Origins of Bone at Auction

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Published by Jeff Smith in 1983, Thorn: Tales from the Lantern collect’s Smith’s earliest Thorn strips, containing early incarnations of characters made famous in Bone.

Thorn: Tales From the Lantern is a rare 1983 collection that represents the earliest incarnation of Jeff Smith‘s Bone saga. Thorn originated as a daily comic strip in the Ohio State University’s student newspaper, The Lantern, while Smith was attending there.  This proto-Bone work, as it has been called, introduced early incarnations of characters and story elements that would later appear in Bone.  Widely considered one of the most important indie comics of the past several decades, this earliest glimpse at the Bone saga, published in book form in Thorn: Tales From the Lantern, is a combination of rare and important that has led to impressive prices on the collector market.  The small handful of higher-graded copies that have surfaced in recent years have sold in the $10,000+ range.  There’s a FN+ condition copy of Thorn: Tales From the Lantern (Jeff Smith, 1983) currently up for auction in the 2025 June 26 – 29 Comic & Comic Art Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions.

Smith was born in 1960 in Pennsylvania but grew up in Columbus, Ohio.  He developed an interest in newspaper comic strips at an early age, getting hooked on Walt Kelly‘s Pogo, among other strips, in the fourth grade.  Inspired to try to become a cartoonist, he began drawing versions of the characters that would become familiar in Bone at around age five.  Smith briefly enrolled in Columbus College of Art and Design and eventually made his way to the Ohio State University in 1982.  About this choice, Smith told the Comics Journal, “I picked OSU mostly because they had the Lantern, which was a daily newspaper. It had a circulation of 50,000. In my mind, that was exactly the tool I needed to practice my vocation. I had come to the realization that I wasn’t going to be able to go to school to get taught how to do this, so the only thing I could do was find somewhere I could practice. So I took one journalism class in order to be on the paper and I enrolled as a fine arts student, then submitted some Thorn strips to the Lantern and they accepted them, and off I went.”

The first Thorn strip appeared in The Lantern on September 20, 1982.  The strip mixed lighthearted humor with fantasy adventure, and includes early versions of now-familiar characters like Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, Gran’ma Ben, the Great Red Dragon, and Thorn.  Smith would later tell The Lantern that the wilderness setting of the strip was inspired by a period of time when he lived with his aunt and uncle in Vermont.  By Summer 1983, Thorn had become popular enough that Smith got a $3,000 bank loan and put together a collection of his strips from The Lantern, publishing Thorn: Tales From the Lantern in early November 1983 with a print run of 1,000 copies.  By February 1984, with the book selling well in the area, Smith noted, “I have no idea who’s buying my book, I’m just happy they are. When I got there [to a local book signing], people were waiting for me — the people who really like my characters.  Lots of people said they saved my cartoons and put them on their walls and bulletin boards — like some people cut out Cathy and put on their refrigerator. Now that’s really rewarding.”

With Thorn a hit and still ongoing, 1984 would prove to be another eventful year for Smith at Ohio State.  In early October of that year, Smith joined the staff of The Lantern‘s new weekly entertainment insert/section, called Oasis, as an illustrator. By this time, Smith and fellow cartoonist and longtime friend Jim Kammerud had also developed an interest in animation.  In Fall 1984, they teamed with music student David Tolley and computer animation student Ed Cheetham to create what was characterized as a groundbreaking digital animation featuring mascot Brutus Buckeye for Ohio State’s football stadium scoreboard for the November 3, 1984 Indiana at Ohio State football game (Ohio State won 50-7).  The animated sequence was the subject of some minor controversy, seemingly due to receiving an amount of publicity that caught the Ohio State athletic department off guard (if you’re a college sports fan, you probably realize that this is not an uncommon genre of drama). Ohio State athletic director Richard Bay later wrote a letter of apology to Smith and the others, and the animation was again shown for the November 19, 1984 Michigan at Ohio State game (Ohio State won 21-6). Likely one of the earliest animated cartoons involving Smith seen by the public, Smith, Kammerud, and fellow Ohio State alum Martin Fuller would later form animation studio Character Builders, Inc. in 1986.  By the end of 1984, fellow The Lantern cartoonist Steve Spencer was predicting great success for Smith in the future, humorously suggesting there would be merchandise like Phoney Bone toothbrush holders, in his strip for November 29, 1984.

In January 1985, The Lantern announced that Thorn and Steve Spencer’s strip 50% More Absorbent Comix would end to allow for opportunities for other cartoonists, with Smith noting that he would turn his attention towards making an attempt at getting national syndication.  Thorn subsequently continued in April and May of that year, and ended as a regular strip on May 24, 1985 with the last few strips dedicated to the characters having a celebratory party.  Smith continued as a staff illustrator on Oasis until June 1985, returning briefly in early 1986. Thorn returned for a final one-page strip in the March 1986 issue of the Ohio State publication The Sundial. In 1991, Smith launched Cartoon Books to publish Bone as a comic book. After mixed sales results over the course of the first few issues, the series gained traction and became a hit. In October 1993, Smith gifted this copy of Thorn: Tales from the Lantern to William Christensen, then a contributor to Wizard Magazine and now the owner of Bleeding Cool and the consignor of this copy at auction.  A rare collection containing material that is considered the genesis of one of the most important indie comics of the past several decades, there’s a FN+ condition copy of Thorn: Tales From the Lantern (Jeff Smith, 1983) up for auction in the 2025 June 26 – 29 Comic & Comic Art Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions.

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