This May is The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and I will be going.  It’s a great show that focuses on comics as art and literature. From their website:

Toronto Public Library presents

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Jeff Smith, Alison Bechdel and Guy Delisle highlight TCAF’s 2012 programme,

which features more than 300 international cartoonists

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2012

at Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St.

Saturday May 5^th, 2012, 9am-5pm

Sunday May 6^th, 2012, 11am-5pm

FREE ADMISSION

 WWW.TORONTOCOMICS.COM

And not a bad poster from the brothers Moon and Ba!

Scholastic put together this fun little teaser trailer! You can pre-order your copy at your favorite online retailer!

Good new! Re-writes for the second half of RASL #13 are completed. Thanks to everyone for all the words of support, it was greatly appreciated and helpful over a long weekend. So, now I have to pencil and ink the pages – - which should take a couple of weeks.

A quick post-script; I read on someone’s website that they were concerned that major re-writes were underway this close to the end, butthese rewrites had nothing to do with the overall story.  My crew pointed out that things were going a little too easily for our hero, but believe me, that’s been rectified. Our art thief is back up to his neck in trouble – - just the way way it should be!

Thanks again for understanding, and I’ll post again when I have an estimate of the ship date!

I can’t believe it! I’m back out at the schoolhouse reworking the script for RASL #13. It was supposed to go to the printer this week, but after showing the book to Vijaya and the gang at Cartoon Books, we all decided the last ten pages needed a rewrite.  It happens sometimes, just not this close to the deadline. For retailers, this may mean an order readjustment (I hope not!); for everyone else, it will mean a delay of a couple of weeks.  Sorry about this, and thanks for understanding – - making every issue of RASL as good as it can be is crucial to me – - especially this close to the climax.

On the plus side: It’s an intense and crazy issue – - it’ll be worth it!

I just stumbled across this group blog called The Sindiecate, a place for a bunch of talented guys like Mike Choi, James Harren, Ryan Ottley & more to put up drawings for fun and to challenge each other. It’s amazing! These guys are obviously having a blast. Bookmark it now!

Man! That’s cool.  The Sindiecate started up some time this summer, and there are a lot more drawings to look at. Here’s an interview from last August that iFanboy ran to introduce the group.

You can read the entire article here.

Starting tomorrow, November 16th, any book(s) that you purchase from the Boneville store, will be autographed by Jeff Smith.

Some new products have been added to the store, including the slipcase version of the BONE 20th Anniversary FULL COLOR ONE VOLUME Edition! We only have a limited quantity available, until the second printing gets here next April, so order fast!

If you have any children (young or old) on your list, the 3 BONE cousins can continue their adventures with them! The Fone Bone plush is back in stock and is now joined by Phoney and Smiley Bone!

Celebrate 20 years of BONE with the Anniversary Tour t-shirts! These navy blue American Apparel tees are so comfortable and also available in children’s sizes.

Just a reminder that this sale only pertains to all of the books sold in the boneville.com store. No toys, t-shirts, plushes, statues etc. will be signed.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is auctioning a piece of original art by Charles Vess!  This piece appeared in the Rose story written by Jeff and painted by Charles.  It’s a gorgeous page featuring Briar.  Go Bid now!

Full Color One Volume Edition Debuts on Saturday

On Saturday October 22, The BONE Full Color One Volume Slipcase debuts right here in Columbus at the Mid-Ohio-Con. I’ll be at the Laughing Ogre booth from 2 to 4 to say hi, and sign copies.

The Slipcase Edition will be in stores November 15, and is available for pre-order on Amazon right now.

Slipcase Goes Back to Press 

We also learned from our distributor this week that all the books in the warehouse shipped, and we are sold out!  Yikes! It’s the Holiday season! We’re going back to press immediately!

Here’s a quick look at the book:  With Color by Steve Hamaker!

There’s a new color section in the back loaded with photos and an essay I wrote called 20 Years with BONE, an illustrated Time-line, and a BONE comic book cover gallery scanned from the original first printings!

Chunky!

This is my first visit to Mid-Ohio-Con in a long, long time – -since it was taken over by Wizard World and they moved to the beautiful downtown convention center. Can’t wait to check it out.

If you are coming in from out of town, welcome to Colo!   Columbus Underground is a good guide for interesting restaurants and cool activities.

See you Saturday!

Next week, we leave for New York City and the New York Comic Con. The show will take place October 14th thru the 16th. The layout of the show floor is below, so you can find us easily. Cartoon Books will set up in booth 1245. You can click on the floor plan to make it bigger! Here is a link to the interactive map on the NYCC website, if you’d like to create a show planner for yourself.

As you can see from the close up below, we will be across from DC Comics and Graphitti Designs. We will be sharing booth space again with our best buds, Robyn and Terry Moore (Rachel Rising) of Abstract Studios.

Jeff’s NYCC Signing Schedule*

All signings will take place at the Cartoon Books Booth #1245 *Signing times are subject to change, so check with the Cartoon Books staff daily.

Friday, October 14
Booth Signing-check booth for times

Saturday, October 15
Booth Signing-check booth for times

Jeff’s NYCC PANEL Schedule:

Saturday, October 15
3:45pm-4:45pm Room 1A23:
Celebrating 20 Years of BONE with Jeff Smith! Speakers include: Cassandra Pelham, David Saylor, Dr. Katie Monnin, Jeff Smith and Tom Sniegoski

OCTOBER 22,2011 • DEBUT of the Full Color One Volume SLIPCASE EDITION!

October 22nd! THE DEBUT OF THE SLIPCASED, ONE VOLUME COLOR EDITION OF BONE!

We head to our own backyard for Mid Ohio Con in Columbus, Ohio. The show will be held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. Jeff will be signing “exclusively” at the Laughing Ogre booth on Saturday, October 22nd ONLY! The signing will be from 2:00pm-4:00pm! Here are floor plans for Mid Ohio.

BONE and RASL colorist, Steve Hamaker, will be set up at the show all weekend to sell his creation, Fish-n-Chips.

OCTOBER 28, thru November 1st, 2011

October 28th thru November 1st, Jeff and Vijaya will be flying to Italy to attend the Lucca Comics and Games show. Bao (our Italian publisher) will be premiering the Italian language black and white version of the Bone One Volume Edition. Jeff will be signing daily at the Bao publishing’s booth. Below is an illustration Jeff did for Bao’s company mascot.

Jeff will be on a panel on October 29th, called “Ascent and decline of the Indie Comics Scene” with mostly Italian authors. October 30th, he will be on a panel with French author Baru, David Lloyd, Jiro Taniguchi and Craig Thompson.

November 3rd, 2011

November 3, Jeff will attend the Antwerp Book Festival in Belgium. The Antwerp Book Fair is a large trade fair for books, held annually at the beginning of November at Antwerp Expo in Antwerp, Belgium. It is organized by Boek.be. All Flemish and Dutch publishers, and several foreign language distributors present their newest books at the fair.

Hope to see you at any of the conventions, as we continue to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of BONE!