Hicksville (graphic novel)

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Hicksville is a graphic novel by Dylan Horrocks originally published by Black Eye Comics in 1998, since republished by Drawn and Quarterly.

[edit] Plot

Canadian writer Leonard Batts arrives in the tiny New Zealand town of Hicksville to research the early life of Dick Burger, whose work has taken the comic book industry by storm. He finds that Hicksville is a town in which everyone from the postman to the farmer is an expert on comics, yet everyone seems to hate Burger. The novel explores the machinations of the comic book industry, and contains a fictionalized account of the history of mainstream American comics, with particular attention paid to the era of Image Comics.

Horrocks has said of the book: "It's a story about comics — their history and poetry — and also about what we New Zealanders call 'tūrangawaewae' — having a place to stand in the world — a kind of spiritual home. Hicksville is my way of creating such a home for comics."[1]