Cartoonist Jeff Smith

Tim Fulton 0:13Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week I had a virtual conversation with cartoonist and organizer of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, Jeff Smith, on the occasion of the upcoming showcase of cartoon art. We discuss the origins of his creation, Bone, the importance of getting buy-in to those that you're accountable to, the value of having a plan, and the virtue of being in the right place in the right time, what it was like to have Bone picked up by Netflix, and what the virtual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus will look like this year. You can get more information on what we discuss today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by Art Makes Columbus, Columbus Makes Art, featuring stories about our city's incredible artists, stories full of inspiration, challenge, passion, and success. For videos, articles, an up-to-the-minute calendar of events, and an artist directory, visit columbusmakesart.com, the resource for all things arts and culture in the capital city. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with cartoonist, Columbus resident, and organizer of Cartoon Crossroads, Jeff Smith. Jeff, how are you?

Jeff Smith 1:56I'm good, Tim. How are you doing?

Tim Fulton 1:58I'm doing well. You and I spoke roughly three years ago, also on the occasion of Cartoon Crossroads. Went a lot through your background and that you grew up in Columbus. Uh, that episode is available. I'll link to it in the show notes, but wanna get a little bit more into today your artistic process, what's going on with you given the sort of state of affairs of the world right now, and also about Cartoon Crossroads. So I guess, first of all, how are you doing? Are you sequestering? What's, what's going on?

Jeff Smith 2:33Um, Vijaya and I are holding up. Uh, we've... Well, as cartoonists, as a cartoonist, um, I shelter in place as a matter of course anyway.

Tim Fulton 2:44Okay.

Jeff Smith 2:45You know, I mean, there's... You- it's a very solitary gig. When you're working, you're just... I mean, I might have music, maybe the radio, not a whole lot more than that. Um, so it hasn't really changed my life that much. Um, we, Vijaya and I have, uh, you know, we are a publishing company for, for Bone and my other comic projects. It's called Cartoon Books. And we have two full-time employees, Kathleen Glosson and Tom Gott. Uh, and they have been sheltering in place, or we've been, you know, not coming into the office.

Tim Fulton 3:19Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 3:20Um, but it, it has not... It's been pretty good 'cause, uh, we've all worked together for over 20 years.

Tim Fulton 3:25Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 3:26And we all know our jobs, and so we've been able to work, uh, remotely without a problem. So yeah. I mean, I'm just like everybody else. I'm, I miss going out to dinner. I miss hanging out with my friends. Although, again, like most people, we're starting to, like, have small groups of friends. We can go over to their house. They can come over. We stay outside, try to stay apart, um, that kind of stuff.

Tim Fulton 3:49I'm hanging in there.

Jeff Smith 3:50How about you?

Tim Fulton 3:51Good.

Jeff Smith 3:51You doing okay?

Tim Fulton 3:52I'm doing okay. I'm trying to focus on myself and my health a little bit more. I'm thankful, actually, I have a four, almost five-year-old, like, thankful for that sort of extra time that we get.

Jeff Smith 4:04Yeah.

Tim Fulton 4:04Uh, but, you know, daddy-daughter time is solid. Um-

Jeff Smith 4:07That's good. Yeah

Tim Fulton 4:08... it's good. It's really good.

Jeff Smith 4:10Excellent. Congratulations.

Tim Fulton 4:12Thank you very much. For those that don't know, grew up in Worthington, went to Ohio State. Is that correct?

Jeff Smith 4:18Yeah.

Tim Fulton 4:19Went to Ohio State. You're most famous for creating Bone.

Jeff Smith 4:24Yeah.

Tim Fulton 4:24Um, the, the character for which I believe, uh, you came up with when you were five. Started, uh, uh, started drawing Bone when you were nine. Uh, and so it actually sort of became a comic when you were w- I think 30. Is that right?

Jeff Smith 4:41Yeah. I drew it when I was... I went to, uh, OSU in the early '80s.

Tim Fulton 4:45Okay.

Jeff Smith 4:45And I did it, I did Bone, or it was called Thorn, but it was, it was basically a proto Bone strip, every day for, uh, four years, Monday through Friday. Uh, and as during that period, that process, uh, I started to really understand the characters and kind of see the landscape of the story. There was no story in the comic strip. It was just these three bones come from Boneville, which is sort of like Duckburg, you know, with, um-

Tim Fulton 5:15Okay. Yeah

Jeff Smith 5:17... uh, and they, and they end up in a fairy tale where there's princesses and dragons and monsters. And so the, the g- the, the trick or the, the, the hook was just that w- we, the reader, identified with the cartoon characters and not the humans.

Tim Fulton 5:34Okay.

Jeff Smith 5:34So a lot of fish out of water jokes. In between college and when I finally did the comic book, I spent, I don't know, maybe five or six years just thinking about it. And then, uh, in that same period I discovered comic book stores. I... These, Monkey's Retreat-

Tim Fulton 5:51Mm-hmm

Jeff Smith 5:51... which is still around, but, uh, it's not quite, it's not quite the same old place it was back in the, back in the '80s. Um-

Tim Fulton 5:59Okay

Jeff Smith 6:00... Rosie. It was run by Rosie. Uh- Yeah. So I just figured, I, I just decided I, I think I know what the story's gonna be now, and I'm gonna try it as a, as an underground independent comic. And that's, that's how that started. Yeah. And I was 31 when that happened.

Tim Fulton 6:15And the in between you were doing animation. Is that right?

Jeff Smith 6:17And in between I got together with a couple of buddies of mine from OSU, and we started... We were all animation. Like, we were just into it.

Tim Fulton 6:26Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 6:27And we would do little animated things just for fun as a hobby, just to see how things moved. Right? It's, it's very, it's very exciting when you work out a sequence, even if it's as simple as somebody just walking. Uh, but you do have somebody do something and show an expression, and then y- you know, it's all tense. How's it gonna look? You know, you gotta, you gotta take one picture at a time with a camera, and then, then you run it. And the first time you see it, it was usually called a pencil test. Oh my gosh, Tim. It's so exciting to see your drawing move. Um-

Tim Fulton 6:59Yeah

Jeff Smith 6:59... we formed a little company, and we did PSAs and advertising, and eventually did, uh, some Hollywood films. Just little pieces of somebody else's film.

Tim Fulton 7:09Okay.

Jeff Smith 7:10Like Bebe's Kids. We did Bebe's Kids, which was a great movie. Uh-

Tim Fulton 7:14I am familiar.

Jeff Smith 7:16I r- I recently re-watched it, and I could not remember any particular scene that I drew. I couldn't remember. But, uh, but Character Builders, which was the name of our company, we... If you're familiar with the movie, it's the section where they go to the amusement park, and they're kind of-

Tim Fulton 7:32Oh, okay

Jeff Smith 7:32... they're chased around by his ex-wife and her friend. We did, we did a lot of that. Uh, we did.

Tim Fulton 7:39Okay. And you sold that company, uh-

Jeff Smith 7:43I sold it to my partners, uh, I, in like 1992.

Tim Fulton 7:47Okay.

Jeff Smith 7:47I think I did, like, four, four issues of Bone. It was really... I wanted to dedicate myself to it. So I sold, uh, Char- Character Builders, uh, to my two partners, and they went on for years. I don't... I th- they went out of business. I think they just stopped doing-

Tim Fulton 8:05Okay

Jeff Smith 8:05... changed. But, uh, they went on for years doing Disney sequels and stuff like Little Mermaid II, and, uh, 101 Dalmatians 3.

