sheer fun of this incomparable work of comics.
