BILLY HAZELNUTS
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS
CARTOONIST: Tony Millionaire
ISBN: 156097701-9; hardcover
100, B&W, $19.95
Tired of being abused and chased out of the kitchen by the lady of the house, a group of house mice use suet, yeast, and discarded mincemeat pie to create a homunculus or golem about the size of a child. They place houseflies in its head for eyes and send it into battle against the matron and her housecat. However, the woman’s daughter, Becky, befriends the golem. She replaces the houseflies with hazelnuts for the golem’s eyes, and renamed him “Billy Hazelnuts.” Eventually the duo goes on an adventure to find the missing moon and battle an evil, half-blind, steam-driven mechanical alligator (built by Becky’s bitter friend, Eugene) that uses a seeing-eye skunk.
BILLY HAZELNUTS is Tony Millionaire’s first graphic novel for Fantagraphics Books, the publisher of his Maakies strip collections. Millionaire, also known for his Sock Monkey comics and storybooks, blends old fairy tales and juvenile science fiction and adventure stories and slapstick comedy with the illogical and nonsensical. It’s fun and whimsical, but a little dark. Billy Hazelnuts is a pugnacious fellow always scraping for a fight, and doesn’t seem above killing.
Billy Hazelnuts is a rousing adventure that recalls films like The Wizard of Oz, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and A Bug’s Life. Millionaire’s meticulous drawing style also recalls old pen and ink book illustrations. Ultimately, this is the kind of comic book (or graphic novel) that reaches out to a broader audience and shows (once again) the storytelling possibilities of this medium.