Tim Fulton 8:17It's like 103 Dalmatians, right? It's the straight to video when you're still in-

Jeff Smith 8:21It was straight to video

Tim Fulton 8:22... still in the puffy-

Jeff Smith 8:23But they were-

Tim Fulton 8:24... nice box. Right

Jeff Smith 8:25But my partners were actually doing it. They were actually the directors, and doing the storyboards, and directing, you know, these, these Hollywood stars' voices. It was pretty cool.

Tim Fulton 8:35And so was your, was, i- is the sequence there of events as clean as it sounds? That you were like, "Okay, I'm kinda done with this, and I wanna go and I wanna do Bone full time"?

Jeff Smith 8:46Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much.

Tim Fulton 8:48Okay.

Jeff Smith 8:48I mean, every- everybody, they knew that's what I wanted to do. 'Cause I, I wanted to do Bone maybe animated. Do like a short or something. You know, we could just never herd enough people, 'cause we didn't have any money, so we, we'd have to talk people into doing it for almost just out of love. And we c- we just were never able to quite get anything together for that. So I, when I discovered comic books... And they knew. They saw. I mean, I showed them what I was doing. They were digging it. And they knew I was, I was gonna go. So I think I did it. I stayed at Character Builders for, like I said, I think s- six or seven months. And then, um, and then I said, "Hey, I'm ready to jump," and we worked out a deal and sold it. We all-

Tim Fulton 9:31Right

Jeff Smith 9:31... all stayed friends.

Tim Fulton 9:32And so what was that... I, I know that you do a whole lot of self-publishing now, but at that time... Because I'm, so I'm interested in two sides of it, right? I'm interested i- I wanna get into sort of like how do you craft a narrative, not necessarily around storybo- it's okay if storyboard is the tool for that, but how do you craft the narrative and come up with that as a writer?

Jeff Smith 9:53Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 9:54But, but staying where we're at, and I'm, I'm probably gonna continue jumping around a lot.

Jeff Smith 10:00That's how most of my podcasts go.

Tim Fulton 10:02Good.

Jeff Smith 10:04I think it's my fault. Probably more my fault than yours.

Tim Fulton 10:07Yeah. How did you identify, "Okay, I think I can make money off of this," or, "At least I can make enough to sustain"?

Jeff Smith 10:14Well, I, not only did I tell my partners what I was up to, I had to talk to my real partner, Vijaya.

Tim Fulton 10:20Uh-huh.

Jeff Smith 10:21Um, you know, my wife. And, you know, make sure she was okay with that. And she had a lot of questions. You know, "You're gonna- You're, you know, you're gonna sell your pretty successful, uh, animation studio and do an underground comic book."

Tim Fulton 10:38Right.

Jeff Smith 10:39The, the good thing about that was, um, she of course, you know how we'd been married for, um, how long had we been married at that point? Probably 10 years. And so, and so she was very familiar with Bone and my comics and stuff like that. And I, I, we were together in, at OSU, so she even read them when I was doing the comic strip then.

Tim Fulton 11:01Okay.

Jeff Smith 11:01So she knew, so she, she knew, uh, this was something I really believed in and wanted to do. And she believed that I had, I could pull it off. But she insisted that I think it through, that I sit down and write a business plan.

Tim Fulton 11:17Okay.

Jeff Smith 11:17Like a five-year business plan. Um, and she said, "It's gotta be good enough for us to take to a bank and get a loan." And, uh, back then we was, this was, uh, you know, 1989, I think.

Tim Fulton 11:30Okay.

Jeff Smith 11:30And there was no internet. The, so I had to go to the library and get books out on how to write a business plan, and I followed it.

Tim Fulton 11:39Yeah.

Jeff Smith 11:40Uh, and you know, it told me to find examples of similar things, and of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a self-published black and white book.

Tim Fulton 11:47Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Smith 11:47So I was gonna go to a banker and say, "Well, I'm just doing what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are doing." And he's like, "Really? That sounds good." 'Cause Tur- the Turtles were huge.

Tim Fulton 11:57Right.

Jeff Smith 11:57Um-

Tim Fulton 11:57Well, and, but, and I know a little bit about that backstory. They kinda won the lottery-

Jeff Smith 12:02Yeah

Tim Fulton 12:02... is what, uh, and so i- did the bank sort of like say like, "Oh, well if these guys won the lottery, then Jeff Smith can win the lottery"?

Jeff Smith 12:10Yeah. No, I mean, it wasn't quite that-

Tim Fulton 12:12... that easy

Jeff Smith 12:13But they were like, but that definitely, once I started talking about that, then they were listening.

Tim Fulton 12:17Okay.

Jeff Smith 12:17And then we would plan. And in 1989, graphic novels existed, but if you recall, there was only like three of them.

Tim Fulton 12:26Okay.

Jeff Smith 12:26Pretty much. There was, uh, Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Maus. And of course they were live-

Tim Fulton 12:33Well, and that was true, that was almost true through the mid-'90s, right?

Jeff Smith 12:38Yeah.

Tim Fulton 12:38Like, at least those were the big ones, yeah.

Jeff Smith 12:40Yeah. Well those are the ones. And others would come and go, but they weren't kept in print. Um-

Tim Fulton 12:45Mm-hmm

Jeff Smith 12:45... those three were so popular that they stayed in print, but nobody else. Uh, a lot of people tried to do it, like Marvel and DC tried to copy it, but they would just take a bunch of, you know, X-Men books in a paperback and, you know, they weren't really selling. They definitely didn't sell outside of comics, that's for sure.

Tim Fulton 13:04Right.

Jeff Smith 13:05So, uh, we p- so in our business plan we said, "Well, this is gonna be a big story." We knew, we had a plan. We planned for this huge, something like as long as the Lord of the Rings or the Iliad or the Odyssey. I told Vijaya the ending. She said, "That's a good story." And so we figured, well since comics were sold like magazines basically, like they're up for a month or two months and then the next issue comes. You take them off the shelf and you put them into a long box to sell them to collectors.

Tim Fulton 13:34Right.

Jeff Smith 13:35Well, we wanted people to be able to read the first issue so they could get into the story and always keep up. So we were thinking a graphic novel would be, a collection would be a good way to do it. And I was thinking more like of a Pogo collection or a Calvin Hobbes collection or something like that.

Tim Fulton 13:50Okay.

Jeff Smith 13:51So we actually used, we, in the business plan we actually put the word graphic novels in quotes for the bank.

Tim Fulton 13:56Okay

Jeff Smith 13:56'Cause he would-

Tim Fulton 13:57Oh, because you knew that you, you knew your audience. Right.

Jeff Smith 14:00Right. Yeah. And well, and, and graphic novels were not a thing. They were just, were not really a thing. So anyway, that was-

Tim Fulton 14:06And so-

Jeff Smith 14:07So I had a, so I knew how much money I needed. I knew how long. There was a, you know, like a, a, you know, h- how long will it be before you get the money? You give the book to the distributors. You figure out when they pay you and all this stuff. You had to all, all figure it all out.

Tim Fulton 14:23Right.

