Jeff Smith, Busted! cover, 2000

Cover for Busted! the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Newsletter, 2000.

Who would have thought that after getting a Bill Watterson, that WOULDN'T be the rarest original in my collection? But I guess it must be the case that this is even rarer. Jeff Smith has made it clear from the start that he wanted his originals to go to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum, and at least if you search here on CAF, literally only a handful of published drawings featuring any Bone characters have ended up in private collections.

Bone is one of my all-time favorite comics (I guess I'd say one of the greatest comics of all time, period) so it had been a long-time dream of mine to find some kind of finished brush and ink drawing from Jeff. That it happens to be an actually published piece (a COVER, no less!) featuring Fone Bone just makes it all the more thrilling. I guess I'll call this a 40th birthday present for myself.