Faith Erin Hicks told Publishers Weekly at this year's San Diego Comic-Con that she has read Jeff Smith's independent comics classic, Bone, "many, many times" adding that, "(his) influence on my work can't (be) overstated." She says Smith's Bone helped inspire her to become a cartoonist herself. When Hicks found Bone, "it was like light struck my brain. Finally here are comics that are made for me as a reader." So it was like "some crazy dream come true" when MacMillan's First Second Books, her publisher for the upcoming graphic novel, Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, told her that Smith would be interviewing her at this year's Comic Con International: San Diego.
Smith told the audience that Hicks has had an influence on his work as well. When he starts serializing his web comic, Tuki Saves the Humans (announced at WonderCon in April), he’s "planning to do the Faith Erin Hicks model." The project will be posted in "seasons that will run for five weeks" with a one to two month break in between.
Although, the conversation kept turning back to the web comics model and how cartoonists can best profit off of it, the cartoonists got plenty of chances to talk about their craft. After Hicks stated that her web comic, Superhero Girl (which was recently collected in a hardbound book by Dark Horse), was her attempt to "make superhero comics for me," Smith commented that that's why audiences respond so strongly to her work—because they can see her investment in it, adding "in order to go though that much process and that much work - it's got to be something you're into."
In addition to Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, which was published in May by First Second, Hicks just finished a licensed comics adaptation for Dark Horse, called The Last of Us: American Dreams, a 4-issue miniseries prequel to the videogame of the same name written by Neil Druckmann. It's the story of a teen girl living in an urban world devastated by a zombie-like apocalyse. The fourth issue is slated for release this week and the series will be released as a trade paperback in the Fall. IDW is also slated to release the Bone Artists Edition, a full-size edition of Smith's iconic book reprinting the original art, although no release date has been set.
