When We Were Very Maakies
Instead of a review, it is tempting to simply reprint Dave Eggers' introduction to the latest gathering of Millionaire's raunchy comic stripMaakies. Eggers' spiel is only oneBooklist-review-sizeparagraph long and says true things about artist and strip. Perhaps two questions and answers are the truest, though: "Do his strips make sense? Often they do. Are they sometimes puerile? We know that they are and are thankful for this." Conversely, of course, some strips seem senseless and most, pretty darned adult (i.e., postpubertal puerile). Regularly, they are gory, violent, revolting, and, above all, absurd. In them society is a dunghill; people are witless, faithless sadists; and life is nasty, brutal, and, alas, inescapable (witness the main characters' repeated suicides--and resurrections). But the rolling seas and towering clouds, the three-masted ships that sail on the one and beneath the other, the gardens and butterflies, the sweeping landscapes--all gorgeously drawn--amid which the maladventures of Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby, Millionaire's alcoholic antiheroes, frequently unfold, betray a romantic sensibility of heartbreaking intensity.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved