2021 is a pretty big deal for Bone creator Jeff Smith as this summer marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the first issue of Bone. To mark this milestone, Smith has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his third creator-owned and self-published comic, Tuki. The campaign, which was launched on 4 May, will fund two different original black and white graphic novels that will be shipped this summer and fall.
Within 24 hours the campaign has already surpassed its set goal which was $20,000. Currently, it has garnered more than $112K funding and there’s no stopping to it! This in itself speaks volumes about the creator’s popularity among the comic book readers.
Back in 2013, Tuki was seen in a coloured webcomic format for a short period of time and later its print version was released which came to a halt in 2016. Jeff Smith is a well-known modern age cartoonist credited for his works including RASL, Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil, as well as co-founding Cartoon Crossroad Columbus.
Now Smith is ready to expand on the character and the world of two million BCE in two all-new graphic novels.
The campaign describes the world of Tuki as:
At the dawn of humanity, during a period of tremendous change and drought, three lost children meet a mysterious traveler named Tuki. Together, their search for the Mother herd of all Buffalo leads them far north through the dangerous territory of a rival species called the Habiline. The Habiline hunt and kill anyone found using fire. Tuki’s reputation precedes them and soon they find themselves at the center of unwanted attention not only from Habiline warriors but of gods and giants!
Speaking on Tuki’s creation, Smith said, “I’ve always been fascinated with human evolution, especially the point two million years ago when more than one species of human existed at the same time, this was also the moment we conquered fire. Our best party trick!”
He further added, “I started to play around with Tuki before COVID hit, but once the lockdown happened, I decided to dive in and focus on straightening out the story. I ended up with enough material for two books! It was friends from the old self-publishing days, the Tucci’s and the Pulido’s, who turned my wife Vijaya on to Kickstarter and persuaded us to give it a go. If all goes well, this could be the beginning of a new series! Come check us out! We have rewards that are super high on the neat-o scale!”
The Kickstarter campaign will fund two separate TUKI books, TUKI: Fight for Fire (shipping in July) and TUKI: Fight for Family (shipping in October). Both books will be black and white, oversized, and landscape formatted (11.375″ x 8.875″) with approximately 144 pages each with a bonus material stretch goal.
