Ken Mills, the director of the Bone documentary, The Cartoonist, has uploaded a short interview with Harvey Pekar on YouTube. It covers his friendship with Crumb, and Harvey’s views on the potential of comics.

If you can’t make it to the show, don’t worry. Any BOOK purchase that is made in the boneville.com store will be signed by Jeff! The sale will continue until the end of the month. All orders will start to ship on Wednesday July 28th.

Another thing to be thankful for… NO LINES TO WAIT IN!

Hi everybody! Comic Con is upon is!

Here is the SDCC schedule (we will try to keep)…

Thursday, July 22nd

Jeff Smith Spotlight Panel at 10am-11am in room 5AB

Jeff will be signing at the Cartoon Books booth # 2109 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Friday, July 23rd

Jeff and Tom Sniegoski (TALL TALES) will be signing at the Cartoon Books booth # 2109 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Jeff will be signing at the Cartoon Books booth # 2109 from 5:00pm – 7:00pm

Saturday, July 24th

Jeff will be signing at the Cartoon Books booth # 2109 from 11:30am – 1:30pm

Jeff will be signing at the Cartoon Books booth # 2109 from 4:30pm – 6:30pm

Sunday, July 25th

Jeff will be signing at the Cartoon Books booth # 2109 from 12:00pm – 1:30pm

IDW Digital Panel at 2pm-3pm in room 25ABC

We’ll be debuting the RASL Pocket Book One (shown above) at the show, as well as the new BONE book –BONE: Tall Tales. (we’ll have softcovers at the booth, Tall Tales hardcover books will be available in our store in the near future.

RASL 8 will also be hot off the press….

Our Convention Specials include special pricing on the Large Fone Bone Plush and an extremely limited (only 30 copies) RASL SDCC full color print!

Hope to see you there!

The above photo is from Cleveland.com, where they are reporting that Harvey Pekar died yesterday in the early morning.

I didn’t know Harvey well, having only met him a couple of times, but he is unforgettable, and his work was very important to me. As Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter points out, Harvey was a crucial figure in the transition from underground comics to the current alt/indie/self-publishing scene that we have today. A generation-spanning group of cartoonists illustrated his unique, slice-of-life/auto-bio comics stories, from R. Crumb to Dean Haspiel. Most of Pekar’s work appeared in his self-published American Splendor comic book.  His collected stories also opened doors for graphic novels by major publishers.

His comics grew on me over the years, as I got to know his personality, and as I came to appreciate his approach and dedication to the art form.

Harvey was supportive of other artists, and visited me at the opening of my exhibition back in 2008, and graciously agreed to appear in a documentary that was made about BONE and self-publishing the following year. We Ohio boys stick together.

He was one of a kind.

Harvey at the opening of the BONE exhibit at the Wexner in Columbus

A drawing I made as part of a surprise for Harvey’s 70th birthday last year

Hi everybody, Tom here. It’s great being in charge of the fan letters! I run across some fun and interesting ones. Keep em coming! Above and below are pics of a lucky 17 year old named Will and his Bday cake! Awesome job and thanks for sharing. Too bad you can’t mail a cake!

Sean wrote a great letter and sent in some pics that his 7 year old niece has drawn after he introduced her to the BONE books.

For you crochet buffs out there, Here is a great site that you can get a pattern to make your own Fone Bone! Great job Amber!

Well thats it for now, Only two more weeks til San Diego Comic Con! We are really looking forward to that, so if you’re going, be sure to come say Hi!

School’s out for Summer…Go visit MoCCA and check out their current exhibition: NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition!

We were honored to be included with such a talented and eclectic mix of artists such as Winsor McKay, Daniel Clowes, and Charles Schulz to name a few. Over 210 cartoonists, illustrators , animators and fine artists have works on display, so this exhibit is not to be missed!  Originally scheduled to end in May, the exhibit has been so well received that its run has been extended to August 29th.

Stop by MoCCA at 594 Broadway, Suite 401 in New York City and visit them online at www.moccany.org

Hi everybody. Tom again. I want to make the official announcement about Facebook. Jeff’s page is called The OFFICIAL Jeff Smith page. If you’re on Facebook, go ahead and “like” him! Thanks Jenny O for the suggestion.

Hi everybody, Tom again. We all know dogs love bones, but did you know they also love FONE BONE? Above is Kirby, a french bulldog owned by writer extraordinaire, Tom Sniegoski. Tom and Jeff are working together on the upcoming BONE Tall Tales book. You can read all about that here.

And this is my dog Guinness, he’s a French Bulldog/Pug mix, and he also loves FONE!

HAPPY HUMP DAY EVERYONE!

WOW! Two blogs in one day! Jeff and Steve have completed the cover image for RASL 9 and here it is! Enjoy!

The cover features Nikola Tesla, and the catalog description reads:

“More Tesla this time out! The infamous scientist turns his back on the world that shunned him, and in his final, lonely days spends more time in the company of pigeons than with humans. Tesla’s descent into madness parallels RASL’s search for clues to the Multi-verse!”

Hey everybody! Steve and our good friend Terry Moore (ECHO), have been nominated for Eisner’s again this year. Steve has been nominated for Best Coloring with Bone 9: Crown of Horns and Little Mouse Gets Ready! Terry has been nominated as Best Writer/Artist for ECHO. If you work in the industry and can vote, please go on over to eisnervote.com and vote today! Deadline is June 15th!

For everybody else, you can read all about the Eisner’s and its nominees here.