Adrian Kinnaird’s wonderful NZ comics blog From Earth’s End has a heap of photos from last week’s launch of the NZ edition of Hicksville at The High Seas. Big thanks to Sophie, Nigel and Stefan, Fergus and Craig, and everyone who came along and helped toast the baby. Special thanks, too, to everyone who bought books and/or artwork!

We’re having another little launch party this Saturday (April 3rd), as part of the NZ Comics Festival in Wellington. I’ll post the details later today.

A page from Hicksville (the ‘Bushells Dairy’ page) is in this show at the Auckland Art Gallery until 14 February 2010. The exhibition brings together a bunch of art about food, from some lovely Robin White weavings to work by Andy Warhol, Breughel and Ed Ruscha. There’s even a huge crocheted octopus and a wall of chocolate fish - which you’re supposed to eat!

The ‘Bushells’ dairy I based my drawing on is a famous landmark of Auckland, photographed by Robin Morrison and painted by other local artists (my memory tells me Dick Frizzell, but I can’t now find any reference to such a work. Can anyone confirm that?). The Freemans Bay dairy (on the corner of Wellington St and Hepburn St) has been owned by the Rupa family since 1953 and was turned into a delicatessen and cafe in 2001. The old flaking Bushells sign was moved inside, and replaced with a rather garish new “replica” - which caused considerable consternation at the time, as I recall. People had grown to really love that old sign…

The Bath Street Gallery in Parnell, Auckland, is holding an exhibition of comics art from 8-25 April. I’ve got a few pages in there, as have Tim Bollinger, Darren and Kelly Sheehan and the great Barry Linton. There is also work by comics-influenced artists Mark Braunias, Dick Frizzell, Robert McLeod and Denys Watkins.

I’ll be at the opening on Wednesday 8 April, 5.30-7.30pm, so come along and say hello.