Inked Drawing of Fone Bone and Phoney Bone

Pictured here is an early inked sketch of the characters Fone Bone (right) and Phoney Bone (left) by artist Jeff Smith.

The characters, along with Smiley Bone, are the focus of the "Bone" series of graphic novels self-published by Jeff Smith through his Cartoon Books company.

A January 12, 1984 "Worthington News" article describes the genesis of Fone Bone around 1965, when Smith was a kindergartener at Colonial Hills Elementary School. The character lived on through Smith’s years at Worthington schools, then through a comic series published in "The Lantern," the student newspaper of The Ohio State University.

After graduating from OSU, Smith co-founded the animation studio Character Builders Inc., along with classmates Marty Fuller and Jim Kammerud. The studio operated out of the Kilbourne Commercial Building in Worthington, 681 High Street, from the late 1980s through much of the ‘90s before moving to Powell.

In 1991, Smith left Character Builders Inc. to self-publish the "Bone" series through his company, Cartoon Books. Published as a series of nine graphic novels, the series has earned Smith ten Eisner Awards and 11 Harvey Awards, as well as the National Cartoonists Society’s award for Comic Books in 1995 and ’96.