On Tuesday May, 20th, The Wexner Center welcomed guest speaker Paul Pope, to the Bone and Beyond Exhibit.

Paul gave a brief history of how Batman has been interpreted over the years and what inspired him on his turn of the iconic classic: BATMAN YEAR 100!

Paul dazzling the audience with his wealth of knowledge on anything ever created… and delivered Jeff's favorite line of the evening when he referenced "the magic of the hand-drawn."

Fans line up for some face time with Mr. Pope… 

Afterwards we wound down the evening with friends at Rigsby's in The Short North. Classic Steve. 

Paul and Jeff enjoying drinks and conversation. 

Wexner Center's own: Dave Filipi and Jenny Robb. 

L to R: OSU Professor Mr. Massey, Paul, Jeff, Amanda Potter, Dave Filip, Jenny Robb, and Steve Hamaker. (Hiding off camera-me! Kathleen).

Rory Root, a good friend and one of the best comic shop retailers in the country passed away on Monday.

There are numerous memories of Rory and his store Comic Relief in Berkely, CA all over the web. You can see some on the Beat, and over on The Comics Reporter. 
(the photos in this entry are from those two sites)

Rory's personality was bigger than life, and he worked hard to promote comics as both recreation and as an art form.

He was also a character in BONE. He was one of the villagers who was always trying to wring Phoney Bone's neck. 

Vijaya and I just saw Rory in Vegas during the ComicsPro meeting there and he was looking healthier than he had in while. He'd quit smoking and seemed in good spirits.

Rory was one of the comics retailers who really cared about comics, especially indie comics, at a time when very few others even carried them. His store Comic Relief in Berkley was one of the first that I know of that regularly carried and restocked a full range of graphic novels – - a move that looks prescient today.

Rory, along with Jim Hanley, Joe Field, and a few other big players in retailing were the first people I met in comics, even before I met Neil Gaiman or Dave Sim. Probably at a retailing conference put on by Diamond or Capital distributors. Rory was encouraging, and welcoming to Vijaya and me when we moved to the San Fransisco Bay area in the early 90s, often inviting us to the store and taking us out to dinner back when we were just starting out, and constantly introducing us to other cartoonists and important players in the retailing field.

We would see Rory every year in San Diego at the Con and he always greeted every member of my Cartoon Books staff with hugs and good humor the moment we stepped on the convention floor. Every single year he wanted to be the first person to see what little goodie we were going to unpack from our crates. And every year he put his money where his mouth was, supporting me and many other smaller publishers at the end of the Comicon by taking any unsold books off our hands (at a pretty hefty discount, of course, but that was Rory!). I will miss him.

An era has ended. Good bye, Rory.

Hi everybody, Tom here. Saturday, May 10th kicked off with Jeff's talk with Scott McCloud. A great turnout (over 500 people) came to hear Jeff and Scott share war stories from the early days of indie comics.

Thanks to Chuck over at comicrelated.com for the top two pics. You can see Chuck's other pic's here.

Steve Hamaker in the audience.

The huge line after the interview fills the Mershon lobby, as people wait to get their swag signed. 

 Jeff and Scott get down to business.

These kids are taking some time out to read the One Volume Edition while their parents waited in line.

Thursday, May 15th. A night with Terry Moore. Terry was a great speaker. He had the audience captivated with his story of how Strangers in Paradise and his rise into self publishing came to be. I stupidly forgot my camera, so a great big THANK YOU to Vaneta at Newsarama (from whom we stole these pics). You can read the full newsarama article here.

Look at the mutual admiration they have for each other!?!

A fan gave Terry a Katchoo license plate that used to be on her car. 

After his talk, Terry was treated to a great dinner at one of our finest restaurants, G. Michaels. 

A great appetizer, shrimp and grits is one of Jeff's favorites and we ordered it for all to taste. 

Tomorrow, Tuesday May 20th, Paul Pope will be at the Wexner Center giving his talk. You can see more of that here. Also, dont forget about "A Looney Tunes Evening with Jeff Smith " coming up on June 5th.

THE EVENT everyone here at Cartoon Books has been waiting for finally arrived, and we couldn't have been more excited. When we first arrived and took the stairs down to the exhibit, we were greeted by the huge mural Jeff did exclusively for this show. The place was packed!

Jeff meets some young fans.  On either side of him are his parents, Barbara & William Smith.

Left to right: Ron Price, Raphael Rosado, Leslie Hough and Jeff.

Jeff with Harvey Pekar. 

Harvey Pekar, Jeff, and Jenny Robb from the Cartoon Research Library

Jeff and Scott McCloud. 

The Moores, Robin & Terry. 

Terry Moore givin his thumbs up to Jeff's work. 

Robin and Karen Shaffer.

Steve in front of the mural that he colored… 

…Jeff and Steve discussing who did the most work on the mural. 

Incredible food and drinks.

Kathleen with her folks.

Vijaya and Tom Leckrone. 

Steve with our friend and clay artist extrodinaire Lisa Bare Culp.

Jeff with Jenny Robb and Karen Bell, Dean of the College of the Arts. 

Animation pals: Jeff, Jim Kammerud, and Dan Root. 

Charles Vess, Karen Shaffer, Jeff and Jenny Robb.

At the end of a long evening, we all head out to a favorite watering hole to unwind.

On the way, as the gallery is closing down, we all get our pictures taken in front of the mural… 

Terry Moore, Jeff, Vijaya, and Charles Vess. 

Cartoon Book Staffers: Kathleen, Jeff, Tom, Steve and Vijaya.

And finally, J & V by themselves.

Related links:

The Daily Cartoonist interviews BONE AND BEYOND curators David Filipi and Lucy Caswell  

The Columbus Dispatch

Newsarama

The Beat 

Hi everybody, Tom here with another update on the exhibition that is only days away. Things are really starting to come together as you can see from the following pics.

Steve, Vijaya and Jeff waiting for the gallery space to open. 

Vijaya admiring a Geo. Herriman original. 

Jeff can't take his eyes off the E.C. Segar strip. 

V & J with Fone Bone. 

Jeff just noticed that the Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge page is signed! 

The original art for the final cover of BONE, issue #55. 

A  double page spread from  SHAZAM! The Monster Society of Evil.

The six page preview story from RASL. 

Just outside the gallery, a huge mural that Jeff created is being hung one panel at a time using hydraulic lifts. 

Jeff checks out the seam between panels. 

The first two panels are up! Kathleen and I (Tom) stand next to the wall for scale. 

Steve and Jeff chatting with Ohio State University President Gordon Gee.