A good interview with author and librarian Stephen Weiner by a polite but skeptical host about the growing respectability of graphic novels. It's a good barometer of where our art form stands. To listen, go to Nigel Beale's interview.

On May 24, Our Gang shipped to comic shops and bookstores.  It is handsomely designed by Jacob Covey and published by Fantagraphics.  It reprints in color some of the first comics work by my hero Walt Kelly from the golden age of comics.  It is the first of six, and the cover features my first professional attempt at caricature – - it ain’t easy to draw Spanky, let me tell you! 

The only way out

Steve is coloring BONE Vol. 5:  Rock Jaw, Master of the Eastern Border. This image is from the page he worked on yesterday.  I really liked it, so here it is

Kana’s Island

This is a comic that arrived in the mail recently, and the cover artwork caught my eye.  Written and drawn by Mark Page, Kana’s Island is an Alice in Wonderland type of story that has some beautiful pacing and layout.  An unabashed children’s book with some potentially interesting characters.  The indicia says 2003, but this is the first I’ve seen it.  Here’s Mark’s web page.  

Terry interviewed in new TCJ

Eight issues from the end of his magnificent opus Strangers in Paradise, Terry Moore is interviewed in this month’s The Comics Journal.    Go read a clip!  Then go buy the complete Strangers in Pocket Book format.  The single most emotionally involving comic being produced today or at any time in the last ten years.  You don’t believe me?  Just go read it!

Hi everyone, it’s Steve!  I posted some coloring stuff on my blog recently, so I thought it would be cool to show a little more here!  Here is a quick run through on how I go about coloring a page of BONE!

Step 1:  Obviously, I start with the black and white scanned art that we have on file.  Each page is dissected into several layers, leaving the line-art as black and transparent (previously white that was deleted) as the topmost layer.  Much like traditional animation cels, where the color was applied behind the line drawings.

Step 2:  My first layer is the sky or whatever the background would be in each panel.  In this case it is the sky blue color.

Step 3:  The word balloons are next.  I usually put all of the sound effects lettering and stars from characters on this layer as well.  Some balloons are inked with closed lines, so I am able to select them using the line-art layer and then fill with white on the ‘balloons’ layer beneath.  Otherwise I airbrush the shapes by hand, making sure to stay within the lines.

Step 4:  Working from back to front I add the ground elements like rocks and dust.  Sometimes I paint the details as I go, but mostly I make the shapes flat colors until the end.  It can be easier to see what details to paint once the basic colors are all in place.

Step 5:  The rat creatures are next.  I like to make them almost all different colors to make the page that more colorful.  Making them all brown would just seem boring to me.  The rats in the lower left panel you can see are very washed out.  This really adds to the idea that there is great distance between the action on the ground and the baby possums near us.

Step 6:  I added the tree that the possums are sitting on, and also painted the bones and possums in flat colors on their respective layers.

Step 7:  The page is completely rendered and ready for Jeff and I to have our final look at everything.

Step 8:  To help our eyes flow through the panels the same way they do when reading the black & white original, we add some shapes to the ground and also make the possums’ tree blue.  Doing those things separates the foreground and background and also directs your eye easier. 

My process of coloring is pretty basic.  I like to keep the colors simple for the characters and not over-render anything.  This makes things go faster, allowing Jeff and I to really spend time at the end making the pages all fit together as a story.  I hope that all makes sense!  Enjoy the books, as I work to finish the rest of the series!

Welcome to the first entry of my journal, and a whole new Boneville.com!

This picture was taken on May 2, 2006 in Chicago at the annual meeting of the International Readers Association.  That’s me at the podium, and a picture of Will Eisner’s Contract with God up on the screen.  Six days later, on May 8, I spoke to a similar gathering, the Northern Ohio Library Association, on Lake Erie at The Huron Youth Symposium. I seem to be spending an awful lot of time on the road speaking to groups of teachers, librarians, literacy specialists, bookstore buyers, and art groups who want to learn more about graphic novels.  Over the last few years, I’ve been witness to something new and unusual happening in comics:  a grass roots movement driven by librarians and kids, and I’m going to write about that in the coming days.

Eisner Nomination!

Steve Hamaker, our colorist, has been nominated for an Eisner Award for his work on the new editions of BONE that Scholastic is publishing. This nomination is well deserved, as you can see in the example here.  Steve has beautifully strengthened the compositions, and added some very Warner Bros-style background elements that truly improve the original art.  Congratulations, Steve! 

Be sure to check out the new HISTORY OF BONE on the BONE PAGE.  This started out as an FAQ section, and grew into a mini encyclopedia entry on everything from the Self-publishing Movement, my feud with Dave Sim, the Trilogy Tour, bad movie deals, and the BONE: One Volume Edition.  My thanks to Kathleen Glosan, who went through dozens of old files, dug up pictures, jam drawings and organized hundreds of links and quotes; Eric Smith, who built the new website, and despite how clean and simple it looks, was a crazy amount of work; and thanks to Colleen Doran, who not only read over our Self-publishing section to make sure it was accurate, but provided some key photos of us signing at the Diamond Comics Retailer Conference in1993!

I hope this is a fun and useful site. We’ve posted Scholastic’s Guide for Teachers and Librarians called “Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom,” and as we go, we’ll add links and essays to create what we hope is a site useful for cartoonists, readers, parents, and educators.

The handsome fellow at the top is my dog Preston, the official mascot of Cartoon Books. You’ll be seeing plenty of pictures of him.

Enjoy looking around!

Jeff