The cartoonist behind the smash hit series discusses his first major gallery showing and gives an update on 'RASL' #2
By Kiel Phegley
Posted 5/19/2008
We've had a few occasions over the past week to talk about the Jeff Smith celebration that is The Ohio State University's Wexner Center "Bone & Beyond" exhibit which opened last weekend in Columbus, but one voice had been conspicuously absent from our coverage: Smith himself.
Well, wait no longer! After a whirlwind week of showing off his wares for the public, Smith took a few minutes at the end of last week to give Wizard Universe his thoughts on the show, comic and cartoon history and a brief update on his latest series RASL. And for more on the show and for more in a brand new series of rad interviews, be sure to check out Wizard's Indie Jones blog!
WIZARD: How long did it take from your initial involvement with the idea of this show to get to opening night, and how did it feel to finally see the exhibit open?
SMITH: It actually was a year [ago] when we first got the go ahead from the Wexner Center. I had been working with OSU Cartoon Research Library, well, forever. I went to school here, I live here and I know Lucy Caswell who's the curator. So I go there all the time, and we've always talked about, "Wouldn't it be cool to get a nice exhibit and get it in the Wexner Center?" But the Wexner Center is this internationally known, cutting edge modern art museum. They just didn't really take comics seriously at all, which...we're used to that, right? [Laughs] But there has been a shift between manga and graphic novels and Hollywood movies. There's been this acceptance of comics that's kind of crazy. I can't even hardly understand what's going on, but all of the sudden, comics are THE thing.
And it was about a year ago, like I said, when the Wexner Center said, "Let's mount this show." And everybody went into a panic except me, right? Because I'm like, "A year? Psshh! That's tons of time!" But apparently a year is a very short amount of time to mount a major exhibition. And I understand that now because that was a year that was one heck of a lot of work.
I'd noticed right before RASL came out you'd done a whole con tour that ended at SPX, and then you were saying, "I'm going to beg off public events for a while and work." But I keep seeing you pop up after the fact.
SMITH: [Laughs] I know! I know! I really want to stop. [Laughs] I'm going to stop. I swear. Eventually. My deadline for RASL was last week, and I'm slipping past it because I wanted to finish before the opening, but of course I didn't make it because there was such a...it was a lot like getting married, this thing. There's guest lists and people coming from out of town, and hundreds of decisions have to be made right up until the last minute. You have to figure out something to wear. It was crazy! But it was fun. It was a big, exciting night, and I met all these people. The Lt. Governor was there. The president of the university was there. And it was a blast. Then we had a Scott McCloud thing the next day, which was huge. Hundreds of people came to that, and there was this giant line. I thought maybe people thought they were getting in line for a Disney Land ride or something because the line snaked back and forth and in on itself. I don't know. It was just...I'm kind of high from the whole thing, to be honest. But I'm kind of exhausted too.
As people have come through the show this past week, what has been the largest concentration of viewers? Has it been a lot of hardcore comics readers?
SMITH: That is a really good question, and it's exactly the fact that there was not a larger group of one type of person that caught my attention. There has been a mix of the regular comic book crowd and families and little kids—and that's because of the Scholastic reprints of Bone which are outselling anything I did in my black and white comics. AND there's this very interested public in graphic novels, so I recognize that maybe a third of it is the group that used to come and get their comic book signed at San Diego or Mid-Ohio Con or something like that. And then the other two-thirds are completely—well [one third is] kids. I'm getting used to kids in the last two or three years. But even that's very strange to have like a seven-year-old little girl come up to me holding the 1,300-page One Volume Edition. [Laughs] It weighs more than she does! And then the other third is a brand new group that I've never seen before, and it's an adult public that's interested in comics. Like I said, either they've heard of manga or they've seen all the movies coming out or they're just hearing about graphic novels because it's everywhere. But they're here, and it's the art community. And I like it.
And they're still coming. It's been a week now, and I just went last night because we had another event where Terry Moore came in, and we had another good turn out. But they were telling me that the gallery which usually just sits quiet during the day time when college kids are in school and such has been full all week. So it's graphic novels. What can I tell you? People are into it.
I did see some of the photos of opening night you had up on your blog, and aside from Terry Moore showing up, you had Harvey Pekar in attendance. Do you guys have an Ohio comics mafia that's hanging out together?
SMITH: [Laughs] Well, Terry Moore's from Texas, but yeah, Harvey's from Ohio. He's from the mean streets of Cleveland. And there is a huge amount of cartoonists that come from Ohio: Milton Caniff of Terry & The Pirates, and even Robert Outcault of The Yellow Kid is from Ohio. Windsor McKay who did Little Nemo—his first job was at The Cincinnati Enquirer. So there're a lot of them. Robert Crumb is from somewhere up near Cleveland, too.
Well, as you've lived there and so much of the geography of Columbus has worked its way into Bone, have there been faces from your past popping into the exhibit and catching you off guard?
SMITH: Yeah, I have! It's been very strange. Like I said, that's kind of what's been giving me this feeling like I'm at a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah or something. It is because it's in my home town that I'm seeing my teachers from high school and hearing from those kinds of people—friends from high school I haven't seen in years—all coming to see what's going on, say "congratulations" and give me a pat on the back. It's excellent. I'm having a good time.