Jeff Smith 14:23So, um, that's, yeah. So to answer your question in a long way, uh, yeah, I had it planned out. I knew, I kinda had a plan for what, what was acceptable and what was a minimal amount we had to sell and all that stuff.

Tim Fulton 14:36Right. Well, and what I wanna latch onto if I heard you right, is part of your, it's almost like your marketing plan was also a distribution strategy or als- i- it was like your marketing had a little bit of revenue attached to it as well. 'Cause you were like, "I wanna do a comic book first while I'm working." Is that right?

Jeff Smith 14:55Yes.

Tim Fulton 14:55And then like, while, while you're working on the book so that you sort of build a fan base, but you're also making a little bit of money on the side. Not even on the side, you're making some money from that comic as well.

Jeff Smith 15:06Yeah. And that was an unusual strategy. There were not that many people, uh, doing it. Dave Sim was doing it with his Cerebus. He was-

Tim Fulton 15:14Okay

Jeff Smith 15:14... he was doing the comics and then collecting them in these big giant phone book, uh, is what everybody called them. Um, right around the same time I started collecting, uh, Neil, Neil Gaiman was starting to collect-

Tim Fulton 15:29Yeah

Jeff Smith 15:30... um, the Sandman books. It was a little bit different because he was having to convince DC to do it, and DC originally would only like cherry pick like certain story arcs 'cause they thought that would sell.

Tim Fulton 15:41Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 15:42Uh, but Neil really wanted, and eventually got, you know, the whole thing in, uh, graphic novels. So it was, that was, that was that moment. That early '90s moment when a bunch of us wanted to really push the medium into, um, graphic novels. A, because they were longer, give you a little more story room. You know, you could actually-

Tim Fulton 16:08Right

Jeff Smith 16:08... tell the story in a book. Uh, but B, because then you could keep the book in print. 'Cause you could try to sell it like a book and it was very different than the, uh, the distribution system that was set up in the comic book direct market.

Tim Fulton 16:21Yeah, because you're not, you don't, you don't reprint a comic book.

Jeff Smith 16:25You don't reprint a comic book.

Tim Fulton 16:27Yeah.

Jeff Smith 16:27And I reprint, I was reprinting my comic books 'cause I was trying to keep up with print 'cause they, when they were getting popular, I was like people... And I thought, as long as I just change the color of the logo, that nobody would care because, oh boy, was I wrong. People were really pissed about that.

Tim Fulton 16:41Like collectors were pissed off?

Jeff Smith 16:42Never did get over it though. I mean, it ended up it settled down and the Bone number one with the red logo, the first printing, that's the one that's worth money. You could probably get a seventh or eighth printing in a quarter box.

Tim Fulton 16:54So it's, it's the, it was the collectors that were pissed off is what you're saying.

Jeff Smith 16:58Yeah. Well, the retailers also because I was-

Tim Fulton 17:00Okay

Jeff Smith 17:01... uh, that, and that got worse when I printed the first Bone collection. Because Bone number one with the red logo was worth like $300 at that time in like 1993 or 1994.

Tim Fulton 17:16Okay.

Jeff Smith 17:16And all of a sudden Vijaya and I released it, you know, the first six issues for like nine bucks or whatever it was.

Tim Fulton 17:23Right.

Jeff Smith 17:24And every, the retailers thought I was trying to put them out of business or cheat them out of some money or something. And Wizard, uh, was a, you know, do you remember Wizard magazine?

Tim Fulton 17:35I, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Smith 17:36It was, well it was, it was, it ruled the roost for, uh, two, couple of decades anyway. And, uh, they had, their, half their magazine was a, a price guide. And they would like, and they were really big on image and they were always like, kind of like leading the market a little bit. You know, like going, "Oh yeah, you know this new book from Todd McFarlane."

Tim Fulton 17:57Well, they were, they were king makers to an extent.

Jeff Smith 18:00Exactly. Exactly.

Tim Fulton 18:01Yeah.

Jeff Smith 18:01And they were slick and they had full color pictures. Most of the rags or the, the industry journals were all black and white. You know, just kinda newspapers or whatever. They weren't that-

Tim Fulton 18:13Right

Jeff Smith 18:14... these were slick. And they would say, "Here's the top 10 artists, top 10 writers," and they'd have pictures of them. And they treated them like they were like NBA stars. So of course we loved it

Tim Fulton 18:23Right.

Jeff Smith 18:24But, uh, but they, they dropped the price of Bone from $300 to, like, 100 and f- no, to, like, $75 or something. I don't remember.

Tim Fulton 18:33Okay.

Jeff Smith 18:33So a huge drop. And I called them and I said, "What the hell? What happened?" They said, "Well, your, um, you know, you put out the graphic novel. Now everybody can read that story for fractions, so it just lost its-"

Tim Fulton 18:46Ah.

Jeff Smith 18:47And I said, "No, it didn't." I said, "You're just making that up because I'm, I'm messing with your, uh-"

Tim Fulton 18:53I'm not doing it the traditional way.

Jeff Smith 18:55Yeah.

Tim Fulton 18:55Right

Jeff Smith 18:55And I'm messing with your values, you know, whatever you're... You know, this is, this is really the way you make your money is-

Tim Fulton 19:02Yeah

Jeff Smith 19:02... exciting everybody about the, uh, the price of the books.

Tim Fulton 19:05And I don't, I, I, I don't think there's a concise way to explore this, but what's super interesting to me is it's, it's, it's a, it's so many different things at that point, right? It's a commodity that someone's putting a price on. It's a piece of media that people wanna be able to consume, and so they have to pay that price. And it's, uh, and it's a commodity in that people are literally trading it for value without consuming it as well.

Jeff Smith 19:31Right. Yeah, it is.

Tim Fulton 19:32Um-

Jeff Smith 19:32Yeah, that's true

Tim Fulton 19:33... truly, it, I, I, I put in my notes of, like, and we talked about it three years ago, please listen to the last podcast, about, um, uh, uh, first of all, the Cartoon Research Library at Ohio State, your exhibit at the Wexner Center. Um, and it, it really i- there is a very easy comparison to, um, a fine or high art, but it is almost by definition, because it's in people's hands, low art.

Jeff Smith 20:05Uh, well-

Tim Fulton 20:05You know?

Jeff Smith 20:05... comics have always been considered low art. I mean, they were... I mean, the, the, some of my greatest heroes would never tell, uh, someone at a cocktail party that they drew comic books, you know?

Tim Fulton 20:16Right.

Jeff Smith 20:16I mean, uh, I, I was lucky enough to get to meet, you know, that, that first generation. I met, uh, uh, Jack Hubert, and, uh, I met Jack Kirby. I didn't really get to spend much time with him. He died sh- very shortly after I met him. Uh, I met Stan Lee. Yeah, who else? Who haven't I really talked to? Will Eisner is someone that I actually formed a huge bond with. And of all that group that I just mentioned, Will Eisner was the only one who even at the time thought it was art. He thought there was-

Tim Fulton 20:46Okay

Jeff Smith 20:46... you could do stuff with that. And, and all the other ones were doing stuff with it. Al Williamson's another one of those guys that I met. But they were just, they were just doing it good because they, they cared.

Tim Fulton 21:00Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 21:00But it was s- so looked down upon at that time. I, it's hard to even r- real- think about that now, you know?

