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Incomplete Works by Dylan Horrocks
This hand-picked selection of Dylan Horrocks’ short comics from 1986-2012 introduces a lively menagerie of melancholy cartoonists, mysterious men in top hats, levitating women and even a superhero or two.
Painstakingly unearthed from crumbling photocopied periodicals, obscure tomes in foreign tongues and the products of long-abandoned publishing enterprises, Incomplete Works journeys from Auckland cafes to imaginary worlds, documenting nearly three decades of daydreams, obsessions and fears.
Plus there’s at least one joke about willies.
Painstakingly unearthed from crumbling photocopied periodicals, obscure tomes in foreign tongues and the products of long-abandoned publishing enterprises, Incomplete Works journeys from Auckland cafes to imaginary worlds, documenting nearly three decades of daydreams, obsessions and fears.
Plus there’s at least one joke about willies.
Paperback
First published March 8, 2014
3 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Dylan Horrocks
111 books418 followersHorrocks has been involved in the New Zealand comic scene since the mid 1980s, when he co-founded Razor with Cornelius Stone and had his work published in the University of Auckland student magazine Craccum. Later in the decade he began to get international recognition, having work published by Australia's Fox Comics and the American Fantagraphics Books. He then moved to the United Kingdom where he self-published several mini-comics and co-founded Le Roquet, a comics annual. Upon returning to New Zealand in the mid 1990s, Horrocks had a half-page strip called 'Milo's Week' in the current affairs magazine New Zealand Listener from 1995 to 1997. He also produced Pickle, published by Black Eye Comics, in which the 'Hicksville' story originally appeared. Hicksville was published in book form in 1998, achieving considerable critical success. French, Spanish and Italian editions have since been published. In the last decade Horrocks has written and drawn a wide range of projects including scripts for Vertigo's Hunter: The Age of Magic and the Batgirl series, and Atlas, published by Drawn and Quarterly.
Horrocks' work has been displayed at the Auckland Art Gallery and Wellington's City Gallery. In 2002 Hicksville won an Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition, and the same year Atlas was nominated for the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story in 2002. In 2006 he was appointed University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand Literary Fellow.[1]
In an interview with Comics Bulletin, Horrocks claimed that his first words were 'Donald Duck'.
Horrocks' work has been displayed at the Auckland Art Gallery and Wellington's City Gallery. In 2002 Hicksville won an Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition, and the same year Atlas was nominated for the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story in 2002. In 2006 he was appointed University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand Literary Fellow.[1]
In an interview with Comics Bulletin, Horrocks claimed that his first words were 'Donald Duck'.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 10, 2018
Just plain weird.
This is a random compilation that felt more like a scrap book.
Includes unexplained scribbles and even a comic with blank speech bubbles.
Probably tolerable to some extent if you're a true fan.
This is a random compilation that felt more like a scrap book.
Includes unexplained scribbles and even a comic with blank speech bubbles.
Probably tolerable to some extent if you're a true fan.
August 16, 2017
Dylan Horrocks is one of those comics artists that I've been aware of for a long time, but whose work somehow never quite makes enough of a blip on my radar for me to get a handle on it. While I'd seen one or two of these pieces before, most of it was new to me. Holy cow! Talk about restless talents! There's an amazing breadth of work on display here. Horrocks seems to have dabbled in just about every storytelling technique imaginable. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, autobiography, history ... he seems to have tried it all. The earliest strips have a time machine quality to them that transports me back to the 80's and early 90's when I was reading alt comics magazines like Escape and Drawn & Quarterly for the first time. There's much to be savored here. Recommended!
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February 22, 2015(A version of this review was published, in German, in the Swiss comics journal STRAPAZIN)
I should start by confessing that I don’t think it’s possible for me to be objective in writing about the work of Dylan Horrocks. I find him, in spite of his relatively limited output, to be one of the most talented, lyrical, thoughtful, and important cartoonists of his generation. If Horrocks started designing breakfast cereal boxes, I would collect them with enthusiasm.
With INCOMPLETE WORKS, Horrocks and the New Zealand academic press have given us a gift: a loving archive of nearly thirty years of his shorter comics work, much of collected from far-flung mini-comics, fanzines, and small press anthologies. At some point or another over the last three decades I had come across nearly everything here, so this collection was like a wonderful walk back through almost my entire adult life as a comics fan.
INCOMPLETE WORKS brings together more than a few gems, including:
• “Little Death” (1986), one of Horrocks’s first published comics, which brilliantly captures the feeling of being twenty years old, staying out all night in smoky bars arguing about important topics (music, books, politics), and falling “in love a hundred times in a single moment.”
