Karnataka - Bangalore

The fans were thrilled to the bone

Bangalore: When Jeff Smith first created those funny-looking characters shaped like little white bones, he did not anticipate they would be a rage among graphic novel fans and a wide-eyed readership of children. “I wanted to draw something different; drawing a cartoon meant drawing a mouse or a rabbit,” said 48-year-old Smith as he addressed 50-odd children and fans of his hit graphic-novel series “Bone” at Reliance Timeout bookstore on Tuesday evening.

Judging a cartooning competition organised by Reliance Timeout and Scholastic, where children had to draw a character and develop it in three panels, was not easy for him, he said. Encouragingly pointing out what he liked in each of the winners’ cartoons, he handed over the first prize to Vishwanath E. from the Government Arts College for his satirical political cartoon, the second and third prizes to Bong Kyung Jeong and Jane Jin respectively, both from the Canadian International School, Bangalore.

Soon after, questions about Bone started flowing in. Brought to Bangalore by Scholastic, Bone’s publisher in India, Bone started out as an underground comic that then went on to win 38 global awards and sold over a million copies in 19 countries, India being the latest addition to this list. It has been translated in 15 languages affirming the appeal it has among children and adults alike.

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