Maakies

Maakies #1

by Tony Millionaire, Andy Dick (Introduction)

Collecting the first five years of the world's most riotous comic strip. 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 Village Voice, L.A Weekly and Seattle's The Stranger . The strip is currently being developed for the Cartoon Network's popular Adult Swim. 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, Premillennial Maakies is a newly designed edition of the long out-of-print first Maakies collection, featuring the first five years of the strip, re-formatted in a beautiful, deluxe, landscape hardcover format that complements the strip's elegant and classical style.

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 and Billy Hazelnuts books.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Comic Strips, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Cartoon

130 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2000

About the author

Tony Millionaire was born in Boston and grew up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, by the sea. He attended the Massachusetts College of Art for three and three quarters of a year and resigned.

He writes and draws the ongoing adventures of Sock Monkey, published by Dark Horse Comics since 1998.

He is the creator of the syndicated comic strip, Maakies, which has run in weekly newspapers across the country begininning with The NY Press in 1994 and has been collected by Fantagraphics, who also published his graphic novels, Billy Hazelnuts and Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird.

His work has garnered him five Eisner Awards, three Harvey Awards, and an Ignatz Award.

His comic strip Maakies was adapted to the small screen in 1998 for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and in 2008 as THE DRINKY CROW SHOW for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, which is now in repeats and available at www.adultswim.com.

His illustrations appear in publications around the globe including THE BELIEVER, THE NEW YORKER and THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. He illustrated many record covers including THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS “Then; The Earlier Years,” JON SPENCER’S “Going Way Out With Heavy Trash,” JOLIE HOLLAND’S “Pint of Blood,” and ELVIS COSTELLO’S “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane,” and recently ELVIS COSTELLO’S “National Ransom,” to be released in the US in November.

He now lives in Pasadena, CA. with his wife, the actress Becky Thyre and their two daughters.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

ALCOHOLISM: A FRESH PERSPECTIVE

ALCOHOL, for all its poor press, can be an absolute HOOT. Too often, liquor's bounty of positive qualities are overlooked by the masses. For example, it motivates us to spend more time OUTDOORS in the fresh air…


…and it is instrumental in helping us meet new and INTERESTING people.


Heavy alcohol use can even provide one with a certain DISTINGUISHED and MATURE appearance that normally would take one decades to achieve:


And all of these amazo aspects are but minor rest stops on that wonderful life-long journey to a magical place I like to call Rock Bottomville…

….Man does that bring back lack of memories of the good old days!!!

Well, for those interested in embracing the beauty of booze, NO ONE celebrates the lighter and brighter side of this hysterical disease life choice than Tony Millionaire’s MAAKIES, featuring his pair of potted pals UNCLE GABBY and DRINKY CROW. Tony takes a skewed and skewering view of the world and pulls no punches while presenting the world with an original and though-provoking philosophy of a better life through heavy constant drinking.

From his keen, insightful commentary on alcohol’s ability to help one cope with the mind-numbing, pain-filled horror show known as life…


…to his stinging attacks on conformity and praise for those who take the road less traveled (and more wobbled).


Now, I should point out that not everything in this book is piercing piece of modern philosophy. Truth be told, many of the comic strips in this collection range anywhere from…well…poor taste…to really bad taste….to truly shitty taste. For example:
POOR TASTE


…and… REALLY BAD TASTE


…and finally… TRULY SHIITTY TASTE


However, throughout the ups and downs, highs and lows, vomits and defecations (yep, that’s right…be on guard for a full scale POOP alert), Mr. Millionaire is consistent in keeping his characters DRUNK, LEWD and STUPID while doing some frightfully inappropriate things. How can you argue with that?

So break with convention, leave your preconceptions behind, crack open a fifth of yummy Scotchy Scotch and spend some quality time with a duo of drinkers that know how to have a fun. Oh, and if you are worried about paying the price next day with the inevitable day after hangover, just remember:


P.S. (because I had two more pictures I really wanted to stick into this review) For those of you like me who are working drunks with kids, here are a couple of additional reading selections that might be of interest:

[Maricruz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Algunas tiras son de un humor tan tonto que te deja catatónico y otras son ofensivas de varias maneras distintas. De pronto te encuentras con inventos que son sublime poesía. El dibujo, como siempre, una delicia. Está claro que si no sabes lidiar con lo peor de Tony Millionaire, nunca vas a disfrutar de lo mejor.

