Boneville.com is a blog for graphic novels and comics by Bone author Jeff Smith. He does of course hawk his merchandise, but he also provides information about graphic novels as literature. He includes a link to a guide for teachers and school librarians on using graphic novels in the classroom.
Many school and public librarians still consider graphic novels mere fluff and not worthy of being included in a serious library collection. Using the popularity of the Bone series of graphic novels and blogging Smith presents graphic novels as a legitimate form of literature; and anyone who has read even one of the Bone books will agree with him.
Besides the blog Smith includes a view of his studio, a discussion board, a forum for contacting the author and most impressive; the story of how, back in 1991, Jeff Smith started his own publishing house because no existing publishers would touch the story about the three Casper-like cousins and their adventures, especially in its comic book format. He succeeded because of the burgeoning power of the internet. "Grass roots support for Bone started on the Internet. It was one of the first comics to benefit from the new network of comics web chat rooms that were springing up all over the globe. For the first time in history, word-of-mouth could spread around the world at the speed of light." One of Bone's taglines even slipped into everyday computer speak; "Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures", a phrase used repeatedly to describe the vicious, not-so-smart giant rats that populate Bone's world, was adopted as on-line jargon to refer to inept end-users.
Boneville.com is a great introduction to the world of graphic novels and probably more than you will ever want to know about Jeff Smith.
The link for the blog is:
http://www.boneville.com/
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