32 CHICAGO READER | MAY 12, 2006 | SECTION ONE Books BILLY HAZELNUTS TONY MILLIONAIRE (FANTAGRAPHICS) A Children’s Book for Adults Tony Millionaire’s scary, magical new graphic novel By Miles Raymer ne of the only fan letters in the Reader and has a huge when—as in his Sock Monkey long they’re off on a quest to I’ve ever written was to Internet fan base. Each week’s comics—he lets his profane and find the secret hiding spot the O cartoonist Tony installment usually ends tragically sentimental selves cohabit. And moon goes to when it sets. Millionaire. I wanted a bird tat- for the heroes—Drinky and a his new graphic novel, Billy Millionaire’s drawings are too, and he draws some of the monkey named Uncle Gabby— Hazelnuts, may be the best he’s like scrimshaw, with their best birds ever, especially crows due to their own ineptitude and done yet. deliberate, etched look and in thick, black ink that hang drunkenness. It’s full of poop Becky is a prepubescent sense of high action frozen in somewhere between John James jokes, minority stereotypes, poet- astronomer and inventor in place, but the ethereal, nonlin- Audubon’s nature studies and ry, and endings that mock Henny pigtails, a pragmatic, science- ear way the pictures flow— Ralph Steadman’s expressionist Youngman-style punch lines as minded girl who can’t stand landscapes that shift from New nightmares. During a slow shift much as they revel in them. I keep poetry but has no problem nav- England mountains to south- at Kinko’s I e-mailed Millionaire, a hardbound collection of strips igating a dreamlike world pop- western desert rock forma- asking him to draw one special on my coffee table, and visitors ulated by talking sheep and tions, flocks of bats drifting for me. He was game, as long as tend to read it front to back when talking meteors. Billy through the corner of a panel— I’d agree to a tattoo of his drunk, they pick it up. Hazelnuts is a golemlike crea- is even more indebted to suicidal Drinky Crow character But there’s another Tony ture with a head full of house- Winsor McCay’s early-20th- as well. I wimped out on that Millionaire, who draws award- flies, crafted by the mice in century Little Nemo strips. deal, but we kept up a short cor- winning children’s comics with Becky’s cellar out of garbage Like Nemo, Becky and Billy respondence after that about the Drinky and Gabby recast as and treacle to murder Becky’s find not just danger—here in best cheap beers. He recom- stuffed animals having mild (but mother, a tyrant who keeps the form of a robotic alligator mended ice beers for their high surrealistic) misadventures them from the family’s cheese. out in the barn after an epic man built by the crushed-out alcohol content and low price. It around the household of the lit- Billy’s birth is weirdly menac- battle with a house cat. When poet Becky has spurned—but was good advice at the time. tle girl who owns them. These ing—he rises unsteadily to his Becky finds him there, she danger that follows the slip- The Tony Millionaire who gives stories usually wind up with hugs feet as a roomful of mice chant cleans him up and replaces the pery logic of dreams. When the out drinking advice to his fans is rather than with violence by “Get alive! Get alive!”—but he flies in his eye sockets with flying boat commanded by the the creator of Maakies, a strip handgun. doesn’t turn out to be much of hazelnuts, so he can see. They gator man crashes with a bro- that appears among other places Millionaire does his best work an assassin. Instead he hides become fast friends, and before ken wing, he simply rears the CHICAGO READER | MAY 12, 2006 | SECTION ONE 33 HOSTILE TAKEOVER: HOW BIG MONEY & CORRUPTION CONQUERED OUR GOVERNMENT— AND HOW WE TAKE IT BACK DAVID SIROTA (CROWN) CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER DITTOHEAD JIM DERYCH (IG PUBLISHING) LAPDOGS: HOW THE PRESS ROLLED OVER FOR BUSH ERIC BOEHLERT (FREE PRESS) ship back onto its long, buckle- shoed legs and continues the chase “on foot.” HowEverythingWentWrong As Billy and Becky travel fur- ther into the unreal, Millionaire draws the reader closer to the Three new books dig toward the roots of the mess we’re in today. story’s heart. As the action piles up in increasingly fantastic ways taxes.” Nothing? asks Sirota. Not out politicos (“Washington is one (peaking in a battle on the open HOSTILE TAKEOVER: HOW securing our country, not prevent- big legalized brothel”) and execs sea, one of Millionaire’s favorite BIG MONEY & CORRUPTION ing another 9/11, not protecting for their “unrestricted, unapolo- subjects), Billy’s relationship CONQUERED OUR