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 US weekly newspapers including the Village Voice, 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, When We Were Very Maakies is our second 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. Dave Eggers, the bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, contributes the introduction to When We Were Very Maakies. 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, and includes such gems as the story of a pregnant butterfly,a motorcycle-riding leprechaun and a worm who lives inside the bowels of a frozen dead monkey in a NASA space capsule orbiting the Orion constellation. Of course 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 line of comics and children's books.
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.
