When Jeff Smith created Bone as a kindergartner in Columbus, Ohio, little did he know that he'd share the stage with Garry Trudeau at the National Cartoonist Society's awards this spring. Winning the award for Best Comic Book, Smith is etching his way into pop history. By creating Bone, Smith is indulging himself with an adventure that he always wanted to read as a child. Inspired by Peanuts, Uncle Scrooge, and Walt Kelly's Pogo, Smith says, "I always wished that my childhood heroes would go out on an adventure that had actual danger in it...Or an adventure that would have consequences that might actually alter their existence." "Bone is about growing up and leaving home for the first time," says Smith. "The story is about what happens when the Bone cousins leave Boneville...this sheltered little world they grew up in and then go out into this wilder, outside world." And just as Fone Bone takes off on his adventure, Smith looks forward to sharing the Bone series with a national audience. Fone Bone and friends were first published in the Ohio State University's student newspaper, The Lantern, in a comic-strip format. Smith, then a student, drew the attention of national syndicates interested in publishing Bone. Smith opted to start an animation company, and later broke away to publish Bone in 1991. Today, Bone is flourishing as one of the top 50 comic books in the United States. Bone has won numerous awards and is published in nine different languages with an enormous international following.

Awards He has received:

	Harvey Award - Best Cartoonist
	Sweden's Adamson Award for Best Comic
	National Cartoonist Society Award - Best Comic
	France's Alph-Art Award -Best comic originally written in a foreign language
	Eisner Award - Best Humor Publication

Information provided by the Bone web sight at: http://www.boneville.com