Tony Millionaire's When We Were Very Maakies
By LJ Douresseau
January 10, 2005 - 15:59
Fantagraphics Books
Writer(s): Tony Millionaire
Penciller(s): Tony Millionaire
ISBN: 1-56097-590-3
Fantagraphics Books now brings the best of America’s weekly comic strips, publishing them in book form for readers without access to cool weekly newspapers. Like their collections of KAZ’s Underworld humor strip, WHEN WE WERE VERY MAAKIES, is Fantagraphics Books’ latest collection (their second) of Tony Millionaire’s Maakies weekly humor strip.
Comics fans know Tony Millionaire from his Sock Monkey line of comics and children’s books published by Dark Horse Comics. Like Sock Monkey, Maakies is old-fashioned in both design and narrative. Though satire, social, and political commentary can be timeless, Millionaire’s satire is thoroughly modern with a wink to the past, in particular Thimble Theatre and Popeye creator E.C. Segar, a cartoonist to whom many compare Millionaire.
There is plenty of pointed political commentary and humor here, but no subject is safe from Millionaire’s wit and pen – sexual relationships, marriage, medicine, physicians, the environment, addiction, etc.; even the cartoonist is not safe from his own pen.
Ultimately, Maakies is just flat out funny, and no matter how talented a cartoonist is, he must make his humor strip… humorous. And this multiple Harvey and Eisner Award winner leaves us laughing for more. Plus, Chip Kidd designed this book, and its 12” x5” format is a perfect book size for reprinting comic strips. A-
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