TUKI

Jeff Smith is off on another adventure, this time into the distant, prehistoric past, where his character, an African with the eponymous name Tuki, will become the first “hominid” to leave the parched and dying continent and “save the humans.” Smith confesses to a passion for paleontology that led him to do extensive research for this title, and he sprinkles helpful explanatory footnotes along the way.

In the first issue, Tuki forages for food and meets other humanoid creatures, and Smith exercises his admirable cartooning sense of visual play by devoting several panels hither and yon to depicting Tuki encountering new (and to him wonderful, full of wonder) experiences. To which he reacts with surprise and, often, comical suspicion. (Primitive man encounters flush toilet sort of thing; although Smith constructs much more realistic humorous situations.)

The interior pages of the book are printed sideways because Tuki’s first exploits took place online at the Boneville website, where the format is horizontal.

This’ll be a fun series because Smith knows how to use the medium to have fun himself with it—and that’ll keep us entertained, too.