[Jay Daze · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny alcoholic despair. As the child of an alcoholic the strip makes it almost as ugly, violent, and baroque as it should be.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of like a fusion of Bukowski and Winsor McCay, with a healthy dash of Gen-X nihilism. The artistry on display is genuinely incredible, and Drinky Crow is probably one of my all time favorite character designs, but it's a little too of it's time for me. Definitely an interesting and worthwhile cultural touchstone, though.

I will say, as far as 90's alt newspaper comics go, I like it better than Groening's Life in Hell.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to think of enough superlatives for Tony Millionaire's Maakies. Along with Patrick McDonnell's Mutts, Maakies is the only newspaper (or newsweekly) strip being published today that is worth reading. And having the first five years of Maakies to enjoy together in a single volume - this really is a special treat.[return][return]It's all here: the dismemberments, the drunkenness, the defecation, and even the alco-rocket. This type of crude humor is not unique or new, but it's rarely been handled by such an exquisite draftsman with such a finely honed sense of the surreal. The back of this volume features a blurb from The New York Times Book Review comparing Millionaire to George Herriman (creator of Krazy Kat), and the analogy could not be more appropriate. Like Herriman, Millionaire has no fear of working on the edge of sanity and taste, but unlike lessor talents, he's not there only because he has nowhere else to go. Maakies can be charming, philosophical, and sometimes even sappy, but it is more often violent, nihilistic, and just plain rude. Which is to say, it's brilliant. [return][return]For the Maakies enthusiast, this volume is indispensable. For everyone else, it's even more indispensable. This is the kind of free-thinking, genre-bending, gag-inducing art that the ayatollahs of every nation would prefer you didn't experience. So what are you waiting for?

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never seen Maakies in a newspaper or out in the wild. I also didn't realize Adult Swim did a season of TV based on the strip called Drinky Crow Show (I still need to try and find that online).

I've enjoyed Millionaire's graphic novels with Sock Monkey and Billy Hazelnuts. But this may be even better. Each strip is wonderful. It roughly follows the high-seas adventures of Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby (an equally drunk primate). Most of the strips are 4 panels with a gag and a punchline. But there are a lot of experimental strips as well.

Millionaire is also a phenomenal draftsman. His ships are beautifully rendered. This ranks as some of my favorite comic strips and even across over 200 strips I never found myself bore

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most unrepentantly debauched collections of comic strips I've ever read. Tony Millionaire goes there... and when you think he's he's squeezed the last possible laugh out of a taboo subject, he squeezes harder and goes further. Certainly not a collection for the faint of heart, nor for those who easily offend. Millionaire's art is amazing. His depictions of landscapes and seacraft are without par. This saves a fair number of strips where the humor just doesn't come together -- even when the joke falls flat on its face, there's still the artwork to admire. A bit of raucous, dirty, and tasteless fun.

[Loree · Rating 5 out of 5]

harsh humor herein

[Peacegal · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you're down...and troubled...and you need a helping hand...
Just crack open a Maakies collection.

[Jon Hewelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Short of It: Filthy. Offensive. Fun.

I like Adult Swim quite a bit and admire their ethos enough to give any show they air a fair shake. But back in the day I wasn't so open-minded. To a young Jon, most of Adult Swim's program seemed bizarre (which I was open to) and excessively gross (which I wasn't). I stuck to my stable of Futurama, Family Guy and a few others, completely missing out on shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Superjail and The Drinky Crow Show.

The Drinky Crow Show was on TV for a VERY short amount of time, and what little of it I saw, I wasn't hip to. BUT! I did like the animation style, which led me to this treasury. By the time I bought this book I was more down with gratuitous, offensive, scatological humor. AND I still liked the art. I'd found some of Tony Millionaire's work in a couple of comics anthologies, including Art Spiegelman's Little Lit, and I was excited to finally experience the Millionaire's work wholesale.

Let me just say, the Maakies Treasury did not disappoint. I'm a huge fan of juxtaposing "high" and "low" brow art, and that is Tony Millionaire's bread and butter. Superb art is paired with the basest, most juvenile, most politically incorrect humor imaginable. And, for me at least, it works. I'm not bothered by offensive jokes all that much. And I also like things related to the seafaring life: The Misadventures of Flapjack, set primarily on the docks of some seaside town, is an absurdist classic, in my opinion. Ergo, there's something quite delightful about beautifully-rendered ships alongside swarthy (though no less beautifully-rendered) sea dogs cursing like, well, sailors and making off-color humor.