Tim Fulton 21:10The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by Art Makes Columbus, Columbus Makes Art, featuring stories about our city's incredible artists, stories full of inspiration, challenge, passion, and success. For videos, articles, an up-to-the-minute calendar of events, and an artist directory, visit columbusmakesart.com, the resource for all things arts and culture in the capital city. So up to the point when you decided to put out that first book, and you were doing other activities in order to support that, market it, b- have a splash when it was done, that one was not self-published, right?

Jeff Smith 21:51Mm. Yeah.

Tim Fulton 21:52It was.

Jeff Smith 21:53It was.

Tim Fulton 21:53It was self-published.

Jeff Smith 21:55Yeah. Every- everything I did, includ- including w- Veja and I published a little collection of the OSU Lantern comics too, and that was self-published as well.

Tim Fulton 22:05Okay.

Jeff Smith 22:06So, um, we weren't, so we weren't afraid of that. But yeah, so I d- right up to that point, I, well, I had the six issues. And at that time there were, I think Fantagraphics was reprinting something. God, I don't remember what it was, though. I don't remember.

Tim Fulton 22:23We, we don't have to get into it.

Jeff Smith 22:24Um, but they were-

Tim Fulton 22:25Yeah

Jeff Smith 22:25... but they were just, they were just saying, "This is a complete run volume one." So I didn't name it, like, Out from Boneville yet. At that point I just called it Collection One or The Complete Bone Adventures Collection 1.

Tim Fulton 22:37Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 22:38And, um, and it, it, I, I don't know why it worked, but it w- it, I, my timing was very lucky. It was, the first year of Bone, s- the sales were not very good, but it did get noticed, and I started to get some reviews.

Tim Fulton 22:54Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 22:54Uh, and then the second year, uh, it started to pick up, uh, like, famous readers, uh, like, like Neil Gaiman, uh-

Tim Fulton 23:03Okay

Jeff Smith 23:03... read it and made some, um, and just said... Somebody asked him in an interview, "What are you reading?"

Tim Fulton 23:08'Cause he gets interviewed, "Hey, what are you reading?"

Jeff Smith 23:11Exactly.

Tim Fulton 23:11Right.

Jeff Smith 23:11Exactly.

Tim Fulton 23:12Right.

Jeff Smith 23:12So, and I was, I, I was very opportunistic. I would, like, call him and say, "Can I quote you on that?" And then-

Tim Fulton 23:19Yeah

Jeff Smith 23:20... he, he'd be like, "Of course." Um, so I, I was getting known right as, and Bone was becoming very popular. It was suddenly the orders were starting to go up significantly about a year and a half in.

Tim Fulton 23:33Right.

Jeff Smith 23:33And that's when I was getting ready to put the first year's worth of books into a collection. And-

Tim Fulton 23:39And that's not direct to consumer, right? Obviously. Like, you're dealing with a distributor or you're dealing with individual shops-

Jeff Smith 23:44Yeah, there's, uh-

Tim Fulton 23:45... that are saying-

Jeff Smith 23:45There were... In, in the direct, comic book direct market now there is one distributor, Diamond Comics. But in 1991, there were, like, 17.

Tim Fulton 23:56Okay.

Jeff Smith 23:56Diamond was, Diamond was always the biggest. They were always the biggest. But they had a, the second place was this something called Capital City Distributors, Distribution, and they were very close behind. And then there was a, I don't know, there were a few s- other ones. Heroes World, Friendly Fla- Friendly Franks, Comics Hawaii. There was, there was, there was 17 of them. So-

Tim Fulton 24:17Okay

Jeff Smith 24:18... uh, and there weren't that many people like me trying to get in. Um, but, so I wasn't that wor- if you got turned down by- Any of them

Tim Fulton 24:27Right

Jeff Smith 24:27There's all these other ones that can take you. Uh, so yeah, so and the way that worked, if you... I don't know if this is too inside baseball, but-

Tim Fulton 24:35No, you're all right

Jeff Smith 24:36... the way it worked is, um, you had to solicit in a catalog that would come out three months before the comic book.

Tim Fulton 24:45Okay.

Jeff Smith 24:45So, um, yeah, so if, if you had a comic book to come out in December, you had to ha- have something in the, what is that, October?

Tim Fulton 24:54Yeah.

Jeff Smith 24:54The October issue, and that gave the retailers three months to get their orders in and make plans. And, uh, generally though, I was working on com- I wasn't really working on that book yet. I was, like, working on the previous book. Um, but I would have a vague idea of what the comic book cover was gonna be, what the story was about.

Tim Fulton 25:12So you're literally just pitching it at-

Jeff Smith 25:15Yeah

Tim Fulton 25:15... without-

Jeff Smith 25:15Yeah, you gotta have a cover.

Tim Fulton 25:16Yeah.

Jeff Smith 25:16You have to have a cover and look, and, and you have to look real.

Tim Fulton 25:20Yeah.

Jeff Smith 25:21And, and at, at that point I would, you know, I'd been doing and, you know, I'd done maybe 10 or 11 issues, and the retailers that were on board trusted me to come out on time and to do it, and to deliver a comic that was their customers wanted to buy. So-

Tim Fulton 25:38Yeah. You'd build, built that relationship

Jeff Smith 25:40Yeah. It was just like, it, and the timing just, like, was this whirlwind of perfection. It was a perfect storm. The, the comic just as people were really hearing about it and the sales were starting to go up on the issues, I showed up at San Diego with my first complete Bone adventures collection, and it went, it went nuts, Tim. I mean, it was... I had one assistant who I'd hired from a local Oakland comic book store, and he went down to San- to San Diego with me and we, we were swamped. We, we were swamped. There w- literally you could not see past the crowd around our booth, and people were, with wads of money, were reaching over each other's shoulder when there's just fistfuls of dollar coming at us like a, like in a Uncle Scrooge comic. But it was real.

Tim Fulton 26:23Right. That's awesome.

Jeff Smith 26:24So my, uh, my, my poor partner, Garrett, he was just grabbing, grabbing money as fast as he could and handing me a book and telling me the name, and it was crazy.

Tim Fulton 26:33When you first, when you first were drawing it, you were doing the comic strip for The Lantern, and you, you had said you're basically doing fish out, you know, three-panel fish-out-of-water jokes, right?

Jeff Smith 26:45Right.

Tim Fulton 26:45And then you, when you went back to Bone, you did the, the comic books, which obviously have to have a little bit, w- sorry, much longer than a little, but a longer narrative arc, right?

Jeff Smith 26:56Mm.

Tim Fulton 26:57Um, and then you did not just collections, but, like, an actual, I'll call it a tome, uh, in, in terms of, like, a, a really long narrative arc.

Jeff Smith 27:06Right.

Tim Fulton 27:06C- talk a little bit about what that process is like and sort of, I don't know, I guess what I'm looking for is analogies of, like, imagine sprinting and then running a marathon. Or, like, how, how do you, how do you plan for that, and what background did you have in order to, to do that? You know.

Jeff Smith 27:29Well, the back... Well, I... Well, first of all, I always thought of myself as an artist.

Tim Fulton 27:34Okay.

Jeff Smith 27:34Not a writer. Uh, but my heroes were Charles Schulz and Walt Kelly and Carl Barks, and they all wrote and drew their own comics, so I figured that's what I have to do, too.

