Maakies

Key takeaways

Maakies belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Maakies to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Maakies from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Maakies is a comic strip by Tony Millionaire. It began publication in February 1994 in the New York Press. It has previously run in many American alternative newsweeklies including The Stranger, LA Weekly and Only. It has also appeared in several international venues including the Italian comics magazine Linus and the Swedish comics magazine Rocky. On December 14, 2016, Tony Millionaire announced that Maakies had ended. One of the reasons he stated for discontinuing the strip was that many of the weekly papers that carried the strip were no longer in business. On May 19, 2021, Tony Millionaire announced that weekly strips were being published again.

Characteristics Maakies focuses on the darkly comic misadventures of Uncle Gabby (a "drunken Irish monkey") and Drinky Crow (a crow), two antiheroes with a propensity for drunkenness, violence, suicide, and venereal disease. According to Millionaire, "Maakies is me spilling my guts... Writing and drawing about all the things that make me want to jump in the river, laughing at the horror of being alive." Maakies strips typically take place in an early 19th-century nautical setting. There is rarely any continuity between strips. The comic often includes visual references to historic works of art, especially to the popular graphic arts such as Japanese ukiyo-e, European engravings, and early American newspaper comics. Like many early 20th century Sunday strips, each Maakies comic usually includes a second, smaller strip (known as a "topper") that runs along the bottom of the main strip. Tiny landscape drawings are interspersed between the panels of these strips. Also, a tugboat (referred to once as "the enigmatic Maakies tug") appears somewhere in the background of virtually every strip.

Meaning of the title Millionaire has given differing accounts of the origin and meaning of the word "maakies." "Maak" is the name of a character in the strip, a ship's captain who apparently is Uncle Gabby's employer, and in one sense the strip seems to be named after him. Discussing the strip's development, Millionaire said "I fleshed them [the characters] out as best I could at the time, knowing that they'd grow over time. That's why I didn't call the strip Drinky Crow. I called it Maakies because I didn't know who would become the most important characters as I went along." However, on more than one occasion he has claimed that the true significance of the strip's name is a strict secret: "I can't release that information until a certain person dies... Because he or she would be extremely pissed off to even know that that name was being used." Elsewhere he has attributed the origin of the word to his friend Spike Vrusho: "Some of the tugboats in New York harbor have a big M painted on the side of them and my friend Spike Vrusho used to say "MAAKIES!" in a high-pitched screech every time he saw one."

Book collections Maakies (2000) The House at Maakies Corner (2002) When We Were Very Maakies (2004) Der Struwwelmaakies (2005) Premillennial Maakies (2006) – a hardcover reprint of the contents of the first Maakies book. The Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees (2008) Drinky Crow's Maakies Treasury (2009) – contains the contents of The House at Maakies Corner, When We Were Very Maakies, and Der Struwwelmaakies. Little Maakies on the Prairie (2010) Green Eggs and Maakies (2013) Maakies: Drinky Crow Drinks Again (2016) All the Maakies collections are published by Fantagraphics Books and designed by Chip Kidd. All but the first of the books are hardcover, printed in an unusual 12 in × 5 in (300 mm × 130 mm) format that preserves the dimensions of Millionaire's original drawings. With the exception of the first collection and its hardcover reprint, the title of each of the Maakies books refers to a classic children's book – A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner and When We Were Very Young, Heinrich Hoffman's Der Struwwelpeter, Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie.

Animation

Several short Maakies Flash animations were shown on Saturday Night Live in the late 1990s. Several more animations were produced but never broadcast. All of the Maakies Flash animations are included on the DVD collection God Hates Cartoons, published by Bright Red Rocket. A Maakies short bridges the two-halves of the 2002 They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic. An animated television pilot for The Drinky Crow Show, based on the Maakies characters, premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on May 13, 2007. Dino Stamatopoulos provided the voice of the titular character, and They Might Be Giants performed the show's theme song. The show premiered on Adult Swim on November 23, 2008 and ran for one season containing ten episodes. It ended on January 25, 2009. The cancellation of the show was confirmed by a Maakies comic.

References

External links

Maakies official site First appearance of Drinky Crow Maakies T-Shirts official t-shirt shop Maakies books at fantagraphics.com Bright Red Rocket

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maakies

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maakies claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Maakies before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Maakies ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Maakies

In research: Maakies appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Maakies in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Maakies is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1994 comics debuts, 2016 comics endings, American black comedy comics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maakies outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Maakies in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maakies means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Maakies out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maakies in simple terms?

Maakies is a comic strip by Tony Millionaire. It began publication in February 1994 in the New York Press.

Why does Maakies matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Maakies?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Maakies.