Hicksville «

Hicksville

Hicksville
Dylan Horrocks
264 pages, black & white
First edition 1998
New edition 2010
with brand-new 13-page introduction (in comics form)

Hidden at the bottom of the world is a quiet seaside town where the beach is sunny, the tea is hot, the locals are friendly, and everyone loves comics.

When reporter Leonard Batts turns up in Hicksville looking for the inside story on the town’s most famous export, comic book megastar Dick Burger, he expects a simple tale of local boy made good. Instead he finds a town full of wonders and surprises and a dark mysterious secret no-one’s willing to share.

First published in 1998 to wide acclaim, Hicksville is a wryly funny story about the dangerous business of art and a haunting meditation on longing and regret, on getting lost and finding your way home.

Some very nice things people have said about Hicksville:

“A sweetly told love letter to the comics medium.”
The Comics Journal

“Extraordinarily moving.”
Joe Gross, The Village Voice

“Reading this book is like unfolding a treasure map, little by little.”
L’Express

“A languid, Borgesian tale of love and theft that treats comics – and an unabashed love of the medium’s folksy energy and rhythms – with poetic weight. [Hicksville] is a classic.”
Austin American Statesman

Award nominations:

Ignatz Awards (Best Graphic Novel & Best Art), Harvey Awards (Best Reprint Collection), Prix d’Alph’Art (Best Graphic Novel & Critic’s Prize), Attilio Micheluzzi Awards (Best Graphic Novel), Barcelona Comics Festival (Best Foreign Comic). Named one of the top 5 Books of 1998 by The Comics Journal.

Buying Hicksville:

First published in 1998 by Michel Vrana‘s wonderful imprint Black Eye Books, and since reissued by Drawn & Quarterly and various other fine publishing houses, Hicksville may be purchased from numerous discerning bookstores and comic shops, most online retailers or direct from the following publishers (note: a new French edition is due soon from Casterman):

In English: