The Good News: The Magic Pen got a great write-up on io9.com on Saturday, causing hordes of keen readers to rush here eager to read it (or possibly just to look at dirty pictures).
The Bad News? This overloaded our servers and the site went into meltdown. Things are still a bit patchy, I’m afraid, but we’re working on getting the site back to full health. Apologies if things are a little slow in loading, or if you get error messages instead of comics. Hopefully it will all be sorted out ASAP.
I recently made this catalogue of New Zealand cartoonists (and some of the comics & books they’ve made or are making). We handed out hundreds of copies of this at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Treviso Comic Book Festival in September and October, but you can download a free pdf of it here.
Because the catalogue is necessarily an incomplete list, I also made a page of links to NZ comics creators, anthologies, events and blogs. If your website is not on this list but should be, let me know and I’ll add it forthwith!
Please note this catalogue is NOT for retail sale; it was published with the assistance of Creative NZ to promote NZ comics at Frankfurt etc. But there are some very exciting books on NZ comics due in the near future which will be for retail sale, so keep your eye on From Earth’s End and Pikitia Press, two very good NZ comics blogs, to be forewarned.
I’m about to get on a plane for a whirlwind trip to Italy and Germany. Here are the details:
TREVISO COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL
25-30 September: I will be in Treviso for this festival, along with 6 other New Zealand cartoonists (Roger Langridge, Ben Stenbeck, Greg Broadmore, Chris Slane, Colin Wilson, Rufus Dayglo). There’s an exhibition of New Zealand Comics, including a fair bit of work by me. I’m also running a workshop.
ITALY
30 September-4 October: I’ll be in Northern Italy, doing a couple of events for my lovely Italian publisher, Black Velvet (with the new Italian edition of Hicksville). Details to be confirmed; check with Black Velvet if you want more info.
GERMANY
4 October: I’m doing a talk/signing at Strips & Stories in Hamburg, at 7.30pm (with the new German edition of Hicksville from the fabulous Reprodukt).
6 October (my birthday!): talk/signing at Ocelot in Berlin at 7.30pm.
FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR
9-15 October: I’ll be at the Frankfurt Book Fair, along with an army of New Zealand authors (New Zealand is the highlighted country at this year’s Book Fair), including cartoonists Roger Langridge, Greg Broadmore, Colin Wilson and Ben Stenbeck.
My events will include:
10 October: panel discussion on the New Zealand School Journal (I’ll be reading a short excerpt from my short story Steam Girl and discussing the School Journal, a much-loved NZ institution): 11am.
11 October: Signing at T3 comics shop in Frankfurt: 5-7 pm.
12 October: NZ Comics talk (& signing) in the Comics Centre (Halle 3): 1 pm; followed at 4pm by an Artist Talk with Filip Kolek (of Reprodukt), at Leseinsel der Jungen Verlage in Halle 4.
13 October: Signing in the Comics Centre (Halle 3) in the morning.
14 October: NZ Comics discussion in the New Zealand Pavilion at 12 pm.
There may be other events too, but if you’re in Frankfurt for the Book Fair, hopefully you’ll find me!
There will also be a New Zealand Comics Stand in the Comics Centre, which will include a whole lot of NZ comics and graphic novels, and also this 100-page guide I put together on current NZ comics and graphic novel creators:
This week’s shirt at Comic Strip Tees is our very own Alice Brown (What a Clown!), starring the talented young webcomics ingenue from The Magic Pen. Alice will feature prominently in books two and three of The Magic Pen trilogy, so establish your Alice Brown fangirl/boy credentials ahead of the crowd with this stylish piece of fully-authorised official Alice BrownTM merchandise.
The Alice Brown t-shirt comes in various sizes (guys and girls) and costs only US$20. AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY (4 weeks, to be precise).
I recently did an interview with Daniela Odri Mazza for Conversazioni sul Fumetto, an impressive looking Italian blog. My answers were translated into Italian, but I really enjoyed Daniela’s thoughtful questions and we agreed it would be nice to post the interview in English too.
And so here it is.
(By the way: here’s the Italian edition of Hicksville, from Black Velvet).
Daniela: The first question I have is about a guiding theme throughout the story: the map, mapping and the description of the world. What fascinates you so much to make this theme omnipresent in the book, in the main story and several subtracks and stories? What do you think, about comics as “creators of worlds, universes?”
Dylan: I’ve always loved maps, and especially imaginary maps, like the ones you find in fantasy novels and games. When I was writing Hicksville, I was very interested in spatial vs. temporal ideas of narrative: geography vs. history. All of this fed into Hicksville, and I started thinking of stories (comics, novels, histories) as a way of mapping worlds – real and imaginary. The thing about maps is that they are always fictions, more or less. A map isn’t an actual landscape, it’s a representation of a landscape, and so it’s always a simplification, a simulation, an artificial model. It’s a way of talking about the landscape. It tells a story about place.
