Jeff Smith’s “Bone” and Comics Publishing

Even if you’ve never read a #Bone comic, the structural innovations that Smith developed in telling (and selling) his story have been industry-defining, and thus the way Bone is structured has forever altered the way that most comics stories are now developed. #ComicsStudies 1/9

In his introduction to the volume “Jeff Smith: Conversations” Frederick Luis Aldama describes how “[t]he publishing of Bone in serial format influenced storytelling technique. Already before setting ink to paper, Jeff knew that the Bone story would have a massive arc.” 2/9

“He also knew that he had to pay bills, so waiting for the 1,300 page behemoth that Bone would become wasn’t feasible. He had to create chapters to form books with their own mini-arcs. And, these books would take about a year to create,…” 3/9

“…so he had to figure out a way to keep his readers going while waiting from one book to the next. That is, he had to balance growing his readers with creating installments and with the creating of the big epic story.” 4/9

Drawing on additional cultural influences (including Japanese Tankobon), Smith’s complex layering of narrative structures – a process motivated by needs both artistic and financial – has become the norm for what is now the graphic novel industry. 5/9

The composition of the structure is three-fold: 1) the structure of the individual issue. 2) the structure of the 4-6 issue story arc (depending on how many issues per graphic volume) and 3) the overarching structure of the entire story/series. 6/9

Naturally, building a story around nested, recursive structures is no easy task and requires vision and depth far beyond the traditional 3 act structure that is said to dominate the Western storytelling tradition. At any given moment, Bone is effectively telling 3 stories. 7/9

Smith’s innovation here came just as the graphic novel was becoming a mainstay of North American bookstores, providing an important secondary revenue source for comics artists, as well as the greater cultural capital that comes with being sold in traditional book stores. 8/9

The industry followed suit (and still does). While this structure can be seen to be artistically limiting (why must all arcs be 4-6 issues?), Smith’s contribution to comics infrastructure have helped shepherd comics from a time of crisis to something of a renaissance. 9/9