The Forgotten SCREW Cover Art of Tony Millionaire, Part Two: Issue #1,312, or "Holy Cow, That's Creepy!"

Part Two of our long, reluctant march through the forgotten SCREW cover art of Tony Millionaire brings us within view of SCREW #1,312, dated April 25, 1994. 

Compare this cover with the one from my previous post, (SCREW #1,416) and a common theme begins to emerge, one that we'll see Tony Millionaire obsessively explore in nearly all of his SCREW outings: sexuality in the animal kingdom. This is risky territory, given SCREW Magazine's policy forbidding the depiction of human/animal relations, but Tony Millionaire is not the type to let rules or community standards stifle the exorcism of his personal demons.

In this instance, we see Millionaire's familiar Maakies characters, (Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby) stumbling upon some divine, bovine incarnation of fecundity. The crow and the monkey seem delighted at the prospect of gorging themselves at the overfilled teats of this fantastic figure of farmland fertility. 

It's an amusingly silly image, but what deeper statement is Millionaire reaching for in this picture? Does he ask us to ponder the dark nature of our own bestial procreative drives by blurring the line between human and animal sexuality? Or is Millionaire attempting to tap into that niche contingent of comics fans who become excited at the sight of a nude human female body topped by a cartoon animal head? Is Millionaire himself a pioneer in the furry fandom movement? 

In this drawing, (as with his other covers) I have difficulty grasping Tony Millionaire's true intent, but one thing is clear to me: this is no way to sell stroke mags.

The Forgotten SCREW Cover Art of Tony Millionaire

MAAKIES cartoonist Tony Millionaire has been giving me shit over some mildly risque designs I drew recently for BROKEN SKATEBOARDS, (available for purchase here: http://brokenskateboards.nl/products/ ) so I thought I'd dig deep into my archives in order to spend the next few weeks exploring the forgotten SCREW cover art of Tony Millionaire.

Known to today's readers primarily as a children's author, few would suspect that the avuncular creator of wholesome properties like BILLY HAZELNUTS and TONY MILLIONAIRE'S SOCK MONKEY™ was in earlier decades impoverished enough to turn up, hat-in-hand at the door of  at 116 West 14th Street in NYC, address of the World's Greatest Newspaper? Truly those must've been dark times.

Millionaire's SCREW cover drawings, while in no way erotic, are interesting nonetheless for the peek they offer into what is clearly a uniquely disturbed imagination. Let's begin our exploration with SCREW #1,416, dated April 22nd, 1996: the cover drawing shows a creature, (most likely an ape) dressed in human clothing, preparing to reap a harvest of what are apparently human breasts, while a nude woman watches angrily from a perch in a nearby tree.

This unsettling image leaves the viewer with a multitude of questions: what does the simian gardener plan to do with his vegetables post-harvest? Is he engaged in some evil experiment involving genetically-altered crops? Why is the nude woman displeased? Is she the monkey's spouse, and if so, is she jealous of the attention being showered on this garden of human breasts? Why would a woman be married to a monkey, and more importantly, how did this cover drawing, laden with implications of bestiality, slip past SCREW's guidelines banning any depiction of human/animal relationships?

Perhaps its best not to ponder the meaning of this drawing too long. I fear that in this case, the search for understanding will send the viewer down a twisting tunnel that leads to confusion, despair, and ultimately madness. More Millionaire next week!