Tim Fulton 27:46Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 27:46So, um, I was able to, you know, and I, and I learned, I spent four years at OSU, right? So I, I had that practice of, uh, learning how to, how to time a joke and make it work, 'cause I had a quite a few flops, uh, at first. But I had enough, you know, hits, uh, you know, meaning people laughed and wrote to me or, or maybe even just somebody in a class said, "Man, I saw that comic. Con-

Tim Fulton 28:12Right

Jeff Smith 28:12... today's comic was really funny." So I learned, I had four years to not only learn that act, that craft of writing a joke and pulling off the timing and all that. Uh, which I'd already learned in a, many ways just from reading Pogo-

Tim Fulton 28:29Mm-hmm

Jeff Smith 28:29... Doonesbury, you know. Um, but I perfected it. But I also did a lot of comics. I did a lot of comics in four years, and things came up that I wanted to keep. Uh, The Hooded One was in there. The Hooded One was Grandma Ben's twin sister. That was in the comic strip in The Lantern. Um, Rock Jaw, the mountain lion, he wasn't quite as big. He was still big, but he wasn't as gigantic as he was in the comic strip. But these, but I had these, so I had these, like, little story beats and these characters and I was like, "Uh, there's gotta be a way to arrange all this with a story." And I worked, I just kinda thought about the story for years. Um, and that's kinda what it was. So I did decide I need to, I need to write the story or at least have an outline of the story before I even draw the first comic.

Tim Fulton 29:23Okay.

Jeff Smith 29:23And that's what I did. I had, uh, I didn't know how many books it would be. I didn't know how many pages it was gonna be. I didn't really know exactly how many years it would be. I figured it was gonna be over a decade.

Tim Fulton 29:34Okay.

Jeff Smith 29:35Um, and but I had in my memory now, I'm thinking there were about five, what I would call tent poles, uh, from the beginning of the story where I wanted them to start out in the desert. They'd already been run out of town just because I loved Indiana Jones, and that opening where it just starts-

Tim Fulton 29:58Right

Jeff Smith 29:59... and you don't, and you're just like you're in the adventure. Uh-

Tim Fulton 30:01You don't know what he's running from, but he's running. Right.

Jeff Smith 30:04I know. Right. And I've, I've, and I've learned later there's a name for that. I don't think it's mis en scene, but it's, it might be. Uh, and that's, and The Odyssey is like that. I mean, A- Odysseus left Troy 10 years ago, and he's been trapped with Circe on her island f- for over 10 years. So he's, this idea of starting it, like I said, I didn't learn about that till later, but I knew Indiana Jones did it.

Tim Fulton 30:28Right.

Jeff Smith 30:28So I thought that was really fun. So I knew it, that was tent pole one. Tent pole at the end You know, I knew what it was. I knew how they, how it ended, and, you know, pretty much, you know, that they were gonna go back home to Boneville. And then the w- I knew that Rock Jaw was gonna be the middle.

Tim Fulton 30:45Okay.

Jeff Smith 30:46And then I think I had, like, one more, at least one or two more in there that I was gonna hit. Like, in the, in the first half there was a s- I had a tent pole that only said, "Okay, they're lost in the valley, right? Uh, w- and at first they're looking f- the three Bones are looking for each other. Well, eventually they all find each other and get back together. Well, there had to ... Something had to happen to make them stay, or else I wouldn't have a story. So that was a tent pole. Phoney Bone scams the villagers, and they get in trouble, and they have to stay. And so there were tent, tent poles like that. And then I started just, then I just started writing, and I drew the first book.

Tim Fulton 31:26Yeah.

Jeff Smith 31:26And, and that, that was a miniature version of that, where you go, "Well, here's how much I want to have happen in this issue." Chap- which is chapter one, although, shh, Vijaya and I are not telling anybody that that's chapter one. We're just ... This is just- ... a Donald Duck comic, and it's-

Tim Fulton 31:40Right

Jeff Smith 31:40... yeah, there, it's funny and, you know, there's gonna be little cliffhangers. And, and, and then we'll slowly, we'll, we'll turn it around.

Tim Fulton 31:49Yeah. It's v- what's funny to me is it feels similar to the way that you talked about the, um, the business plan. That you were like, "I know I need these anchors to, to make all of this work." Um, and it just, it, it feels pretty similar.

Jeff Smith 32:05Yeah.

Tim Fulton 32:06Um, so you've, you had success with that. You obviously took advantage of it to an ex- y- not to an extent. You, uh, then took advantage of that success in order to sort of, uh, let that snowball roll down the hill. Um, fast-forward to, uh, I think 2018 when news broke that Netflix was picking up Bone into an animated series, um, that, that is y- has yet to come out at this point. Um, can you talk about sort of what that, um, felt like, what that was like? And I'm also interested from an, uh, a, an artist perspective, it's almost like you're giving up ... What's funny to me is you have a background in animation, right? So you know how to at least communicate it. But you are, I imagine, giving up some control.

Jeff Smith 32:57Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a, it's a collaborative medium. Um-

Tim Fulton 33:01Okay

Jeff Smith 33:02... it's, it, it takes a lot of people. Uh, and, a- and I'm, you know, uh, we're, things have changed since I was doing animation. Uh, th- this Bone a- a- this Bone series will be 2D.

Tim Fulton 33:16Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 33:16But 2D in my day was, for television, was junk. Um, these guys are telling me, "It's not, we're not..." They're like, "Stop talking like that. C- stop thinking that we're doing limited animation." They're gonna do something, and I don't know what. Um, but let me, let me start at the beginning. Uh, yeah.

Tim Fulton 33:35Okay.

Jeff Smith 33:35Well, Bone was at Warner Brothers for 10 years. Uh, and it was a very un-fun experience.

Tim Fulton 33:43You're talking about the, the, the option for it.

Jeff Smith 33:45The, yeah. Well, yeah. The, not only the option, but they purchased the, uh, they purchased-

Tim Fulton 33:50Right

Jeff Smith 33:50... the rights. They actually-

Tim Fulton 33:51Okay

Jeff Smith 33:52... they actually went for it.

Tim Fulton 33:54Okay.

Jeff Smith 33:54And it was a, it was not, it was not that, it was unpleasant for me because th- I didn't like the w- the direction they were going. And then it was kinda like a hostile buyout, just so they could ... They owned it. They owned it. And they basically told me to back off.

Tim Fulton 34:14They said, "You have your money. I, we're gonna do what we want with this."

Jeff Smith 34:17That's, that's, yes.

Tim Fulton 34:18Okay.

Jeff Smith 34:18That's essentially it. And, um, and our relationship obviously soured after that. I had to just sit on my hands, uh, because there wa- the only clause, the only hope I had, Tim, was, uh, that if they didn't make a movie in 10 years I would get it back. So I had to wait 10 years. I mean, they tried. I mean, they kept paying the same guy over and over and over. Uh, after a while I ... And the scripts were terrible, and I w- I just didn't even read them after a while.

Tim Fulton 34:54Okay.