• “Captain Cook’s Comic Cuts” (1994), a smart and laugh-out-loud-funny account of that 18th-Century seafarer’s comic strips, which he created decades before Rodolphe Töpffer. (Of course, you knew this, right?)
• “L’il Ainjil” (1998), a short but heartbreaking elegy for Krazy Kat’s creator George Herriman.
• “To the I-Land” (2007), an insightful and reverential introduction to the forgotten New Zealand Underground comics genius Barry Lynton.
The high point of the collection may be “The Last Fox Story” (1990) which Horrocks produced as a 104-page mini-comic while he was living in London and going through a difficult period, including re-assessing his own relationship to comics. Originally drawn for FOX COMICS—which, ironically, folded before it could be published—you can also read this story on Horrocks’s website: http://hicksvillecomics.com/lastfoxst... Funny, sad, poetic, and beautiful, “The Last Fox Story” captures many of the themes Horrocks has returned to time and again: his belief in comics, even though the medium is incredibly difficult and has never gained significant critical recognition or much economic reward for most of its makers; the struggle of the artist to make sense of work and career, especially when things like adult life and parenthood happen; and the tremendous pleasures that come from discovering and getting lost in great comics. INCOMPLETE WORKS is the perfect title for this book, because Horrocks the cartoonist is clearly still wrestling with these topics.
INCOMPLETE WORKS is not, however, the place to start if you are new to Dylan Horrocks. In that case, run and get a copy of HICKSVILLE, his postmodern masterpiece of a graphic novel, which explores the peculiar history of comics as an art form while also musing on themes such as time, memory, work, friendship, and the potential of art to redeem us. Whenever I think I’ve outgrown comics, I pick up one of my many editions of HICKSVILLE and remember what this medium can do in the hands of a master.
I should start by confessing that I don’t think it’s possible for me to be objective in writing about the work of Dylan Horrocks. I find him, in spite of his relatively limited output, to be one of the most talented, lyrical, thoughtful, and important cartoonists of his generation. If Horrocks started designing breakfast cereal boxes, I would collect them with enthusiasm.
With INCOMPLETE WORKS, Horrocks and the New Zealand academic press have given us a gift: a loving archive of nearly thirty years of his shorter comics work, much of collected from far-flung mini-comics, fanzines, and small press anthologies. At some point or another over the last three decades I had come across nearly everything here, so this collection was like a wonderful walk back through almost my entire adult life as a comics fan.
INCOMPLETE WORKS brings together more than a few gems, including:
• “Little Death” (1986), one of Horrocks’s first published comics, which brilliantly captures the feeling of being twenty years old, staying out all night in smoky bars arguing about important topics (music, books, politics), and falling “in love a hundred times in a single moment.”
• “Captain Cook’s Comic Cuts” (1994), a smart and laugh-out-loud-funny account of that 18th-Century seafarer’s comic strips, which he created decades before Rodolphe Töpffer. (Of course, you knew this, right?)
• “L’il Ainjil” (1998), a short but heartbreaking elegy for Krazy Kat’s creator George Herriman.
• “To the I-Land” (2007), an insightful and reverential introduction to the forgotten New Zealand Underground comics genius Barry Lynton.
The high point of the collection may be “The Last Fox Story” (1990) which Horrocks produced as a 104-page mini-comic while he was living in London and going through a difficult period, including re-assessing his own relationship to comics. Originally drawn for FOX COMICS—which, ironically, folded before it could be published—you can also read this story on Horrocks’s website: http://hicksvillecomics.com/lastfoxst... Funny, sad, poetic, and beautiful, “The Last Fox Story” captures many of the themes Horrocks has returned to time and again: his belief in comics, even though the medium is incredibly difficult and has never gained significant critical recognition or much economic reward for most of its makers; the struggle of the artist to make sense of work and career, especially when things like adult life and parenthood happen; and the tremendous pleasures that come from discovering and getting lost in great comics. INCOMPLETE WORKS is the perfect title for this book, because Horrocks the cartoonist is clearly still wrestling with these topics.
INCOMPLETE WORKS is not, however, the place to start if you are new to Dylan Horrocks. In that case, run and get a copy of HICKSVILLE, his postmodern masterpiece of a graphic novel, which explores the peculiar history of comics as an art form while also musing on themes such as time, memory, work, friendship, and the potential of art to redeem us. Whenever I think I’ve outgrown comics, I pick up one of my many editions of HICKSVILLE and remember what this medium can do in the hands of a master.
