'The Adventures of Sock Monkey' – Tony Millionaire (Dark Horse Comics)



By the time last week came to an end, I was ready for some really light reading and I sorted that out with a quick visit to the Brockley Bookshop. I won't go into that too much as I've already spoken about it Here. The 'Aliens' book was just what I was after, the 'Sock Monkey' book was more of a 'that looks like it could be interesting' speculative read. I had no idea what it was about but it was only a fiver so home it came :o)

The next couple of days are going to be busy so I thought I'd read this last night, more to say that I'd actually finished a book this week than anything else. Little did I know that I was about to fall in love with this book...

A mischievous sock monkey named Uncle Gabby and a bumbling crow named Mr Crow are the heroes of this funny, unsettling, and oddly endearing collection, written and drawn by Tony Millionaire, best known as the creator of the successful alternative comic strip, Maakies. Follow Sock Monkey and Friend as they try to find a home for a shrunken head, play matchmakers to a bat and a mouse, encounter an ornery gnome and try to fly.

Happy endings and random destruction are guaranteed!

'The Adventures of Sock Monkey' may well be the sweetest, most deranged thing I've ever read... And I love it :o) Watching Uncle Gabby and Mr Crow have these adventures that start out with the best of intentions and somehow end up either in death and destruction or trying to appease a shrunken head... There's something really innocent about it that's so appealing. We've all been that child who started out with the best of intentions and then had to face up to hard explanations, with no idea what happened, and that's 'Sock Monkey' in a nutshell. Good intentions and a desire for adventure leading to dire outcomes that our heroes will never have to deal with. It's so funny as well, even though I caught myself wondering if I should be laughing. And that's childhood as well, isn't it? Because that darkness is strangely innocent as well. Dark things happen all the time but, they're meant to. It's just a little more in your face here and the way those moments grate against what is a very dreamlike setting... It's clearly done to unsettle and I was unsettled at all the right moments; this book played me like a fiddle and I really don't mind as the payoff was always worth it.

And the artwork was just sublime. So detailed and hitting every target that it aims for, all combining to give that air of a really weird dream that stops just short of falling into an outright nightmare. Like the best bits of Lonely Street in 'The Goon'. I love a comic book where you're stopping for the art just as much as you are for the dialogue and that is exactly what we have on our hands here.

I'm pretty sure I'm already preaching to the choir ('Sock Monkey' has been a thing for a number of years now) but it's definitely worth saying again. If you like your comics a little weird and to be frank, hilariously funny, then 'Sock Monkey' is a book that you need to be searching out. I'll definitely be looking out for more of these books.

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