Volumes of Jeff Smith's award-winning series Bone, a story the creator finished in 2004, have sold over a million copies and been reprinted in at least nine different languages around the world. The character and his adventures were even the subject of a video game and other products like statues and action figures, as well as the hardcover The Art of Bone, published earlier this month.
So it comes as no surprise that when Smith revealed he would preview his next independent project at Comic-Con International, the news was met with worldwide enthusiasm.
The new comic, titled RASL (which Smith pronounces "rassle"), was announced on Smith's Boneville website earlier this month with no other information but the title and the comic's first cover. But the creator promised he would have six-page previews of RASL available in San Diego, and blogs in multiple languages hailed the news.
The cartoonist, who both wrote and drew Bone as well as the recent DC mini-series Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil, will publish the RASL limited series himself through his company, Cartoon Books. According to Smith, he's hoping the first issue of RASL will be available in comic shops by January 2008. Newsarama sat down with Smith at the offices of Cartoon Books to find out more about RASL -- and why the six-page issue of the comic he's previewing at Comic-Con is so big.
Newsarama: Last time we talked, you were putting the finishing touches on your Monster Society comic and thinking ahead to your next project. You said in the interview that you had a science fiction story in mind, so I guess we're seeing it now. How long have you had the story for RASL rattling around in your head?
Jeff Smith: I first started playing around with the idea of doing a science fiction story around 2000. But this actual version of RASL just kind of came up recently. And I didn't even really know what the character was going to look like until about two weeks ago, when I decided I wanted to do this six-page preview, and it just kind of ... came out. In one week, I had the whole thing done -- the cover and everything.
NRAMA: Tell us about the story of RASL.
JS: The story is about a thief -- an art thief -- who is known to the police as "RASL," because that's the tag he leaves whenever he steals a piece of art. He spray paints RASL on the wall in the spot where the art was. RASL has this ... how do I describe it? ... a full spectral immersion suit that he's invented that really, basically, is made of these giant jet engines that he straps to his shoulders and his knees that have magnets in them, and he can create thermal-magnetic disturbances through space-time and step between dimensions. So if you were a really rich person who wants to collect, say, a Mona Lisa, you could pay RASL, and he'll go to another dimension and steal the Mona Lisa for you!
NRAMA: He's hopping into other dimensions to steal stuff?
JS: Yeah! And the cover has this image of him face-down on the floor and screaming in pain, because what happens when you go through these dimensional barriers -- these light barriers between dimensions and universes -- is that apparently it hurts a lot. I mean, it hurts so badly that it takes him days to recover. The pain is so bad that, for days, he drinks and gambles and smokes and eats rich foods and has whores and all that. But to get back, he has to do the exact opposite. He has to completely clean his body and mind and thoughts and almost reach a zen, centered perfectness to get back through the light. But then he comes back out and is in pain again and it all starts over.
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NRAMA: In the comic, he calls the way he gets through to those dimensions "The Drift," and talks about "discovering" The Drift. It makes you wonder, is he the only one with the technology to do this? And will we learn more about his discovery later?
JS: The story will slowly unfold and we'll learn things like who's hiring him, who's fencing for him, who's chasing him, and we'll find out who Maya is.
NRAMA: The "Maya" tattoo.
JS: Yes, the tattoo on one of his arms.
NRAMA: And is it safe to assume one of the things we learn is what "RASL" stands for?
JS: [laughs] At some point, we'll find out what RASL stands for.
NRAMA: The six-page preview you're selling in San Diego is really big. The comic is 11" x 17". Why is that?
JS: I like to do new things. But it was also a reaction to moving into the book market where graphic novels have kind of become smaller to conform to book shelves and more standard book sizes. And as happy as I am to have that market opening up, I still want to do big comic book things. I want to serialize it. I want to go into a comic book store and see something that shines in black and white. But it was probably a reaction to, ironically, the success I've had in mainstream book stores.
NRAMA: Wait. So this preview is the actual size each issue will be? When the comic comes out, it will be in this larger format?
JS: I think so! The plan right now is to do four or five of these big books a year for the next couple of years, and then that should complete the story so that I'll have a 200- to 250-page graphic novel at the end, which will probably be a bit smaller than this, although not as small as Bone is now, but in color.
NRAMA: So the 11" x 17" comics will be black and white, and then the story will have colors once it's in graphic novel format?
JS: Right. So I want to return to the comic book direct market and serialize RASL in black and white with these large, oversized comic books, then at the end, collect it into a full graphic novel that will get a much wider distribution.
NRAMA: They're going to have to invent a new size of bags and boards! With something this big and, quite frankly, as slick-looking as this preview - we're talking high quality paper here -- what is the price going to be for these individual oversized issues?
JS: I actually don't know how much the regular book will cost. These six-page previews, we're selling for $5 each at the show.
NRAMA: Then it would stand to reason that these large comics would be a little more than that, since they will be full comics at the approximate 22-page size -- as opposed to these six-page previews, right?
JS: Yeah. They'll each be a full-sized comic.
NRAMA: Hearing you talk about the story, it sounds like you're pretty excited about your return to doing your own, independent and new story again.
JS: Yeah. I am excited about it. And I'm especially excited about it right now because, as we're doing this interview, it's about a week before San Diego, so I just announced it on the website. And it's just amazing how that got picked up all around the world. I mean, I haven't said anything about it. It's just that image. And man, it's everywhere. If you "Google" it, it's in every language with just that one little picture. And the reaction has really gotten me jazzed. So I'm looking forward to seeing what people think when they actually read it.
NRAMA: You said you've had the story in your head for awhile, although the details for these preview pages just kind of "came" to you as you drew them, but I assume you know how this story ends. Are you anxious to get going? Ready to dive in?
JS: Yeah, yeah! Well, I kind of think I know what the ending is going to be. And I really hate to start a story without knowing what the ending is, but I'm a little less clear on this story than I was with Bone. I knew pretty much where Bone was going to go, although not exactly. So maybe this is the right way to go. I should just dive in to The Drift and come out screaming. [laughs]
NRAMA: Well it's good enough for RASL! You know, you say the cover image you released has been picked up all over the world, and obviously, that's because of the worldwide success of Bone. Bone was more of a fantasy story, although it also had a lot of humor and other elements in it -- but it wasn't really sci-fi. Do you think people who read and enjoyed Bone will enjoy a more sci-fi story like RASL?
JS: You know, I don't know. I wrote Bone just trying to entertain myself. It was the kind of comic I wanted to read ever since I was a kid. I just loved Uncle Scrooge and Heavy Metal comics, so that's where that mixture came from, but I also liked longer stories that start off like kids' adventure stories, like Huckleberry Finn or even Star Wars, and then slowly the themes become more complex and a little more grown-up and dark. So I was only doing Bone for myself. And of course, when it was just in comic book stores, it was mostly adults reading it. I don't know how it got out to libraries and became a children's book. That's as big of a shock to me as anybody.
But I'm taking the same approach with RASL. This is obviously not for
little children because I am going to have drinking and smoking and things that aren't for
really young kids. But I don't think I'm going to go crazy with swear words. I don't think I'm going to end up doing anything like that. But yeah, I'm just doing it for myself. This one's a little more grown up, a little more James Bond than the Bugs Bunny stuff I did with Bone [laughs]. I don't know why they wouldn't like it.
NRAMA: Yeah, but will the main character in RASL ever utter the words, "Stupid, stupid rat creatures?"
JS: [laughs] I really doubt it. But if you like fast, crazy comics, you're going to like this.
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