Comments on: Onion/AV Club interview is live

By: Jackson

Jackson — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:17:48 +0000

Dear Jeff Smith
I am 12yrs old and from Australia every1 down here loves your books! PLEASE if you were to make it into a movie please broadcast it down here in australia!!!!IS it true that there will be a bone volume 10 called Back to Boneville if so please reply AUSTRALIA WANTS TO KNOW! in your bone volume 10 book please make sure that BArtleby has fun and gets into mischeif in Bone Ville.I have another idea why dont the veni yan secretly plot to take over the valley and all the bones from boneville come to the valley! please reply and tell me if they are good ideas P.S I have heard about your movie when is it going to be released!

Speaking on behalf of the Bone fans from AUSTARLIA

form your biggest fan JACKSON

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:59:15 +0000

Oops. While cleaning up some spam, I accidentally deleted the last comment. Fortunately, I was able to go back a page and copy it. Here it is:

from Derek Rife

I love Bone, but RASL is definetly winning me over, especially the art. The Bone characters are a bit more simplistic in visual Design than RASL’s. I can’t wait till the day when RASL is ever collected into a Trade, or graphic novel.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:34:47 +0000

Sean,
I know what you mean about the clinical look of CGI. Even in The Incredibles, the best to date in my mind as far as the look of the animation goes, the humans still have a glorified Rankin/Bass puppet feel. In fact, Thorn is the character that I am most worried about. Gran’ma Ben and the Bones are stylized enough that they shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

But for now, it’s all academic. As I said in the interview, we still have to finish negotiating the finer points of our contract. (we’re very close, maybe even this week, keep your fingers crossed!)

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:12:35 +0000

David,

You are being sincere, and you aren’t hiding behind an anonymous tag, so I’ll answer the best I can with no BS.

A lot of the comments that followed the Onion article were nice, but a lot were really snarky. I thought it was funny to call them out. Did I deserve the comments that were rotten? Did I deserve the comments that were full of praise? I don’t know. I wasn’t being that serious about it. C’mon, they were being dicks and it was funny. Can’t I poke back a little bit?

And the “get stuffed” thing. Man, don’t hold that against me. That was a surreal and very hostile situation. All I wanted to do was make it stop. I didn’t realize until just now that any readers had taken offense. I apologize for that.

(FYI, my “get stuffed” comment was never meant for public consumption, it was made in a private letter to Dave, who then decided to print it in his comic book)

If you are refering to some other really obvious reasons to dislike me that I’m too thick to see, feel free to let me know.

By: david schwarm

david schwarm — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:58:08 +0000

> I’m saying he has rabid fans who take
> ridiculous offense very easily.
I do not know when you said this–last I heard it was just “get stuffed”.

I do know that you said:
> their readers are a bunch of dicks.

Yet you have no idea why some people do not like you?

Seriously?

I do understand at some level what you are trying to get at here, but I think a little more self reflection BEFORE pointing fingers may be in order.

Suddenly, I feel the need to tell you that I really do like RASL & my kid has the SHAZAM poster hanging on the back of his door. I am a FAN of your work–I think listening to the critics who are “digging it” may be a mistake, a mistake that countless other Comic Creators have made (if you know what I mean [and I think you do]).

Thanks, David S

By: Marcus

Marcus — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:21:33 +0000

Good point, actually. About the line style and the backgrounds. Ed Edd N’ Eddy is one of those examples of unique line style (Danny A. who drew it used squiggle-vision for most parts of the episodes). The thing with the over-done CG effects too is understandable (what Sean said). But its still probably the best thing to do after all as far as type of animation. You watch an old Disney movie like Lion King and its like “wow, that’s still really good, even by today’s standards.” And then see an old CG like Toy Story and then switch to something like Incredibles and you can see Pixar has a real knack for doing great progression and (quality I guess would be the other word) for CG movies.

I think Bone will turn out great.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:13:06 +0000

It’s true. The likelihood of seeing any major film studio producing a 2D animated feature seems to diminish every day.

I enjoy the work of Pixar because they seem to understand the aesthetic of traditional animated art and have adapted it well into 3D, but even in the best of CG features I find it to be so polished with so much sheen that it comes off as unnatural – almost clinical looking – with too many simplified, rounded corners. It always looks like a video game to me, and it reminds me of the disappointment of watching the establishing shots in the Star Wars prequels and thinking, “wow, what a letdown. This is trying to look real, but my eyes aren’t deceived in the slightest.” However, I was impressed recently by Wall-E, and their use of animated lenses and fantastic focus shifting to make it look so much more convincing.

I still think Warner Bros. could pull this off in CG, and I am extremely encouraged that they seem to have won you over. From a business standpoint it is probably even a virtual necessity that it be computer animated. Yet I always imagined the Bone movies to have thick, broad black lines that imitate your brushstrokes, and elaborately painted watercolour backgrounds like Calvin & Hobbes or Snow White & the Seven Dwarves to portray the lushness of the valley.

Either way, I know it will be very cool.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:02:12 +0000

I actually didn’t know Iron Giant was a comic up until now. Or that it bombed. (Kind of came as a surprise).

CGI does sound good actually, no arguement.
And both of the movies you listed were good examples.

I haven’t really kept up with the reputation of Warner Brothers movies though, so I’ll have to see that, but Bone in CG is totally do-able.

Especially since we’ve gotten so far in our animation. And graphics also.

Anyone remember Beast Wars or ReBoot?
They were Canadian shows, but still, we do have the great possibility of Bone working out.

I can also see people getting worried about comic movies (I have a few times.)
The first Hulk.
V for Vendetta (was great)
300 (perfect)
Superman Returns (meh)

And now Watchmen, which I hope (and get more confident as the production Journals and trailer came out) will be done right.

They’re making a DragonBall film also.
That has me severely worried it’ll turn out sour.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:07:59 +0000

Sean and Marcus: Any time a comic is made into a movie, you should be concerned. Iron Giant was a great film that was a bomb at the box office. Even if you blame WB for not promoting it right, you aren’t going to be able to use it to convince them to make a 2D movie again.
I always thought of Bone as 2D myself (the characters, anyway), but I can make two arguments for CG: 1) Pixar has proved with films like The Incredibles & Finding Nemo that CG can capture most of the beauty and sensibility of 2D.
2) BONE is a story where the natural world is one of the main characters. CGI can do nature even better than hand drawn can.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:30:10 +0000

Iron Giant was such a cool movie.
That was like a favorite for alot of people.