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Synopsis

Cast

• Interviewee: Jeff Smith | bio

  Jeff Smith learned about cartooning from comic strips, comic books, and watching animation on TV while growing up in the midwest. In 1991, he launched a company called Cartoon Books to publish his comic book
  BONE, a comedy/adventure about three lost cousins from Boneville. Against all odds, the small company flourished, building a reputation
  for quality stories and artwork. Word of mouth, critical acclaim, and a string of major awards helped propel Cartoon Books and BONE
  to the forefront of the comic book industry. In 2005, Harry Potter’s U.S. publisher, Scholastic, entered the graphic novel market a full color version of BONE: Out from
  Boneville, going on to sell millions of copies through its nine-volume run as it brought the underground comic to a new audience and a new generation. BONE has won ten
  Eisner awards during its publication, has been translated into 15 languages and has been adopted as an important literacy tool by teachers, librarians and parents. Time
  magazine selected BONE as one of the ten greatest graphic novels of all time. Between projects, Smith spends much of his time on the international guest circuit promoting comics and the art of graphic novels.

• Interviewee: Colleen Doran | bio

  Colleen Doran is an illustrator, film conceptual artist, cartoonist, and writer whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, Lucasfilm, Sony, Time/Warner, Harper Collins, Readers
  Digest, Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics. Her credits include: Amazing Spiderman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Colleen has spent most of her life devoted to her epic science fiction/fantasy tale A Distant Soil, the first graphic novel solely produced by a female creator. She began writing the tale when she was twelve years old, and has now produced four graphic novel collections and nearly 40 comics.

• Interviewee: Scott McCloud | bio

  Scott McCloud is a cartoonist and theorist on comics, best known for his 1993 Understanding Comics, a wide-ranging exploration of the
  definition, history, vocabulary, and methods of the medium of comics, itself in comics form. He followed in 2000 with Reinventing Comics (also
  in comics form), and released Making Comics in 2006. His latest work is a comic book that formed the 2008 press release introducing Google's new web browser, Google Chrome. Scott was born in Boston, Massachusetts and obtained his B.F.A in illustration from Syracuse University.

• Interviewee: Harvey Pekar | bio

  Harvey Pekar is a true American
  original. This Cleveland native is the
  creator of American Splendor, the
  popular comic book series that also
  inspired a critically acclaimed film of the same name. American Splendor is the autobiographical story of Harvey, a working-class everyman (also first-class curmudgeon) and comic book writer who chronicles the ordinary and mundane in stories both funny and touching. In
  the 2004 film, Harvey is played by actor Paul Giamatti as a frustrated V.A. hospital file clerk who is inspired to create comic books based on his own life. Harvey continues to write graphic novels with a wide variety of cultural and historical themes.

• Interviewee: Paul Pope | bio

  Paul Pope is an alternative comic book artist best known for his well-paced, deftly-shaded
  combinations of science fiction, hardboiled crime stories and lost romance. Pope introduced THB in 1995, the same year he began work for Kodansha, Japan's best-known
  manga publisher. In 2006, he received an Eisner Award for Best Short Story for Teenage Sidekick, and in 2007, won two Eisners as Best
  Writer/Artist and Best Limited Series for his Batman mini-series, Batman: Year 100. Born in Philadelphia, Paul grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio, with stops in Columbus,
  San Francisco, and Toronto. He now lives and works in New York. Paul’s first art book, Pulphope: The Art of Paul Pope, came out as a 224-page hardcover in June 2007.

• Interviewee: Terry Moore | bio

  Terry Moore is a comic book author,
  graphic novelist and illustrator. He
  created the popular series Strangers in Paradise, and was involved in the
  founding of Homage Comics. Following
  the example of independent comic
  creator Jeff Smith, he decided to publish Strangers in Paradise himself through his own Houston-based Abstract Studios imprint. His work has won him recognition in the comics industry, including
  receiving the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story. Terry’s latest selfpublishing venture, Echo, first appeared in March, 2008, quickly becoming a top seller.

