"Comics erode the most fundamental habits
of humane, civilized living."

Bill Pearson

The American DreamSam Zabel and the Magic Pen
StoriesMy WorldClick for more

New page: The American Dream

March 16th, 2009
Click image for new page.

Click image for new page.

New pages: The American Dream

March 13th, 2009

The American Dream - page 4

The American Dream - page 4

The American Dream page 5

The American Dream - page 5


My computer’s been in the repair shop, so I haven’t done much posting. But it’s back now, and I’ve got a backlog of pages to scan and colour. Here’s the first two (more next week!).

New page: The Magic Pen

March 10th, 2009
Click on image to go to new page.

Click on image to go to new page.

New story: The Last Fox Story (or How I Became Afraid of Comics)

March 7th, 2009
Click image to go to beginning of story.

Click image to go to beginning of story.

I’ll be adding notes to this shortly, but in the meantime, feel free to read it note-free.

Update: the notes have now been added.

New page on The Magic Pen

March 5th, 2009
Click image to go to new page.

Click image to go to new page.

New page: The American Dream page 2

March 4th, 2009
Click image to go to the new page.

Click image to go to the new page.

New page: The American Dream page 1

March 3rd, 2009
American Dream page 1

Click here to go to the page.

Welcome to Hicksville Comics

March 1st, 2009

Well, it’s taken me a while, but I’m finally joining the wonderful world of online comics. Henceforth, this site will be my primary way of serialising long stories, replacing the old paper pamphlet format of Pickle and Atlas. I’m making the shift for a number of reasons – from my growing enthusiasm for the internet to the appeal of weekly deadlines – but for those who still love paper, never fear: everything will end up as book collections as well.

So – I’m starting with two ongoing serials:

The American Dream: this is a totally new story that I’ve been working on for some years (I think I began writing notes for it in 2003 or 2004). Not sure exactly how long it will be, but probably less than 100 pages, and I plan on putting up a few new pages per week.

Sam Zabel & the Magic Pen: I already published the first chapter of this story in Atlas #2 & 3 (from the wonderful Drawn & Quarterly), so the first 26 pages will look pretty familiar to anyone who read them there. But I’ve now added colour (which I’d always hoped to do eventually), and of course from chapter two onwards, it’ll be all new.

Future serials will include Atlas (I’m in the process of reworking the opening section, complete with some new material), and various other things; I plan to have two serials running at any given time.

I’ll also be gradually adding short stories, some of which were drawn for recent anthologies, along with old stuff that’s hard to find. First up are Siso and The Physics Engine, both of which were drawn for anthologies of New Zealand writing.

As I’m kinda new to this webcomics thing, please forgive any early hiccups – and be aware that I’m still ironing out a few kinks in the coding, etc.

And feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment!