Customer Reviews

Drinky Crow's Maakies Treasury

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maakies is brilliant & depraved, literate & stupid & hilarious. The artwork is glorious, timeless, ranging from intricately beautiful to laughably crude. I don't often laugh out loud at things I read, but Maakies makes me do it frequently.

I would recommend getting the original Maakies paperback collection (now out of print) if you can find one used for a good price. I own that volume, as well as "The House at Maakies Corner." The present volume, "Drinky Crow's Maakies Treasury" occupies about half of its bulk with repeats from these earlier collections.

So what, you may say, the older books are out of print, so it's perfectly legitimate to recycle some of those old strips in the new treasury. You've got a point there. What I take exception to, however, is the fact that there are several strips repeated WITHIN Drinky Crow's Treasury. Imagine reading along and getting the strangest sense of deja-vu, thinking to yourself "I've read this strip before ... not years ago, but mere minutes ago, 20 pages previously in the SELFSAME BOOK!" I object to Fantagraphics selling me multiple copies of the same cartoon. It makes sense only if Drinky Crow himself edited this collection, and I'm taking away a star because of it. Who put that drunken bird in charge??

This is my second Maakies book and I am once again incredibly impressed. Tony Millionaire is an absolutely, positively fearless writer/artist who takes amazing chances with his comics. The most innovative artists always run the risk of crashing and burning if their vision is unaccepted by the public and I won't lie and say that I loved every comic in this book. A series like Calvin and Hobbes or Bloom County might be amusing but they're very safe and cozy. For my money they're also not particularly funny, certainly not laugh out loud hilarious. Millionaire stomps on decorum and good taste with a style that is most definitely not for everyone. Personally I find a comic like Crankshaft to be as dull as dishwater but I don't begrudge people who enjoy it and many people will find Maakies repulsive and that's fine. I would rather read a comic that causes me to laugh out loud five percent of the time than one that is slightly amusing almost every time. Many of Millionaires comics might seem a bit overindulgent such as when he does nothing more than illustrate a poem or feature some drawings of houses but when Millionaire connects he can really belt it out of the ballpark. His comics are violent, profane, often sexist and occasionally border on racist but he certainly is self aware and even makes mention of the possibility that some comics might be perceived as racist.

With each book I become more of a fan of Tony Millionaires works. I had to laugh when he put an ad for his Sock Monkey books into the Maakies comics. The target audiences of Maakies and Sock Monkey are diametrically opposite (although having said that I confess that I've enjoyed both). In fact there are quite a few plugs all through these comics including constant inclusions of his web address and a comic of Uncle Gabby coming across a Drinky Crow doll that is (or was) apparently available for sale. I might come down on Millionaire for his shameless plugging if it weren't for the fact that he's clearly completely nuts. Whenever these ads are slipped in Millionaire will always include a small comic beneath featuring his editor yelling at him for blatant self promotion.

Millionaire's art has this bizarre tension between soulless and soulful. Uncle Gabby, Captain Maak and the Captains Daughter are drawn without pupils giving them a vacant otherworldly appearance while Drinky Crow is perpetually blitzed and generally has X's for eyeballs. Their inhumanity is bolstered by their imperviousness to death (or perhaps refusal to remain deceased). In one comic Uncle Gabby might have his spine ripped from his body or Drinky Crow might have his head blown off but as sure as the sun rises they'll be back fit as a fiddle in the next comic. In many ways the main characters are presented as grotesque monstrosities. In contrast Millionaire often places them in lovely backdrops including beautiful schooners sailing on rolling waves and Millionaire has a great talent at drawing ships, architecture and landscapes. As mentioned earlier Millionaire will sometimes produce a strip with no jokes at all and just a demonstration of his artistic skills.

I love these books and wish more people could be introduced to Tony Millionaire. One thing I want to point out is that there are quite a few overlaps between this book and "Premillennial Maakies". I guess MAYBE I can accept that but there is at least one comic strip that is literally duplicated is this book. I give this book top marks and look forward to getting more.