Jeff Smith 34:55Uh, but nobody else liked them either. I mean, he, they never made a movie. So finally in May of 2018, I guess-

Tim Fulton 35:03Okay

Jeff Smith 35:03... um, the rights reverted back to me. And but Vijaya and I were like, "Let," you know, you know, you know, our, our entertainment lawyer was like, "You gotta, you've gotta get out there and get an agent and tell people what, you know, this is out, that this is coming back." And we did actually go back to our agent, um, who had sold it 10 years earlier. Um, but he had sold the company. Well, there's a more complicated story, but I won't go into it. The company had been sold to, um, William Morris, which is, like, one of the-

Tim Fulton 35:34Yeah

Jeff Smith 35:35... biggest agencies of all. But we s- we spoke to them and said, "You know, you, your, your company handled the original sale. Do you wanna help us when we're dealing with getting it back?" Because it, it was complicated. There's, you know, they're not, they're, you know-

Tim Fulton 35:47'Cause you have to, you have to go and say, "This is mine now."

Jeff Smith 35:51Yeah.

Tim Fulton 35:51Like, "I would like it back, please."

Jeff Smith 35:51And there was, and there were liens on it for a lot of stuff, so.

Tim Fulton 35:54Okay.

Jeff Smith 35:55It was, it was a complicated thing. So we went back to the lawyer. And again, I feel like I'm getting really inside baseball, but-

Tim Fulton 36:01No, I li- I, I mean-

Jeff Smith 36:02Maybe I probably would stop.

Tim Fulton 36:03It, what's interesting to me is, like, it's not, it is a piece of property.

Jeff Smith 36:08Yes.

Tim Fulton 36:08You know?

Jeff Smith 36:08Yeah.

Tim Fulton 36:08And the fact that, like, it even has additional liens on it-

Jeff Smith 36:13Oh, yeah. Well-

Tim Fulton 36:13... means other people have stakes

Jeff Smith 36:14... we, we, I can tell you, we discussed this, uh, this clause when we were signing the deal 10 years earlier. And it basically said, "You know, you have to pay, uh, Warner Brothers back for everything they spent on it if at the end of 10 years they don't make a movie." And we were like, "Ooh, that's pretty harsh." But we were-

Tim Fulton 36:31And you don't have control over what they spend or what choices they make.

Jeff Smith 36:35But what, but w- but yeah.

Tim Fulton 36:36Right.

Jeff Smith 36:36But we w- then we were like, "There's no way that would happen." Because they really did want to make the movie. I mean, there wasn't... The actual producer that I was working with was not the problem. It was studio executives would come in and get in- get involved and mess things up, and-

Tim Fulton 36:50Yeah

Jeff Smith 36:51... there were oth- th- all sorts of problems. So anyway, we d- we eventually got it back, although there was still a lien on it. But it was technically it w- it was ours and we just had to, couldn't do anything with it until we paid the lien off.

Tim Fulton 37:05Gotcha.

Jeff Smith 37:06And we thought let's not, let's just not even do anything. I mean, maybe we'll, maybe we'll pursue it or let's just sit on it and not t- let's not tell anybody.

Tim Fulton 37:14Or maybe an opportunity will come along.

Jeff Smith 37:17Yes.

Tim Fulton 37:17Right.

Jeff Smith 37:17Well, word got out immediately, and we started getting, uh, calls from streaming services. And, uh, one of them was Netflix, and they from the get-go talked a different kinda talk than... In a nutshell, the real problem I had, not just at Warner Brothers but at Paramount Nickelodeon and Red Wagon, so we, we've been with, like, three studios-

Tim Fulton 37:42Uh-huh

Jeff Smith 37:42... over the years in serious efforts. They all wanted to make a w- an hour and a half animated movie out of the whole Bone movie. They would do the whole thing in an hour and a half animated movie. It couldn't be done. And we always started by saying, "We're gonna do three movies, right? Or at least do a third of the story and end it. And if it's good, we'll g-" Nobody would do it. Nobody would do it. Um, they always said they were gonna do it, but then, then they looked at it and said, "Nah, we're not gonna do it."

Tim Fulton 38:12Right.

Jeff Smith 38:13So the, but the Netflix was like, all of a sudden we're talking about a streaming story, and I can do it exactly. I can build it one by one just like a Donald Duck comic. Uh, just the same way the comic strip was. And they want to do it that way.

Tim Fulton 38:27Huh.

Jeff Smith 38:27So to just to, like, let you and your, uh, listeners know where it is right now, it's, it was drastically s- I mean, everything just stopped-

Tim Fulton 38:38Yeah

Jeff Smith 38:39... in March. And the original plan was, uh, for me to go out to LA in April 1st, and we were gonna... We had been, we'd been talking to a bunch of animators, and I was, we were gonna go out and have dinner. Uh, and then maybe spend, like, a month just really getting down to business. Well, and-

Tim Fulton 38:57Yeah. Wait, nobody got to do anything after mid-March. Right

Jeff Smith 39:00Yeah. Yeah. It didn't. So it wasn't until really July that we even started talking again. Now we, we would communicate every, every now and then, and he'd have a, the producer there would have an idea. But we, we're, we're now in the process of, of hiring, uh, showrunners. And-

Tim Fulton 39:19Great

Jeff Smith 39:19... we're also in the process of... And we're doing it by Zoom. We're doing it like we're doing this podcast.

Tim Fulton 39:26Right.

Jeff Smith 39:27Uh, which is not how, the, how we didn't wanna do it, but eventually we were like, "We're, well, we're just gonna have to."

Tim Fulton 39:32That's how the world is right now. Yeah.

Jeff Smith 39:33Yeah. I, while I was sitting around, uh, when we couldn't do anything, I did, uh, my contract said I was supposed to write the script for the first episode, so I did that. I wrote a stor- I storyboarded out the first episode. They really liked it. Um, we've picked some people. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna squelch Netflix's-

Tim Fulton 39:54Sure

Jeff Smith 39:54... uh, fun. I'm not gonna mention any names or anything. But I'm very excited. Um-

Tim Fulton 40:00These are the voice actors, I assume?

Jeff Smith 40:02No, no, no. The, the, the people who are gonna do the actual shows. The showrunners and the... I am-

Tim Fulton 40:08Oh, okay

Jeff Smith 40:08... I am, I'm an executive producer on the show, and in TV that means you're, and a creator.

Tim Fulton 40:13Yeah.

Jeff Smith 40:13So I am r- I am right in the mix. But I've got all these other talented people who love Bone, and, uh, you know, I wanna hear, I want them to do s- I wanna hear their ideas.

Tim Fulton 40:24Yeah.

Jeff Smith 40:25I don't have, I don't, I don't think in terms of, like, music or things like that, you know. Uh, so it's, it's very exciting. And we're, we're doing exactly what we were talking about earlier with the books. We're figuring out, you know, what's the, what are our tent poles? How far do we wanna go in each episode? And so we're, we're just beginning. We're just beginning. We have not even talked about voices or anything like that.

Tim Fulton 40:49I love that. I want to give a little bit, uh, time to Cartoon Crossroads, which is coming up at the beginning of October.

Jeff Smith 40:57Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Fulton 40:58Um, you guys, again, listen to the previous podcast episode for, like, here's the idea, here's what, here's the why. But talk about sort of how you guys are pivoting this year. You, you said, I think before we started recording, that you guys decided early to, that, like, "Hey, we're probably gonna have to do this virtually."

Jeff Smith 41:17Yeah.

Tim Fulton 41:18Uh, talk about sort of what the content will be and what people can expect.

Jeff Smith 41:22Well, we had a, we had, we had, we had more than one setback. I mean, we lost Tom Spurgeon, our executive director.