November 1, 2014
This book is so goddamn beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
April 16, 2017
A great collection of Dylan Horrocks' early work and the short comics he's made for anthologies over the years.
"The Last Fox Story" (which was originally published in Horrocks' mini-comic, Pickle) blew me away, especially the way it becomes kind of a maze of stories within the story. I also loved the one-pager about Arvo Part's music, and his 5-day "Cartoonist's Diary" (from The Comics Journal's website).
There's a notes section in the back, and I recommend reading these as you go before you read each story (I used two bookmarks, to make it easier to flip back and forth). These notes shine a lot of light on the stories without spoiling them.
I only wish I'd read this book before reading his longer works, Hicksville and Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen, since it provides a nice foundation for those books. But I guess that gives me all the more reason to go back and read them again.
"The Last Fox Story" (which was originally published in Horrocks' mini-comic, Pickle) blew me away, especially the way it becomes kind of a maze of stories within the story. I also loved the one-pager about Arvo Part's music, and his 5-day "Cartoonist's Diary" (from The Comics Journal's website).
There's a notes section in the back, and I recommend reading these as you go before you read each story (I used two bookmarks, to make it easier to flip back and forth). These notes shine a lot of light on the stories without spoiling them.
I only wish I'd read this book before reading his longer works, Hicksville and Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen, since it provides a nice foundation for those books. But I guess that gives me all the more reason to go back and read them again.
August 10, 2018
Seeing this on the shelf at Forbidden Planet in NYC filled me with a sudden surge of hope that Horrocks had published another graphic novel without my knowledge, a hope that was soon crushed when I realized it was a collection of errata published in various places over the years, so forgive me if I'm not excited as I should be. Because I should be excited: Horrocks is an amazing cartoonist I should treasure any work of his I get to hold in my hands. Heck, I even love the clouds on the cover illustration! But, the title spells it out: don't pick it up expecting the next Hicksville.
That said, a format like this really helps us see the many visual styles Horrocks has tried and can do well, from photocopy collage to Picasso homage. It also tantalized me with his great ability with documentary comics, both in the form of actual history in the pages from a cartoon history of New Zealand, but also fake history in the form of the totally amazing Captain Cook's Cartoon Cuts. More please. Much more.
Perhaps the overriding impression this collection left on me was that of a comics scholar completely enamored with the medium, from the meanest strip to the most abstruse novel, which is something that I find myself needing after my disappointment with almost every comic I've read in the past couple years. Witness his apparently deep and abiding knowledge of obscure mini comics from New Zealand and across the world. But his fake histories serve the same function, making comics seem like a larger and wider world than it is. There's the aforementioned Captain Cook stuff, but also his comics about an imaginary country where comics are considered magic, and, of course, the imaginary town of Hickvbille where everyone considers it their duty to preserve comics. It's hard not to think of Borges, but with Horrocks these feats of invention seems more necessary, more vital for those of us who want to believe comics are as amazing as we'd like them to be.
That said, a format like this really helps us see the many visual styles Horrocks has tried and can do well, from photocopy collage to Picasso homage. It also tantalized me with his great ability with documentary comics, both in the form of actual history in the pages from a cartoon history of New Zealand, but also fake history in the form of the totally amazing Captain Cook's Cartoon Cuts. More please. Much more.
Perhaps the overriding impression this collection left on me was that of a comics scholar completely enamored with the medium, from the meanest strip to the most abstruse novel, which is something that I find myself needing after my disappointment with almost every comic I've read in the past couple years. Witness his apparently deep and abiding knowledge of obscure mini comics from New Zealand and across the world. But his fake histories serve the same function, making comics seem like a larger and wider world than it is. There's the aforementioned Captain Cook stuff, but also his comics about an imaginary country where comics are considered magic, and, of course, the imaginary town of Hickvbille where everyone considers it their duty to preserve comics. It's hard not to think of Borges, but with Horrocks these feats of invention seems more necessary, more vital for those of us who want to believe comics are as amazing as we'd like them to be.
April 19, 2014
what a great collection: fragments and short pieces that combine to make a beautiful, fractured story about dylan's life, real & imagined local comics heroes, and world politics seen from the distance that new zealand affords. full of poetry, desire, imagination, generosity (endnotes, openness, explanations) and familiarity. i'd read a few of these pieces in other places, others were new to me. i'm glad this book exists.
