If Millionaire’s domestication has a lot to do with his wife and two daughters (ages two and four), it also stems from a promise he made to himself ten years back. “On my fortieth birthday, I found myself on top of a taxicab going about forty miles an hour down the street. Drunk. I decided I should either jump off [then], or wait till it gets up to 60. So I jumped. And I split my leg open. I thought to myself, well, I think it’s finally time I knock this off. After that, I started to calm down and get to work at the drawing table, and really put a lot of energy into the books and the comics. I met my wife, and now I’ve got kids. I became tamed, as they say.”

So, no more drinking? “Oooooh, plenty of drinking! But I had to curb it somehow. I know anyone from AA will tell you this doesn’t work, but it worked for me. I just switched to only beer. Originally, I decided to drink only wine and beer. But I’d pick up, like, four bottles of merlot and chug ’em down fast, which is just as bad as getting drunk on whiskey. So after that, I switched to beer only. Budweiser. The blood of America. I like cheap American beer because it’s the kind of beer you can drink all night long, and you only get a mild buzz from it. At least I do. So, I’ll think of the ideas during the day when I’m running around. And then I sketch them quickly before I start drinking. Then around nine or ten o’clock, the kids are in bed, and I settle down and I start to drink Budweiser and draw.” By the time he’s done, at around 2 am, “I’m just drunk enough to fall asleep.”

Millionaire’s appetites might be frowned upon in polite society these days, but in many ways he has always been a man out of time. In his cartoons, biplanes and bathyspheres and Model Ts are the preferred modes of transportation. His characters spout antiquated exclamations such as ye gads and harumph and blast it! Indeed, in many ways, he seems to have no taste at all for the modern world. In one Maakies cartoon, a man who looks much like Millionaire himself pores over magazines with names like Ships’n’Such and Ye Olde.

“Sigh,” he says. “I was born in the wrong century!”

Then, out the window, he hears a sound: clip clop clip clop whishhhh CRACK!

“What’s that!?” he exclaims. “A stage? A buckboard? A coach and four?”

He rushes to the window, looking out to see a dominatrix strolling down the sidewalk in heavy heels, whipping a man who’s crawling on all fours, naked except for a truss and a leash, a ball gag in his mouth.

< prev  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |   next >
  Topics: Lifestyle Features , Entertainment, Culture and Lifestyle, Lyonel Feininger,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
More Information
ARTICLES BY MIKE MILIARD
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   INTERVIEW: AZIZ ANSARI IS ON THE FLY  |  May 09, 2012
    It's been a good few months for Aziz Ansari.
  •   GADGETS FOR BOTH SIDES OF THE OCCUPY DIVIDE  |  December 06, 2011
    Is Santa a one-percenter? Sometimes it seems that way.
  •   INSIDE THE TEDXDIRIGO CONFERENCE  |  September 14, 2011
    I arrived at TEDxDirigo on September 10 feeling rather less than confident about the state of world. The tenth anniversary of 9/11 — and the awful decade that unspooled from that sky-blue morning — was on my mind.
  •   THE WORLD IS WATCHING  |  September 27, 2010
    And so far no one knows what to do about it.
  •   INTERVIEW: DANIEL CLOWES  |  April 27, 2010
    "If you had told me then that there would be cute girls coming to comic conventions in 15 years, I would’ve told you you were out of your mind."

 See all articles by: MIKE MILIARD