There seems to be so many different elements to the show from the big mural to the walk through of one issue of Bone. What's been the thing you've been most proud of to put together for people to see?
SMITH: Well, I am very pleased that we had a single issue that goes all the way through. It was an interesting issue to do—it was Bone #16, and why it was interesting to me was because I wanted to try to do a comic that was a real time comic. It takes 15 minutes to read it, and that's how long it takes the characters to run through this forest in the rainstorm with monsters in the dark on all side of them. So the amount of time it takes you to read it is how long the adventure takes, so there's no cutting away and jumping in time. It's just a straight shot, and I thought that would be fun to do. By putting that kind of strange experiment on the wall, it allows people who aren't familiar with our art form to actually see, "This is what it is." It's meant to be read as pages, and it's nice to put them up on a wall and look at them. I like looking at people's whiteouts and seeing how their ink line went, but ultimately that's not the art, right? The art is the comic book. The art is the thing that's mass produced and goes into the shops. That's the art. So I like it that we were able to put a whole comic book up on one wall so people can actually experience the art form as it's meant to be.
Although, I was also pretty jazzed by that mural. It was so much bigger than I ever imagined, and you walk down the stairs and, I mean, it just smacks ya. [Laughs] It's amazing.
You also did the walk-through for the issue #16. How do you like hearing your voice on tape explaining it?
SMITH: I haven't heard it so I don't know. And I have no desire to hear it. [Laughs] I was pretty hung over when I did those too, so I'm afraid.
What was it like assembling all the classic pages from other cartoonists that went into the show?
SMITH: The idea behind the show was to kid of pull in my favorites—the things that really directly influence the comics that I do. And I wanted to do that for two reasons. The first reason was a lot of the people coming through this are not comic book people. They're these people who are curious, and they're art people. And I want people to see that comics have this history because it's not really laid out the way that history of art books normally lay things out. I mean, you know the history of comics. You know all about Jack Kirby, right? They don't, and there are no textbooks that explain it. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to show that there is a body of work that includes symbolism and structure that we cartoonists have pulled from each generation before us and put it into play. So you could look at a Popeye Sunday page from 1932, and you could look at a George Herriman Krazy Kat, and you could see up through a Pogo in 1970, and there are things that are learned in each generation and pull through up into my work as the latest version here. That was one reason to do it. I just wanted to show this history of cultural symbolism that we've adapted.
And then the other reason is that I wanted an excuse to get my hands on like a Carl Barks original and a Will Eisner original. I just had so much for the week as we were getting all the pieces together and deciding what order to put them up on the wall. I was just staring at them. If you saw my blog, you saw me staring at them. They just kept taking pictures of me, and every time they take a picture of me, I'm staring at these things! [Laughs] I love them. They're my heroes. These are masterpieces to look at.
And you're also doing another special event where you'll be showing some classic Looney Tunes. What was the idea behind expanding the show out beyond printed comics, and what's your favorite Looney Tune?
SMITH: Look, I just liked all kinds of comics when I was a kid. I loved Neal Adams on Batman, and I loved Bugs Bunny cartoons on TV, which I had no idea when I was a kid that those were from the '40s and '50s. So I just liked all kinds of cartoons, and if you look at Bone you can see right away how my sense of timing and sense of humor really comes from the Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng Looney Tunes. And my favorite has to be "The Rabbit of Seville." It's hilarious. It's the one where [Bugs is] onstage with Elmer and he's pretending to be a barber.
And they do the bit with the chairs...
SMITH: ...and they go up! Yeah. It's hilarious. And they build up to where he's got Elmer chasing him, and whatever he does Elmer imitates until he finally dresses up like a groom and offers Elmer a ring. And Elmer runs offstage and comes back as a bride before he even has time to think. [Laughs] It's hilarious. It's just perfect.
I guess I'd be a little remiss in my reporting duties if I didn't ask about RASL. #2 is coming out soon, is that right?
SMITH: Yeah. I'm thinking in like three weeks. Probably mid-June. That's what I'm really hoping for. I'm just having a hard time getting it done with all these things going on. But it's very close.
I know you had said that one of the reasons you were going back to self-serialization was to get the conversation going with your readers again. Have you found that old letters page discussion has started back up after issue #1 came out, or has it moved all online now?
SMITH: Yes, I have. The letters page is not really coming back. I think that it's moved to the internet, but there is conversation going on, on the internet, and I have reacted to it. I got a very good reaction to the first issue. I was very surprised. I think Wizard had some really nice things to say, and right across the board the spectrum of reviewers have been really kind. And I can tell that there are things that need to be in the next issue because of that. And they will be. And I am chasing deadlines. I am right on edge. It's kind of scary, but we'll see. If #2 is good, then we'll know it's working. [Laughs]
Check out all our coverage of "Bone & Beyond" including notes on opening weekend, a review of the show, Scott McCloud's interview of Jeff Smith at the event and last week's interview with curators Lucy Caswell and David Filipi!