Tim Fulton 41:30Yeah.

Jeff Smith 41:30Died suddenly, um, and unexpectedly in November last year, right after last year's show.

Tim Fulton 41:37Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 41:38Uh, and it, it really, it, it devastated all of us quite a bit. Um, and we did get together with... Because Cartoon Crossroads is in some ways is just an umbrella organization. Um, the idea was to, uh, it, there were all the, all the art institutions in town, I'm sure we talked about it in the last podcast.

Tim Fulton 42:02Yeah.

Jeff Smith 42:02Were already, like the Columbus Museum of Art, and CCAD, and OSU, and the Wexner Center, were al- already doing at least one major event a year with a world-class cartoonist.

Tim Fulton 42:15Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 42:16And I was very impressed by that. And, uh, when I started talking with Lucy Caswell, the founding curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, she was getting ready to retire and retire the, the festival at, that we, that O- that OSU had back then. Every three years there was a festival of cartoon art, which I love. And she said, "Well, unless you have an idea-" To do something. Well, my, that was my idea was to go around to all the institutions and say, "Look, you o- once a year you have some bang-"

Tim Fulton 42:48You're already budgeting for this.

Jeff Smith 42:50You're already doing this.

Tim Fulton 42:51Right.

Jeff Smith 42:51What if we all did it on the same weekend and we made Columbus this, you know, go-to event, like you had to be there? Uh, and surprisingly, um, they all were pretty agreeable.

Tim Fulton 43:04Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 43:04I was surprised because I thought there'd be a little more competition between them. But, uh, I get-

Tim Fulton 43:10And there, there is in some things, yeah

Jeff Smith 43:12Oh, there, there is actually. There is quite a bit. That's what I was amazed. But I think when it came to cartoons, I think they were excited. Uh, uh, and Tom and I would go around to these meetings, and we had ... I mean, we've got some, we've got some gravitas between us. Plus we had Lucy.

Tim Fulton 43:29Yeah.

Jeff Smith 43:31Uh, so and everybody ... I think cartoons was not quite ... It was like an, it's like a new thing, you know? It's like-

Tim Fulton 43:36Well, and also I think, full disclosure, I used to work at the Wexner Center.

Jeff Smith 43:40Oh.

Tim Fulton 43:40And I think, uh, I think that having s- you and Tom sort of outside and almost above everybody el- not above, but like outside-

Jeff Smith 43:51As an umbrella, yeah

Tim Fulton 43:52... as an umbrella outside everybody else. And just say, "Hey, guys, we sort of want to pull you together." And then not one of them gets to own it or control it makes everybody else feel more comfortable.

Jeff Smith 44:04Well, it worked is all I can say. Uh, and we have from the first year we have had some of the most amazing guests. I mean, the very first year we had Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. Uh, I mean, we had, um, I can't even remember everybody. We had Doonesbury. We had Kate Beaton and Craig Thompson. We've had Chris Ware. We've had Mike Mignola. I, it's just unbelievable. So this year, um, well, I, I, going back to the story, uh, you know, we had to overcome the loss of our dear friend and the executive director who-

Tim Fulton 44:40Mm-hmm

Jeff Smith 44:40... was very crucial in, in putting the whole show together. Uh, and so the first thing we had to do is get together with all the partner organizations, uh, and say, "Does everybody still wanna do this?" 'Cause that's how, that was how devastated we were.

Tim Fulton 44:56Yeah.

Jeff Smith 44:56But everybody felt like that was ob- yes, we absolutely have to continue on. Uh, and the next step was to find, um, a replacement. So we have an intern. His name is Jersey Drods. And when he came from Michigan, where he was running his own comic book show. And he ha- he's been pretty great. Uh, I'm, he, he's, he, he kinda knows what he's doing, but he has this extra bonus thing, which I'll tell you about right now. So the second big problem was, oh, crap, there's a pandemic.

Tim Fulton 45:31Uh-huh.

Jeff Smith 45:31And right away, I mean, it was pretty obvious that, uh, you know, by l- by the end of April we're not gonna do anything in this country to stop this.

Tim Fulton 45:43Okay.

Jeff Smith 45:43We're just gonna just wing this Which is horrifying. And I'm, it's a very unfortunate situation we find ourselves in.

Tim Fulton 45:51Yeah.

Jeff Smith 45:51But we knew we're not ... Well, first we put it off and we're like, we have to either cancel or we could possibly go online. None of us knows anything about going online. Uh, and that's a scary thing. We thought, well, what if OSU ... Well, let's see what OSU does. If they aren't gonna come back, there's, we ha- we, there's no way we're

Tim Fulton 46:11We just cancel.

Jeff Smith 46:12Yeah.

Tim Fulton 46:12We're just-

Jeff Smith 46:12Yeah, just gonna cancel.

Tim Fulton 46:13Yeah.

Jeff Smith 46:14Although we, we, we ha- hung onto the possibility that we could still do a live show if OSU came back. But like I said, there was a point where it was really obvious that there was no plan, uh, to get PPE to people or get ventilate-

Tim Fulton 46:27Mm-hmm

Jeff Smith 46:27... or get masks or anything. And we're like, "Okay, we're gonna do ..." So we did, did decide pretty early we're gonna go online. And this is what Jersey ha- he knows how to do that. He's got also ... I don't know if he has a podcast.

Tim Fulton 46:40Okay.

Jeff Smith 46:40He looks like, he looks like he's got a podcast. He looks like he is.

Tim Fulton 46:43He's got a s- he's got a setup.

Jeff Smith 46:44He's got, he's, he's, uh, it's like you. He's got the mic and the earphones and-

Tim Fulton 46:48Yeah

Jeff Smith 46:48... I'm talking into my laptop. Um-

Tim Fulton 46:51Good enough. Yeah. Well, only one side has to be all set up.

Jeff Smith 46:55Yeah. And, and he, and so we actually are ... One of our, one of our big guests this year is Gene Yang, who, uh, just did Superman Smashes the Klan. And, of course, he's famous for American Born Chinese. Um, and he also just came out with something called Dragon Hoops, which is amazing. Uh, it's, he worked at a high school for a while and just for some reason decided to write a graphic novel about the high school f- basketball team.

Tim Fulton 47:20Huh.

Jeff Smith 47:20And it's amazing. It's, it's so readable. Um, but anyway, we, last night we just did our first ... We, we're pre-recording a lot of the interviews and events, but then we're gonna do live Q&As afterwards.

Tim Fulton 47:34Okay.

Jeff Smith 47:35It gives us a little control over what's happening. Um, it's less hackable. Uh-

Tim Fulton 47:39Yeah

Jeff Smith 47:39... but it's still, there's some interaction available, uh, for viewers.

Tim Fulton 47:44That's good.

Jeff Smith 47:45And when ... So, go ahead. Go ahead.

Tim Fulton 47:47No, I just, I have experience. I was doing programming for a conference in Alberta that was supposed to be in June, and we ended up going virtual. And, like, you're, y- you're speaking my language of, like, all these debates we have about, like, should we just cancel? How do we still provide any interactivity? How do we still show value?

Jeff Smith 48:08Right.

Tim Fulton 48:09Uh, i- and, and actually deliver the content in, in, in a solid way. And it sounds like you guys are going through the same thing in that you sort of you're, you're, you're baking a cake, you know?

Jeff Smith 48:21Yeah.