American troops heading into bat- getic greed” and takes some swipes with Becky, and with humanity GOVERNMENT—AND HOW tle? $136 billion in tax breaks for at the “lazy/cynical media” along itself, comes under attack. WE TAKE IT BACK | David corporate donors—including, for the way. But he does deliver good When the smoke clears and Sirota | That government and example, $92 million for NASCAR news along with the bad. Billy finds himself lost, alone, corporate America are in bed isn’t track owners—sailed through Americans are smart and a grass- and blinded, it’s hard not to feel news, but the blatant mendacity, Congress while roots movement will eventually more sympathy for a gross little venality, and bipartisan suck-up David Sirota funds for food clean up the mess, he says, and the trash man than you’d have that David Sirota details in his new WHEN Tue 5/16, stamps, veterans’ good guys (they are noted here, thought possible. book, Hostile Takeover, are 7 PM benefits, and Pell though greatly outnumbered) are Though Little Nemo, Where the appalling. Sirota, a senior editor at WHERE In These grants were cut. A slowly getting more support. Even Wild Things Are , and The In These Times, exhaustively Times, 2040 W. job well-done by better, rather than simply rail Wonderful Wizard of Oz echo documents how the rights of Milwaukee the 4,000 regis- against the machine, Sirota offers throughout Billy Hazelnuts, average citizens are being INFO 773-772- tered lobbyists in concrete suggestions for change. odds are there won’t be many trampled in favor of big business 0100 D.C. who list taxes Near the end of the book he kids reading it. It’s not bloody, interests, all of it abetted by MORE With Rick as a specialty. writes, “If you’ve made it to this but it’s harsh and unlikely to legislators in thrall to campaign Perlstein and Sirota goes on point ...How do you feel? become a staple of contemporary cash and corporate-funded Tom Geoghegan to examine efforts $30 billion in profits; between Depressed? Angry? Outraged?” kids’ lit. And though Tony junkets. to erode workers’ 2000 and 2004 it donated $103 If you’re an average working Millionaire may deserve the love He starts with tax cuts for the wages and benefits, undermine million to candidates of both par- American, you’ll say oh, yes, of children, most of his followers wealthy—perhaps the most egre- unions, and enhance profits for ties. (MBNA is George Bush’s indeed, that’s exactly how I feel. are adult comics geeks. But when gious of many examples. Just HMOs and the pharmaceutical fifth-largest donor.) No surprise: But after spending several days they find themselves caught up weeks before the invasion of Iraq, and energy industries. Among the the new bankruptcy bill cracks with Sirota’s damning manifesto in Millionaire’s gorgeously deep House majority leader Tom DeLay many distasteful tit-for-tattings in down on individuals but not cor- you may no longer feel power- dreaming, they’ll probably forget said, “Nothing is more important Sirota’s arsenal: in 2004 the credit porate debtors. less. —Jerome Ludwig that they’re grown. v in the face of a war than cutting card industry as a whole made Sirota ably (and angrily) calls continued on page 34 34 CHICAGO READER | MAY 12, 2006 | SECTION ONE Books continued from page 33 CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER DITTOHEAD | Jim Derych | “In social situations, never discuss politics or religion,” goes the old saw. That’s a bit like saying, “Never discuss things that matter.” Without free debate, after all, you can’t really have democracy. Yet the prospect of dialogue can be daunting when you’re a progressive facing one of built in the minds of their listeners. the 30-odd percent of Americans —Renaldo Migaldi who still support the current Republican program, especially when to the LAPDOGS: HOW THE PRESS Jim Derych opponent such ROLLED OVER FOR BUSH | WHEN Sat 5/13, allegiance can Eric Boehlert | When Stephen 2 PM seem fueled by Colbert punked George W. Bush at WHERE Borders, emotion, not the White House Correspondents’ 2817 N. Clark rational thought. Association dinner last month, he INFO 773-935- How does a reserved no small amount of scorn 3909 liberal talk to a for the national press corps in Bush/Cheney whose honor the dinner is thrown. supporter, and is the effort futile? “Over the last five years you people Jim Derych thinks not, and he were so good,” said Colbert of the brings a distinct perspective to the assembled media elite. “Over tax question. His new book, cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect Confessions of a Former of global warming.