RASL

After spending thirteen years building the innocent world of Bone, Jeff Smith did something that shocked his fans: he went dark. RASL is a lean, mean, black-and-white science fiction thriller about a dimension-hopping art thief with a death wish — and it won the 2014 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint.

The Story

RASL is a thief with a unique talent: he can “drift” between parallel universes. His specialty? Stealing priceless works of art from one dimension and selling them in another. It’s a perfect crime — until it isn’t.

On the run from a shadowy government agency called the “Section,” RASL drifts from world to world, each one slightly different from the last. But he’s not just fleeing — he’s searching. Haunted by a lost love and a failed experiment that killed his best friend, RASL drifts through the multiverse looking for a world where things turned out differently.

The story weaves together Tesla’s secret experiments with wireless energy, the Philadelphia Experiment, and theoretical physics into a pulpy, noir-infused narrative that unfolds in tight, cinematic panels. Smith’s black-and-white artwork has never been sharper — all stark shadows and kinetic action, closer to Frank Miller’s Sin City than anything in Bone.

Publication History

RASL was originally published as a 15-issue black-and-white comic book series from Cartoon Books between 2008 and 2012. Smith initially planned an oversized format but adapted to standard size after consulting with retailers.

The series was collected as a single-volume trade paperback (and hardcover) titled RASL: The Drift, published by Cartoon Books in 2013. The collection won the 2014 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint and is available in an oversized format that matches Smith’s original vision.

In 2020, Smith launched a successful Kickstarter for a deluxe edition of RASL, demonstrating that his post-Bone work had developed a passionate following of its own.

Why It Matters

RASL matters because it proved that Jeff Smith was not a one-hit wonder. After creating one of the best-selling independent comics of all time, he could have spent the rest of his career revisiting the Bone well. Instead, he built something entirely new — a sci-fi noir for adults that is darker, weirder, and more intellectually ambitious than anything he’d done before. It showed that the creativity behind Bone wasn’t a fluke; it was the work of a master storyteller who could tackle any genre.

Perfect for fans of Jeff Smith’s Bone, the multiverse fiction of Fringe and The OA, Philip K. Dick’s paranoid sci-fi, and film noir aesthetics.