Sock monkey

Sock Monkey is a series of comics and illustrated books written and drawn by the American cartoonist Tony Millionaire.

Sock Monkey relates the adventures of the titular sock monkey, named Uncle Gabby, and a plush crow named Mr. Crow. Despite being toys, they are able to move, think, talk, and eat, as are most of the other toys in the series. The books are notable for their intricate artwork, dark humor, and quaint, vaulted dialogue. The inspiration for books' detailed settings come from Millionaire's childhood memories of his grandparents' Victorian house. In contrast to the scabrous humor of his weekly comic strip Maakies, Millionaire has said that "Sock Monkey is me trying to rise above all that bullshit, to be more poetic, looking at the bright side, remembering the things that used to delight me as a child." At the same time, "the main theme to all the Sock Monkey books is the crashing of innocent fantasy into bone-crushing reality."

Four volumes of black-and-white Sock Monkey comics have been published; each volume consists of two issues. Volume 3 won the 2001 Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication. Volume 4 featured one issue drawn in charcoal, as opposed to the ink of the other issues, and another issue in which the character designs were changed dramatically. These comics have also been collected in two trade paperbacks, each containing two volumes: The Adventures of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey (2000) and The Collected Works of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey (2004). As of late 2006 a four-issue Sock Monkey miniseries featuring an extended story titled "The Inches Incident" is being released one issue at a time.

In addition to the Sock Monkey comics, Millionaire has also produced five other Sock Monkey books. Sock Monkey: A Children's Book (2001) and Sock Monkey: The Glass Doorknob (2002) mix comics with illustrated prose. Sock Monkey: Uncle Gabby (2004), That Darn Yarn (2005), and Little and Large (2005) are full-color, hardcover comic books. That Darn Yarn and Little and Large are both 36 pages and read much more like children's storybooks than Millionaire's other Sock Monkey comics.

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