Tony Millionaire speaks!

By: Chris Wyatt
Date: Sunday, August 04, 2002

With CINESCAPE present, an unexplained group called the "Society for the Preservation of Strawberries and Plums" hosted an "Evening with Tony Millionaire" this past Friday at San Diego's Comic Con. Millionaire, an author and cartoonist, is the creator of MAAKIES, a weekly comic strip and SOCK MONKEY, a comic book series that took home the coveted Eisner award. At the event, which was an intended as an informal tea party, we caught up with Millionaire about his new life as a children's author, and other projects.

"Would you like some ice tea?" shouts Millionaire. "I brought tea, well, my wife brought tea. Have you had your ice tea yet?"

In between running around and filling fan's plastic cups with tea, and offering fans fresh mint leaves, Millionaire had time to answer talk about his recently launched line of SOCK MONKEY children's books.

"Yes, definitely," says Millionaire. "I plan on making several more. The next one is shorter. The feedback I got from parents was that the book was too long. There were too many words on the page and kids were kind of loosing interest. So the next one has, literally, like two sentences on each page."

So what prompted Millionaire to make the charge from comics to children's books?

"Well, MAAKIES was a #1 thing and SOCK MONKEY was winning Eisner awards, but I looked around and I was still only making about 40,000 a year. So I thought, how can I make more money? That's how I figured I'd become a children's author."

Millionaire tries to make it sound like his creative decisions are entirely motivated by a cold hard desire for cash, but his casual charm forces him to slip and admit there was a little more to it.

With reference to children's literature he says: "I never really thought about things like that before my daughter was born. But, now I'm thinking about it."

Being a children's author won't stop Millionaire from producing his other work, including the much more adult-themed adventures of the MAAKIES.

"Yes, the next MAAKIES book will be a hardcover. That way I can make more money. Also, it will have fewer cartoons. That way I can make even more money."


The talking animal characters in the MAAKIES look cute and furry, but they prove to be ill-behaved, and violently self-destructive.

"Drinky Crow [a lead character in MAAKIES] actually came out of my own life, back when I was drinking a lot more whiskey. There's this low-grade death wish that comes with, or inspires, hard drinking, and I had that. That's what's in MAAKIES."

Later in the event questions took longer to answer as Millionaire was forced to respond while completing live paintings...paintings that used Millionaire's shirtless friend and associate Dale Ashmun (from the film ZOMBIES! VS. MARTIS GRAS) as the canvas.

"No, no. I don't need brushes. Hold still Dale," shouts Millionaire.

Millionaire has also been linked to fellow New Yorkers, the band THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS. Millionaire did an album cover for them.

"I was just living in Brooklyn and they were living in Brooklyn and they were right up the street; so they asked me to do it, so I did. Did you see the documentary? The worst part of the documentary is that animation their guys did with my stuff. They asked me to do a couple of drawing so they could animate it, and I did. But what they came up with was terrible. He comes of the ship, and first off, he's drinking coffee. Coffee? I guess because they like coffee. But then he speaks with a British accent. British? That's not my character!"

Another of Millionaire's adventures while living in New York was being invited to create short cartoon versions of MAAKIES for broadcast on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.

"We animated six shorts, but only aired two. That's because Robert Smigel [of TV'S FUNHOUSE] or Lorne...what's name..." says Millionaire, rolling his eyes and trying to remember is former boss.

"Lorne Michaels!" supplies someone from the audience.

"Yeah, yeah...Robert Smigel or Lorne Michaels, or someone like that, decided that my cartoons 'weren't the kind of thing we do around here,'" says Millionaire in a faux-uppity voice.

"Lorne Michaels is a hack!!!" scream members of the audience.

"Now, now," placates Millionaire. "Let's not be vindictive. They just didn't understand the cartoons. They were like: this crow is drinking and he kills himself. I don't quite get that!"

Millionaire's two aired Saturday Night Live shorts, and the four that were never aired, have recently been made available on a DVD entitled GOD HATES CARTOONS.

"It's not just got my stuff, there are animations by other fine artists on there too," explains Millionaire. "Hmm...excuse me. I think I'll paint Dale's arms."