Customer Reviews

Maakies

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tony Millionaire's MAAKIES is a nonpareil in comics -- the wittiest, most surreal dark humor I've seen since Elzie Segar's Popeye. There is nothing arch or arty about this stuff either -- it will offend and scandalize the pure of heart as sublime comics should. The draughtsmanship is breathtaking, on a par with anything Hal Foster (of Prince Valiant fame) or Walt Kelly ever did, but that's the least of it. The wit is gin-soaked and angry, shot through with genuine pathos and not a thimbleful of sentiment. By the time you encounter Uncle Gabby the ape charging a platoon of Napoleonic alligators with his head on fire, yelling "I'm a barrel full of hate boys, open me up!" you'll know if this painful hangover cure is for you or if you'd rather just curl up and gurgle with "Mutts Vol II."

The unbound joy and glee released upon these 136 pages should make any die-hard smirkin' sarcastic fool smile.

For those of you unfamiliar with Drinky Crow and his faithful side-kick, Uncle Gabby, they have graced the panels of Tony Millionaire's "MAAKIES" cartoon strip since 1994. Drinky Crow is an alcoholic and suicidal crow and his stovetop hat-wearing ape friend, Uncle Gabby, is often the "Costello" to Drinky's "Abbott."

They are found at sea or on land, misguidedly navigating one another through mishaps and adventures of folly for drink, food, drink, gold and women. Oh yes, and they do "likes to drink a bit."

The penmanship of Tony Millionaire is to be marvelled upon in the depth of his inking styles and his ability to create characters and atmospheres appropriate to his story lines. The overall feel of these strips is reminiscent of the classic early 20th Century work of Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland."

And the stories tend to make one wonder what sort of mind came up with some of these plots and twists of thought that land Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow in so many hilarious, yet dubious circumstances.

It is absolutely amazing what Tony Millionaire's imagination can do to a stuffed crow and a former sock monkey. And we're glad he does. Welcome to the wild and tipsy world of MAAKIES.

I read this book last summer and I found it so uproariously hysterical that I decided to get up and fix myself another drink instead of shooting myself in the head. Such is the power of Tony Millionaire's Maakies. Yes, a comic book saved me from depression.

What's the secret behind Millionaire's unique formula? Suicide+alcoholism+naval battles=comedy? William S. Burroughs+Walt Disney+Herman Melville? The artwork, which is fairly detailed and traditional, and the cute characters act as a deceptive foil to the dirty jokes and ultraviolence that usually occur by the third or fourth panel of each strip. Maakies is a world constantly flipping back and forth between surreal poetic whimsy and scatalogical tomfoolery, innocent beauty and profane nastiness waltzing together in the ballroom of the subconscious.

Tony Millionaire's vision is equal parts Albrecht Durer, Roy Crane, and Lee Marvin. This book is alternately lyrical, tender, savage, sweet, and extremely, extremely funny all throughout. He is a great artist, as anyone who reads the New Yorker knows.I cannot reccommend this book enough.

Maakies is easly one of the all time greatest comic strips. Besides being beautifully drawn the strips wander drunkenly from lyric beauty to mind-numbing cruidity to nameless horror. There is no other source of such consistent humor, strangeness and unease. Gabby and Drinky Crow say the things you only think about saying as well as things you would rather not even think about let alone ever say.
How creative and uniques is Maakies? I have not once managed to describe it properly to any of my friends and have always had to give them the book so they can see for themselves.

Albrecht Durer, Roy Crane, Lee Marvin, George Herriman, Gertie The Dinosaur, the crack neighborhood two blocks away from Sesame Street, W.C. Fields on a drinking binge, George Dickel, Walt Disney, Bill Hicks, Roberto Begnini, Buster Keaton, Federico Fellini, Rabelais, Voltaie, e. e. cummings and Jingolini, the clown king of the Italian bull fighters.

Okay, Tony, now please give that case of beer back to me.

I came to this collection of Tony Millionaire's weekly comic strip through my love of his classic Dark Horse comic book, Sock Monkey, which preserves Millionaire's Victorian settings and his astounding artwork but in which the humor is ordinarily innocent except for a mordant twist at the end that you wouldn't want to show your kids. The relative purity of the rest of the humor in Sock Monkey made the horror at the end more wrenching. It gives Sock Monkey a unique flavor, but even so, the horror is not a large part of the book. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Millionaire's weekly comic strip, which I had expected to be skewed to a larger audience than the comic book, was as bleak and nasty as the final panels of a Sock Monkey story, and frequently far worse.

Maakies is a collection of wonderfully drawn stories about the self-loathing alcoholic Drinky Crow and his vulgar monkey companion Uncle Gabby, who wallow in drink and degradation except when they screw up and kill themselves. Despite the unremitting horrors they experience, from venereal disease to death at the hands of their nautical enemies the French crocodiles, Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby wittily rue their drinking and keep their chins up. The juxtaposition of the old-style art and old-time British nautical themes and language with gore, death, and nastiness is more eerie than funny, but is highly compelling in a guilty sort of way.

Maakies is definitely not for all audiences, or, I would imagine, even most audiences. I suggest reading Sock Monkey first. If you think Sock Monkey is fine but does not go far enough, then try Maakies.

This is in my opinion the best collection of Maakies comics. It's not as pretty as the later Chip Kidd bindings, but easier to handle.

I was REALLY plasterred when I read this, but I remember thinking it was funny, or maybe that was just the seizures coming back.

Regardless. If I hadn't spilled whiskey all over it, I could tell you how beautiful the artwork is, i think; If I had the money, I'd buy a new one, but again, I spilled the whiskey, and I need more before the DTs catch up with me.