Der Struwwelmaakies [Hardcover]

Tony Millionaire (Author)

Book Description

Series: Maakies | Publication Date: June 27, 2005

A new hardcover collection of one of America's most popular weekly comic strips. Tony Millionaire's Maakies is one of the best and most popular weekly comic strips in America, running in over a dozen of the largest U.S. weekly newspapers including the New York Press, L.A Weekly and Seattle's The Stranger. Maakies features the comical adventures of a drunken crow on the high seas, blending vaudeville-style humor and a breathtaking line that harkens back to the glory days of the American comic strip. Designed by publishing's foremost graphic designer, Chip Kidd, Der Struwwelmaakies is our third annual hardcover collection and features over two years' worth of Maakies in a beautiful, deluxe, landscape hardcover format that complements the strip's elegant and classical style.

Reading Maakies is like reading a beautifully illustrated diary. If you pay attention you can watch the evolution of the cartoonist as he grows from a drunken penniless ne'e'r-do-well to a drunken million-dollar-less som'tim's-do-well. This book collects the latest of Tony Millionaire's weekly strips, wherein Drinky Crow, as always, steals the show.

Maakies suggests a contemporary collaboration between E.C. Segar, creator of Popeye, and seafaring novelist Patrick O'Brian (Master and Commander). Millionaire has won multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards and Maakies has appeared as a series of animated segments on NBC's Saturday Night Live. He is also the creator of the popular Sock Monkey series of comics and children's books.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Like the titles of The House at Maakies Corner (2002) and When We Were Very Maakies (2004), that of the third Maakies collection parodies a historic children's book, Der Struwwelpeter, a nineteenth-century German collection of cautionary tales in verse, best known for its unsettling cover illustration (an icon for comics artists) of a boy with unkempt hair and curly, overgrown nails. Standing in for "Sloppy Peter" on this book's cover are Maakies' alcoholic, superslob antiheroes, Uncle Gabby (a monkey) and Drinky Crow. Moreover, the latest gathering of Millionaire's outrageously scabrous, consummately politically incorrect comic strip sees the duo come--time and again, and one or the other--to much the same end as Struwwelpeter, whose fingers are eventually chopped off. For as you might expect of antiheroes nonpareil, Gabby and Drinky are virtually incapable of success and wind up shot, stabbed, hung, and otherwise rendered food for worms. Which doesn't keep them from coming back for more abuse and further raunchy, unspeakably fatalistic shenanigans. Not for the kids. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

A great master of the old-time freewheeling comic strip; this work takes full-advantage of every last bit of the medium. -- Publishers Weekly starred review

Buy this damned collection, a priceless 91-strip artifact....a gem of outrage in a sea of vacuous noise. -- Rain Taxi

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (June 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976543
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976547
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 4.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,560,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in the fishing town of Gloucester Massachusetts, a town full of fishermen and seascape painters. My grandparents were artists, they taught me how to use ink pens and oil paint. My grandpop showed me lots of old newspaper comics he had saved, old ones, Roy Crane, Lionel Feininger, Winsor McKay. When I was in college I discovered R. Crumb and S. Clay Wilson. I drew a lot of perverted comics, until one day I discovered George Herriman, the grandfather of American comics. The true master. People often ask me if comics are "art." Whatever, I don't care what you call them, but when you're immersed in a collection of Herriman Sundays you understand what they're getting at.
I love funny comics but I love moving, emotional, poetical comics, too. Preferably a mixture of both.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes me laugh when nothing else will., March 8, 2007

By 

balutakat "balutakat" (Hamtramck, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Der Struwwelmaakies (Hardcover)

You know that point in feeling despair when you've had enough of crying and you want to laugh again but everything seems cheesy to you? This book is not the cure, but part of the prescription for angst. It is so awful, so sick, so beautifully drawn, so unexplainable to your friends...just like your life is, sometimes. Tony Millionaire in his brighter moments (i.e. "Glass Doorknob") is the thing to read when you're a little down. Tony Millionaire in Der Struwwelmaakies is the one to read when you are deep in the hole. I laughed out loud so much my landlord actually came to ask what was so funny. (He didn't get it.) I bought the whole series and keep in by my bedstand in case of emergencies. I make sock monkeys, and I have seen his influence.

0 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for fans of Millionaire's Sock Monkey, or his other (better) work, January 14, 2008

By 

James Huff (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Der Struwwelmaakies (Hardcover)

While I love some of Millionaire's other books, notably the Sock Monkey books (see The Collected Works of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey, or Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey: Uncle Gabby), Der Struwwelmaakies was a huge disappointment. The best thing about the book is the cover art. Inside, the illustrations are largely uninspired--definitely not Millionaire's best work. What's far worse, however, is the tone of the "humor" that dominates the comics. Mostly the "jokes" are crude, crass, juvenile, unfunny cracks based on bodily functions and misogyny. While I understand that Millionaire may have been after a certain effect in an attempt to push the envelope (especially given the social-outcast or rebel tradition of the Struwwelpeter from which this book's title is adapted), the problem is that these comics are just not funny. Nor are they insightful, interesting, or thought-provoking in any other way. It's a shame Millionaire wasted the brilliant Struwwelpeter-inspired cover on this collection of trash.

If I had to chose one word to describe the book, it would be "immature." It reads like a collection of sketches drawn by a troubled 13-year-old. And I do mean troubled--if my kid drew these, I'd seek counseling for him. (I say "him" because misogyny is a common theme in these comics.)

Bottom line: a huge disappointment for fans of Millionaire's other, less crass (and more interesting) works.