"Maakies" [.]

[fiefoe]

Tony Millionaire's comic strip features an ape of a sailor, and a lush of a crow as his sidekick. The drawings are gorgeous. I like best the panel in which Millionaire pays tribute to Rube Goldberg, substituting whimsy with mayhem. In another, the opening panel shows a water-sprite on a lily-pad a la Maxfield Parrish. (The sprite didn't fare well.)

However, he only got a handful of chuckles out of me. Humor is a fragile thing, especially brutal humor - self-mutilation gets old fast. Would you laugh if you see the crow roasting his long-lost son over an open fire and congratulating himself on the benefits of being a direct descendant of dinosaurs? (Actually, I did.)

Perhaps the most light-hearted (this word is used advisedly) strip is about a seahorse who falls in love with a Viking longboat. The gallant proceeds to drill a hole in the bottom of the longboat - "We'll soon merge!" As the boat sinks, it crushes an eel who happens to swim by. Boat and eel end with a compromising position, and our betrayed seahorse hangs himself from a coral branch.

Other hits:
__ social moth
__ significant error
__ Man to wife: "If you're so fat, why don't you have any boobs?"
__ Doctor tells a frostbitten man and his wife he can re-attach his big toe but not his penis. The wife: "Will the toenails grow back?"
__ After shipwreck, the ape attempts to pry open a giant clam underwater: "Open up, chowderhead!! We need a vessel!" As the ape makes away with one shell, the little thingie inside the bottom shell shakes his fist angrily: 'Homewrecker!'
__ the ear mite who sings in German in the crow's 'Inner Ear Theater'
__ The man who is trapped in 10 seconds ahead is suddenly jerked from his hanging strap. Fellow train passengers exchange perplexed looks. Train hits bridge post.

cf: Mies van der Rohe