Comics are especially interesting as maps, because they can use pictures, diagrams, words. They can talk about a landscape (in space or time) in very complex and interesting ways. Many cartoonists have played with this (some consciously, some by accident); Chris Ware is a good example.
Click to see larger image
Some of you might have noticed the serialisation of The American Dream went into hiatus some time ago. Well, I’m very pleased to announce that a new and improved version of the book is in the works, with artwork lusciously drawn and painted by one of my favourite artists, Karl Stevens.
I’m very excited about this collaboration; I’ve been following Karl’s work since the 1990s and absolutely love his previous books The Lodger and Guilty, and his regular strip in the Boston Phoenix (currently known as ‘Failure’).
For a small taste of the work-in-progress, and for more on Karl’s comics and art, follow the link above.
(unpublished sketch)
It’s high time I mentioned this: ‘Steam Girl’ is my first published prose story (i.e. without pictures), which came out late last year in Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by the wonderful Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, and published by Candlewick Press in the US and Walker Books in the UK. I’ve written prose fiction all my life (in between the comics), but never felt brave enough to publish any until now.
Steampunk! also includes prose stories by M. T. Anderson, Holly Black, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Knox, Garth Nix, Christopher Rowe, Delia Sherman, Ysabeau S. Wilce and Kelly Link herself and comics by Shawn Cheng and Kathleen Jennings. It’s a fantastic anthology and I’m thrilled to be included.
The cherry on the cake is that ‘Steam Girl’ has just been reprinted in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, volume 6, edited by Jonathan Strahan (published by Night Shade Books), which is very humbling. Guess I’d better finish that damn novel now, eh?
Ways to buy it and a couple of reviews after the jump:
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Two upcoming events I’m involved with:
I’m running a 2-week workshop in Wellington in December and January, as part of Whitireia Polytech’s Summer Writing Courses. It costs $300 and all are welcome (even if you can’t draw). The course runs over two separate weeks; part 1 is December 12-16th, part 2 is January 9-13th. Details are here.
And I’m judging the Graphic Fiction section in the AUT New Zealand Creative Writing Competition. It’s the first time AUT has included a Graphic Fiction (i.e. comics) section and I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with. Prizes include in iPad (perfect for reading all those digital comics on) and entries close January 31st, 2012. Details are here.
Sparkplug Comics’ Dylan Williams is one of the true heroes of comics – a fine cartoonist and a smart, courageous publisher with great taste. Unfortunately, he’s pretty ill right now, and as we all know, being sick in America ain’t easy when you’re living on the income of an alt comix publisher…
So here’s where we come in – and by “we” I mean all of us who love great comics. Sparkplug’s online shop is packed full of wonderful treasures, with comics from Chris Wright, Emily Nilsson, Dave Kiersh, John Hanckiewicz, Julia Gforer, John Porcellino, Renee French, Rina Ayuyang, T. Edward Bak, Ted May and so many other great cartoonists! All you have to do is go buy some – and you’ll be helping Dylan and the whole world of comics.
And if that’s not enough to convince you, Sparkplug have expressed an interest in publishing New Zealand’s very own Timothy Kidd. Now that’s what I call excellent taste…
When the earthquake hit Christchurch on February 22nd, around 180 people were killed, many more were injured, and buildings around the city were damaged and destroyed. Everyone in New Zealand knows people affected by this disaster, and Christchurch will be reeling for years to come. Aftershocks continue, basic services like drinking water, sewerage outflow and electricity are still disrupted, businesses are closing and jobs are being lost. For many families and friends, of course, there is mourning and grief.
Christchurch is New Zealand’s second largest city and home to many writers, artists, and – of course – cartoonists. Within days of the quake, the city’s (and New Zealand’s) longest running comics anthology Funtime Comics started putting together a special issue, inviting contributions from around the country and beyond. 
Assembled at lightning speed, Darkest Day is now ready and will be launched this weekend at Armageddon Expo in Wellington. It includes a three-page comic by me, Sometimes You Feel (see sample page to the right).
All proceeds from Darkest Day will go to the Red Cross, to help with disaster relief.
You can buy Darkest Day online, here.
And if you’re at Armageddon Expo this weekend, make sure you visit the New Zealand Comics Creators table, where you’ll find a cornucopia of fine New Zealand comics and graphic novels (including Chris Slane & Matt Elliott’s Nice Day for a War, Ant Sang’s Shaolin Burning, the latest Bristle, and many more!), and meet some lovely talented cartoonists.
Spare a thought, too, for the organisers of Armageddon Expo, who are based in Christchurch and suffered extensive damage to their home and office. The annual expo in Christchurch was supposed to take place last weekend, but had to be postponed due to the earthquake (they hope to hold a special event later this year, if things have settled down enough). So amid all the hustle and bustle, the crowds and the cosplay, remember to be nice to everyone you meet. It’s been a tough year – here in New Zealand, over in Japan, and, come to think of it, all around the world.
As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “There’s only one rule that I know of… ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”
All comics are by Dylan Horrocks and are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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