Issue #4 of Tüki Save The Humans, Jeff Smith’s saga of early humans and their migration, has been postponed from May to December due to a recurrence of an arm injury that creator Jeff Smith has been battling for a while.
“The past 12 months have been really busy,” says Smith, “and last month, after doing two issues of TUKI back to back, I noticed my arm was getting numb. I’ve had trouble with carpel tunnel syndrome before, and while I haven’t crossed the line, it’s not something I want to mess with.”
“I also have a secret project I’m working on that is adding to the workload,” he continued, “so I’ve decided the best thing to do was to slow down, move the book to where it will be best for TUKI. Sincere apologies to all of my readers, and I thank you for your patience. We plan to add a few surprises to the issue and hopefully the wait will be worthwhile!”
Tüki launched as a webcomic, with print issues following, and the third “season” wrapper a while ago.
While this is disappointing news, any “secret project” from Smith is exciting.
When Jeff Smith launched his new webcomic, Tüki Save the Humans last fall there was a lot of excitement over a cartoonist of Smith’s stature trying to webcomic-to-print model for a new series. And while the strip itself—which is about the first humans to leave Africa, and the evolution of the various species of humans—is as stunning as you’d expect being from Smith, the interface for the comic itself was…well, it would have been a little dusty for Geocities.
The reception was mixed.
BUT, not only has Smith been continuing on with the comic—he just wrapped the first “episode” — but the entire Cartoon Books website has been redesigned. And now you can read Tüki in the easy-navigation, wide screen format it always needed.
And…it’s an amazing story—nominated for a Reuben Award—with humor, fantasy, mystery, danger and everything you’ve come to expect from a Jeff Smith comic.
The first episode will be released as a print comic in B&W in July. But the color on the web version is spectacular. The Boneville folks acknowledge that the launch was “slightly disappointing.”
“When TUKI began, we redesigned the site for the occasion. Unfortunately, our roll out made Healthcare.gov look good,” said Smith in a statement. “Still, like Rasl, our motto is: It’s never too late to fix it! We listened to our readers and came up with what we hope is a better experience for reading BONE, RASL, and TUKI.”
The new season of TUKI Save the Humans (or TUKI for short) will begin May 16th, with updates every Monday and Friday.
Straight from the offices of Publishers Weekly, it’s More to Come! Your podcast source of comics news and discussion starring The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald.
In a More To Come interview special episode, Heidi talks with acclaimed indie comics creator Jeff Smith about his Eisner-winning kids’ fantasy epic Bone, his adult sci-fi tale RASL, the advantages and difficulties of being your own publisher, his new Paleolithic webcomic Tuki Save The Humans and much, much more on this episode of Publishers Weekly’s graphic novel podcast. in this podcast from PW Comics World.
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I waited until the first run was finished to read TUKI, and am glad I was patient. Great stuff from Smith and Hamaker.