Jim Ottaviani published his first graphic novel in 1997, and conceived the idea for "Bone Sharps" while working his day job as a librarian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Ottaviani's job included purchasing books for engineering topics, but a new book about the Bone Wars caught his eye. He bought the book himself and found himself fascinated by the rivalry between Cope and Marsh. He described his process as spending time doing research, before turning an outline and timeline into a structured story. Using the book as a starting point, Ottaviani read the accounts and biographies of Cope and Marsh as well as other period sources. During the course of his research Ottaviani found the then-unpublished autobiography of Charles Knight. The book inspired him to make the book into a work of historical fiction, something Ottaviani had not done in previous non-fiction books and comics on scientific figures. "I found the whole 'war' aspect the Bone Wars over-hyped," Ottaviani recalled. "These guys never came to blows, or even did anything that went very far beyond questionable ethics." In comparison to his previous works, Ottaviani called the scientists "the bad guys".