Just a quick note to anyone who’s curiosity was piqued with my last Be Aware entry, the One Volume (1,300-pages!) Edition of Jeff Smith’s seminal BONE will be available again in its original black and white format this September. From the official site:

BONE ONE VOLUME EDITION - Available Again In September 2006

(Columbus, OH - June 27, 2006) This September will see the return of one of the most popular graphic novels of recent years, the BONE: One Volume Edition.

The massive five-pound, 1300 page paperback, by Jeff Smith, is being brought back by popular demand. The paperback tome, which originally retailed at $39.95 and has been out of print for more than a year, regularly sells for $100+ on e-bay.

The return was made possible by an arrangement between Cartoon Books and Scholastic/Graphix, the current publisher of BONE.

The original black & white BONE: One Volume Edition debuted at Comic-Con International in San Diego 2004 and sold 50,000 copies before being taken out of print the following year to make way for Scholastic’s full color versions.

With the tremendous success of the full-color books (Graphix, Scholastic’s Graphic Novel imprint has sold more than a million copies to date of the newly-colored BONE books), both Scholastic and Cartoon Books felt there was enough room on bookstore shelves for two versions.

David Saylor, Creative Director said, “In view of the historical significance of the black & white collections, we wanted to work with Jeff and Vijaya to bring the One Volume back.”

The One Volume Edition has been named one of the ten greatest graphic novels of all time by TIME Magazine, Book of the Year by The Comics Journal, and earned a starred review in Publishers Weekly.

Vijaya Iyer, Co-founder and Publisher of Cartoon Books explained the indy company’s motives, “We noticed that while BONE now has a significant presence in the children’s section of bookstores, it was mostly absent in the adult graphic novel section. With the re-release of the One Volume Edition, we hope to fill that void.”

Cartoonist Jeff Smith summed up his feelings this way: “I’m thrilled. The BONE: One Volume Edition is my baby, and I’m glad to have it back.”