Tim Fulton 48:22You're like, "Okay, this has to be here. This has to be here."

Jeff Smith 48:25Right.

Tim Fulton 48:25Uh, but we still need the sprinkles on top, too.

Jeff Smith 48:28Yeah.

Tim Fulton 48:28So, yeah.

Jeff Smith 48:29Do ... And we have to use the exact right amount of flour.

Tim Fulton 48:32Uh-huh.

Jeff Smith 48:33The, uh-

Tim Fulton 48:34Yeah

Jeff Smith 48:34... we, well, and we were lucky because we're so close to the end of the year. So we got to see TCAF Toronto. We got to see San Diego do a live show.

Tim Fulton 48:44Yeah.

Jeff Smith 48:45Um, and so we got to- You know, see their people's reactions. Um, I was impressed with San Diego personally, but I, there was no question that there was a lot of reaction about people going, "Oh, there's no interaction. I, I miss that."

Tim Fulton 48:59Yeah, I saw some of that. A- and I, I did, I went to a lot of the education panels they had, and certainly bought some stuff from people that were dropping during that week.

Jeff Smith 49:11Right.

Tim Fulton 49:11And I was like, "They did a real good job." And then I saw, like, blog reaction afterwards, and they were like, "Well, engagement was down. It's not as good." And I'm like-

Jeff Smith 49:21I-

Tim Fulton 49:21... what did you wa- what did you wanna see, guys?

Jeff Smith 49:24I, well, and I, and I was a guest at San Diego this, in Comic-Con this year. And, uh-

Tim Fulton 49:28Okay

Jeff Smith 49:29... I did the, I did, uh, well, I'm also an exhibitor, so we usually set up a booth there.

Tim Fulton 49:35Yeah.

Jeff Smith 49:35So, um, we had a virtual booth, basically a link. Uh, you know, y- you click on it and see these are the products that we have special prices on for the show, and then you click on another link and you would go to our, uh, uh, Facebook page.

Tim Fulton 49:51Yeah.

Jeff Smith 49:51And we, for, like, a month, we were, like, sending out blasts of Twitter and Instagram and everything we, we could think of, uh, saying we're gonna do live signings Thursday, Friday, Saturday for two hours every day. And, you know, you can come tune in. And but we also said the sale starts the Saturday before and ends the Saturday at the end.

Tim Fulton 50:17Okay.

Jeff Smith 50:17So those sale prices are good. We encourage everybody to pre-order, 'cause I was worried about, I didn't wanna be sitting there with nothing to sign, right?

Tim Fulton 50:24Right.

Jeff Smith 50:24We encouraged people to pre-order. Um, and then I would sign the books, and right after the show I would send them. Dude, it was a monster success.

Tim Fulton 50:33Good.

Jeff Smith 50:34We sold way more. We had way more orders of books than we ever do at San Diego. We, it was like, over 400 orders, and every one of them had anywhere from, you know, 5 books to, you know, 12 books or something-

Tim Fulton 50:51That's awesome

Jeff Smith 50:52... per order. It was g- it took us three weeks to fix it, 'cause we, uh, we, we signed, you know, we were answering questions.

Tim Fulton 50:58Yeah.

Jeff Smith 50:58We, we had set up so that people could, you know, someone, Kathleen would read the, read the question, "Oh, here's, uh, oh, here's your friend from high school. Is it-"

Tim Fulton 51:08Right.

Jeff Smith 51:08"He says hi."

Tim Fulton 51:10That's awesome.

Jeff Smith 51:11It was. So I thought it was great. I was like, "Man, what a success."

Tim Fulton 51:14Yeah.

Jeff Smith 51:15And, uh-

Tim Fulton 51:15So what will the, what will the format look like? I know some of it's pre-recorded and there's Q&A, but will it be, like, individual sessions for Cartoon Chronicles?

Jeff Smith 51:23Yeah. I mean, we're, we're gonna try to make it look, you know, look like if you go to the website and see the schedule, it'll look a lot like our normal schedule. Uh, which is, um, Thursday is usually the Wexner Center has their, they are leading it.

Tim Fulton 51:39Mm-hmm.

Jeff Smith 51:39Um, we have things called teach-in talks, which, 'cause we're a, we're a C3, um, fuck, what was it?

Tim Fulton 51:47501[c][3].

Jeff Smith 51:48Thank you. I don't know why I got lost on that.

Tim Fulton 51:50Yeah. It's all right.

Jeff Smith 51:50Um, but we're, we're a non-profit. So we have certain, you know, we have to do educational things. We have to-

Tim Fulton 51:56Mm-hmm

Jeff Smith 51:56... promote local artists, which is fine. We love doing that. That's part of our original mission anyway.

Tim Fulton 52:01Yeah.

Jeff Smith 52:01So yeah, we, so and then, um, on Friday, uh, you know, the, it'll, it'll say, okay, so the keynote will be Gene Yang, uh, and it'll be at 4:30. So then you tune in, and, um, if you go to the website and click on it, we're gonna broadcast it then. So it'll essentially be streamed at that moment as if it was live.

Tim Fulton 52:22Right.

Jeff Smith 52:22Uh, I don't know that we're doing the Q&A with Gene, but, uh, it, but generally, like, that night is Fabio Moon and Gabriel Bá being interviewed or in conversation with, uh, Matt Fraction.

Tim Fulton 52:34Okay.

Jeff Smith 52:35I can't wait to see that. Uh, that's gonna be a great panel, and that'll be, like, at 7:30. And that one I, that one I know for sure that we'll, we'll s- you'll go on the website, you'll stream it. Uh, they're probably gonna re-record that in the next two weeks.

Tim Fulton 52:48Okay.

Jeff Smith 52:48Um, you know, it's hard to, when one guy's in Brazil, two guys are in Brazil, and the other guy's in LA.

Tim Fulton 52:54Yeah.

Jeff Smith 52:54You're talking, like, at least a four-hour time difference. Uh, so they're gonna record this, the thing, but then afterwards that, on Friday night at whatever, uh, 8:00, 9:00 or whatever, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Bá, and Matt Fraction will then be on, on like this, on a Zoom-

Tim Fulton 53:12Yeah

Jeff Smith 53:12... with jerseys, 'cause jerseys are a little genius. Uh, but if we need help, are you available?

Tim Fulton 53:18I'm a, I, I, I'm around if you need me to poke the holes in technology.

Jeff Smith 53:22Oh, I'd love it if you could be here in front of me.

Tim Fulton 53:22Yeah.

Jeff Smith 53:22But anyway, that-

Tim Fulton 53:23Yeah

Jeff Smith 53:23... so that's the basic idea. So we thought that would help us with, uh-

Tim Fulton 53:27Yeah

Jeff Smith 53:27... this.

Tim Fulton 53:27And is it all f- it's all free?

Jeff Smith 53:30It's all free.

Tim Fulton 53:31That's awesome.

Jeff Smith 53:32It's all free.

Tim Fulton 53:32That's great. Well, Jeff, thank you. I've taken plenty of your time, and I appreciate it, and I hope that we can, uh, do this again, uh, before three years from now. So-

Jeff Smith 53:42I was gonna say, I'll see you in three years, brother.

Tim Fulton 53:45Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Smith 53:46All right, see you, man.

Tim Fulton 53:58Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite cartoonist. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.