Plan B Games PBG60030EN Tuki, Mixed Colours

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I highly recommend reading both Tuki: Fight for Fire and Tuki: Fight for Family. These are two very entertaining graphic novels that feature great stories and amazing artwork. Make sure you read to the end of each book. There is so much great information and bonus material on what Tuki is based on, storyboards with artist edition notes, Jeff Smith stories, and more. The Old One and Tuki also meet other human species during this fantasy prehistoric story. They meet three children who bond with all of them. The children are the glue that holds them all together. Both Tuki and the old Habiline care for the kids in their own way. The children help Tuki and the other species to put aside their differences as they battle animal Gods, other human species, and long tooths. The idea behind the story is a fascinating one. 2 million years ago several species of hominines lived together in Afrika - the last branches of the australopithecines and several species of Homo: habilis and erectus. What if these species interacted? How would they be able to communicate? Would they share spiritual beliefs and convictions? Would they exchange technology? Here the Habilenes see the usage of fire as an affront to the spiritual forces, something to be eradicated. The lead character represents the most advanced humans of that time, and his greatest innovation and advantage over the older ones is the most celebrated of man’s early accomplishments, the discovery of fire. In Greek myth, where it’s most famous, man stole it from the gods. Here it’s taboo for one branch and a tool for another. The way they interact over this is fascinating. Often, especially today, ideologies often seem insurmountable obstacles. Here they’re at best temporary inconveniences. Anyway, Smith’s third great comic delves into the distant past. As much as science has explored human lineage, the arts haven’t really touched it. The central premise of Tuki, then, is pretty radical, to imagine what it would have been like for early man, in the several varieties that would have coincided two million years ago. Perhaps more interestingly, because he’s writing for readers now, obviously, Smith has to make it intelligible for us, and in simplifying relations between competing branches of our ancestors he actually elucidates on something else entirely: extreme clashes of ideology.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See other authors with similar names. But in this book it felt very surfacey. It's not groups of different evolutionary phases interacting, it's one person from each (apart from the three siblings from one phase), so it seems less urgent and dynamic. It comes across as, one guy is afraid of fire, and another is comfortable with it.Smith has a talent for making very real, very relatable characters. I don't care how long ago this setting is, I can still relate. They are thrown into a setting the Smith knows and has built. It is hard for me to put it into words exactly, but it is masterful storytelling. Especially for the comic/graphic novel way of telling a story. The art is awesome. It is never too much or overpowering. Where in some comics they want to blow you away with some huge scene that looks cool (and it can be at times), nothing here is like that. I love everything about the art and the panels and how it all flows. Tuki: Fight for Fire and Tuki: Fight for Family are two terrific graphic novels. Thank you NetGalley, Kathleen Glosan, and Jeff Smith for the advanced reader copies of both books. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them! The artwork and awesome stories compliment each other very well. I was hooked from the start of Book One.

It’s probably not even the point Smith was trying to make, if he’s trying to make one at all. But the best storytelling does this sort of thing as a matter of course. In 1992, Jeff’s wife Vijaya Iyer joined the company as partner to handle publishing and distribution, licensing, and foreign language publications. In the Spring of 2005, Harry Potter’s U.S. publisher Scholastic entered the graphic novel market by launching a new imprint, Graphix with a full color version of BONE: Out from Boneville, bringing the underground comic to a new audience and a new generation.

Tuki is the hero of these journey quest stories. His tale begins at the dawn of humanity. Where food and water are both scarce. He’s a cross between Tarzan and an unlikely hero type or a ronin who roams the jungle and plains in search of the mother herd of all buffalo. The magic aspects didn't seem to do anything other than allow the different characters to speak to each other, and the villains never felt like they were a threat or that they should be perceived as anything other than a nuisance. And the monkey like creature felt like "What if Futurama's Nibbler was in this story for no apparent reason?" Jeff Smith is the man. I don't know what else I can say. I loved Bone: The Complete Edition and I am already very much enjoying this. Jeff Smith is one of the best dialog writers in independent comics. Over twenty years after its publication, Bone, Vol. 1: Out from Boneville is still one of my top recommendations to people looking for an all-ages graphic novel. I thought RASL, Vol. 1: The Drift was an inventive multiverse sci-fi story for people looking to get away from Marvel & DC comics.