• Interviewee: Lucy Caswell | bio

  Lucy Caswell is Professor and Curator of The Ohio State University Cartoon Library & Museum, the world’s largest treasury of cartoon art. Lucy founded the Cartoon Library
  and Museum in 1977 with a collection from Milton Caniff [Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates.] Most recently, the library acquired
  thousands of original Dick Tracy drawings, a story board done by Walt Disney for one of his first Mickey Mouse cartoons, and the Mort Walker collection [Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois.] She is the author of several books on cartooning, including Illusions: Ethnicity in American Cartoon Art (Ohio State Libraries, 1992) and Arnold Roth: Free Lance
  (Fantagraphics, 2001)

• Interviewee: Jim Kammerud | bio

  Jim Kammerud is a director, writer, and producer of animated feature films. Most recently, he directed Disney's funny and heartwarming musical, The Fox and the Hound
  2. Jim made his directorial debut in 2000 with The Little Mermaid: Return to the Sea, wrote
  and directed the animated sequel 101
  Dalmatians 2: Patch's London Adventure, then co-wrote and co-produced Tarzan 2. Jim has
  either been a writer or developed the story for all the motion pictures he's directed or produced. A successful entrepreneur, Jim is the sole owner of Hot Donut Productions,
  the studio he started in 2004 to create the story reel and pre-production for The Fox and
  the Hound 2. Previously he was president and co-founder of Character Builders, an animation studio with a reputation for high quality feature animation, earning credits on over a dozen films, including Space Jam.

• Interviewee: Marty Fuller | bio

  Marty Fuller is a story artist and animator who has worked on over 20 feature-length films with
  Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Disney and others, contributing most recently to Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who! and the upcoming Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs for Blue Sky Studios. Shortly after graduating from The Ohio State University with a film
  degree in 1983, he joined a studio
  collaboration with Jeff Smith and Jim Kammerud, which opened roads toward becoming a sought-after animation and story artist in his own right. In his spare time he enjoys his
  family, music, and writing.

• Interviewee: Steve Hamaker | bio

  Steve Hamaker is the creative force behind BONE’s dramatic transition from black & white to color. Born and raised in Michigan, Steve graduated from the Columbus College of Art &
  Design in 1997, and worked as a toy designer until 2000 when he began working for Cartoon Books. After having learned to color digitally on
  the BONE comic book covers, he was given the epic task of coloring Jeff Smith’s 1300 page BONE story, published by Scholastic Books. Steve has been nominated for the Eisner
  Award three times in the Best Coloring category. Steve continues to work closely with Jeff Smith at Cartoon Books creating and publishing new comics, including RASL.
  When time allows he self-publishes his own comic book series called Fish N Chips, and contributes to the comic anthology series Flight.

• Interviewee: Vijaya Iyer | bio

  Vijaya Iyer orchestrates the business behind Jeff Smith’s publishing empire as the President of Cartoon Books and, not coincidentally, is married to Jeff. Vijaya had graduated from The
  Ohio State University and was enjoying a successful career as a programmer for a software company when, in 1992, Jeff convinced her to join the company as partner to handle publishing and distribution, licensing, and foreign language publications. Today, Vijaya is enjoying the challenges of bringing
  BONE to new generations of fans worldwide, and managing releases of Jeff’s newest comic creation, RASL.

• Interviewee: Kathleen Glosan | bio

  Kathleen Glosan is the Production Manager for Jeff Smith's publishing company, Cartoon Books. She keeps all the plates spinning in the
  day-to-day, detailed operation of the studio and its varied publishing, products and public relations activities. In addition to appearing in
  The Cartoonist, Kathleen coordinated many requests and resources between Cartoon Books and the film production team.

Crew

• Director: Ken Mills | bio

  The film’s director, Ken Mills, president of Columbus-based Mills James Productions, has always loved a good story. Throughout the course of his career, the Emmy-award winning writer/director has
  worked in virtually every facet of the media business – television news, documentaries, radio, nature films, commercials, infomercials, public television pledge specials, a weekly public television series and more.
  But his major focus for the last 25 years has been the growth of Mills James Productions, the company he co-founded with partner Cameron James. With buildings packed with studios, edit suites, cutting edge gear and a staff of 140 – writers,
  producers, directors, DPs, art directors, editors and composers – Mills James resembles a scaled-down version of the classic Hollywood studio. The employee-owned firm produces commercials, original television productions,
  documentaries, infomercials, corporate videos, interactive media and special events. Two Mills James half-hour television series are currently airing on TV stations around the country. The Piano Guy with Scott Houston, a multiple Emmy Award-winning how-to program, airs nationally on public television, and Cash Explosion Double Play, the
  Ohio Lottery’s weekly game show, is broadcast Saturday evenings on an 11-station network in Ohio and West Virginia.

Bonus Features

• Cast Interviews

Accolades