Add to this that not every strip is filthy. Some strips are just showcases for breathtaking artistic talent. Others display snippets of poetry, or philosophic musings. It's like finding a gem in a garbage dump. And I like both the gem and the dump.

There's plenty to offend in this Maakies Treasury, and there may be a strip or two that will really rub you the wrong way. (Also, and I don't know if this is a printing error, but a couple of strips show up multiple times). Nevertheless, I liked it, and I believe others should flip through, if only for Tony Millionaire's beautiful, brilliant artwork.

[XenofoneX · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maakies has lightened up over the years, but it began with an endlessly inventive array of gags involving booze, suicide, venereal diseases, booze, and a monkey named Uncle Gabby... who may or may not have been constructed using a sock. It's still the best argument for not completely writing off the newspaper comic-strip as long past its expiry date, but I miss the Maakies of old, when Tony Millionaire was a weird and angry enigma of semi-mythical dimensions, and the humor was so black that light could barely escape its gravitational pull.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another artist whose entire catalog is impeccable and something to strive for. I would buy a thousand of his books if only he could make so many. It would be impossible though if you look even at a glance at his beautifully ornate illustrations. Every back drop is a masterpiece and then you get his unmatched sense of humor! Whatever, alcoholic monkey and crow sailors fighting crocodile french armadas whilst pitching woo to ladies in funny. Time tested funny!

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like much of the art herein, and I like those twisted little stories of Drinky Crow and pals too. But I didn't know that his comic strip was a big deal, published in papers across the land, and I stupidly thought this was an obscure thing I came across just once and few people had ever heard of before. When the introduction is by fringe celebrity and human trainwreck Andy Dick, it makes me wonder if we're all collectively a little more nutsy than we should be.

[arterialturns · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember exactly when I started following the adventures of these gentle, seafaring folk, but it was sometime in the era this book encompasses. There are many I remember fondly, lots I didn't see, and it's cool to see the very early stuff change into what it looks like now (rather rapidly, too). Always great stuff. Beautiful, crude, profound, debauched, and really funny.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of Millionaire's alt newspaper weekly strip. Uneven. Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby (a monkey) have absurd and surreal adventures, often involving suicide and/or mutilation, not to mention being eaten, and bodily effluvia. It's usually beautifully drawn, but not always, and it's sometimes funny but more often juvenile, sophomoric, and/or just stupid.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

damn funny, and this is a collection of comic strips. my favorite is drinky crow. and i live the drawing style, black and white, crass hatching with feeling. and really funny. look it up online, search tony millionare; maakies.

[arterialturns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so Mr. Tony Millionaire hisself was in Seattle this past Saturday, and was kind enough to sign my copy of this book for me (replete with a mini-cartoon and all!), which I am uncommonly tickled pink about. Maakies is beautiful, cruel, and funny. Never a letdown.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Y'know, they're funny a week at a time, but, put together, they're just the charting of a mysoginist alcoholic. Also, I love puzzles, so I put together the Michael Jackson puzzle. Yuck.

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booze. Sailing. Romanticism. Booze. Crude Humor. Booze. This is a "no-brainer." I particularly like this volume because it's about twice the size of most of the other ones.

[arterialturns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maakies is dark, disgusting, hilarious, and-over all-beautiful. This guy could get away with almost any scenario with his art, and sometimes he does. I am a longtime fan.

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Carpe gutterem!"

[Peacegal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, Maakies, how can I describe thee? Victorian, nautical, demented, beautiful, self-destructive animal cartoons.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maakies is offensive and gross and I love it SO MUCH. Really. Just little doses of absurdity that I can't get enough of.

[Bria · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I quit drinking six months ago but I still seem to have a horrible hangover."
"Oh, that! That's just life!"
"Life?"
"Yes, remember? It is that feeling you tried to stop by drinking."

[Kyle Burley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe it's taken me 20 years to discover "Maakies", Tony Millionaire's brilliant Rabelaisian comic strip.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

The absolute no-bones-about-it peak of the comic strip as a fart form. Millionaire is a Watterson-Herriman lovechild with fetal alcohol syndrome, better than both his parents.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, most of the classix, was wondering why multiple strips are printed multiple times but no matter.

[Insert name here · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the art and design. The humor is... sometimes funny, sometimes juvenile. Equal parts humorous and eye-rolling, I'd say.

[Adam Flor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit was this funny. Sick and dark, but hilarious.