March 24, 2016
A cumulative effect arises as you leaf through dozens of half-finished examples of Horrocks' dreamy idealism. You feel your own world view shrink and merge with his: a scatterbrained series of diversions about how things could be, if only you could make the whole world up with your pen. Incomplete Works made me want to finish a few of the things I had started, to follow Horrocks' example and express what's in my own head.
August 6, 2014
Dylan Horrocks remains one of my all-time favorite cartoonists.
November 21, 2020
I first encountered Dylan Horrocks in about 1997 when his work graced the cover of a photocopied book of readings for a Film, TV & Media paper I was doing at Auckland University overseen by his dad, Roger Horrocks. (Roger had been an assistant to the legendary NZ kinetic artist, Len Lye. So all this is pretty cool.)
And actually a couple of the pieces in this collection date from around that time... which is apropos of nothing really, except that it gives me a little personal context for the work.
I love Dylan Horrocks' main style. This book exhibits that plus others. Actually it's kind of a portfolio in that way.
The work has dark moments, but there's often an emergent hopefulness. 'Dull Care' was my favourite piece in the book, showing an enthusiastic young cartoonist with lots of ideas entering the commercial world and being saddled with a briefcase called Dull Care, which goes with him everywhere and eventually weighs down his dreams. After he dies, his son opens the briefcase and reams of paper fly out, through the window, turning into birds that fly off into the night. The range of dark and hopefulness translates into an existential poignancy that is always there in Horrocks' work.
His graphic novel, Hicksville, I think will be a lasting classic for years to come. His other major work The Magic Pen is also very highly regarded. This book shows the creative milieu from which all that arises.
And actually a couple of the pieces in this collection date from around that time... which is apropos of nothing really, except that it gives me a little personal context for the work.
I love Dylan Horrocks' main style. This book exhibits that plus others. Actually it's kind of a portfolio in that way.
The work has dark moments, but there's often an emergent hopefulness. 'Dull Care' was my favourite piece in the book, showing an enthusiastic young cartoonist with lots of ideas entering the commercial world and being saddled with a briefcase called Dull Care, which goes with him everywhere and eventually weighs down his dreams. After he dies, his son opens the briefcase and reams of paper fly out, through the window, turning into birds that fly off into the night. The range of dark and hopefulness translates into an existential poignancy that is always there in Horrocks' work.
His graphic novel, Hicksville, I think will be a lasting classic for years to come. His other major work The Magic Pen is also very highly regarded. This book shows the creative milieu from which all that arises.
February 7, 2021
IDEA: scrapbook from Dylan Horrocks
PROs:
+ Sharing one's scrapbook can be useful to aspiring artists.
CONs:
--- I am not sure what could one learn from this. There's casual drawing, some unfinished parts, and then some finished sketches and mini-plays, but I couldn't find a single remarkable piece. I guess it's me.
PROs:
+ Sharing one's scrapbook can be useful to aspiring artists.
CONs:
--- I am not sure what could one learn from this. There's casual drawing, some unfinished parts, and then some finished sketches and mini-plays, but I couldn't find a single remarkable piece. I guess it's me.
March 4, 2018
No mainline narrative, as this is a collection of odds and ends from Horrocks’s career. I love his work, and seeing the progression here is very interesting. Themes emerge, an artist stands revealed. This is a deep cur, to be sure, but very helpful in understanding his work.
May 23, 2019
I love Horrocks' work and this is a terrific collection of not quite ephemera that gives a good overview of his career and ideas. Most of them do feel incomplete, which is something I really like and leaves the reader with some work to do themselves.
January 17, 2022
É uma sequência de rascunhos que poderiam ser "só" vazios, mas há aqui algo que é transmitido em literalmente todo trabalho de Horrocks, por mais idiossincrático que seja: um amor irrevogável pela arte.
January 1, 2017
Needed way more context to appreciate these shorts at even a base level.
August 18, 2014
===
Review from the Listener 27-Mar-14
Framing the remarkable talents of a comic strip hero
One suspects there are drawing boards in the corners of his mind with myriad stories unfurling frame by frame.
By Michael Larsen In Books
Dylan Horrocks is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated comic strip artists. Most notable in this country is his graphic novel Hicksville, published in 1998 (and reissued in 2010). However, Horrocks has also been published – and fêted – internationally; producing works for DC Comics is about as good as it gets in this genre. And his work has appeared in local publications, including, between 1995 and 1997, the Listener, where Milo’s Week attracted both applause and controversy.
Dylan Horrocks. Photo/Grant Maiden
Incomplete Works is a collection of shorter works spanning the years 1986 to 2012 and serves to showcase the progression of Horrocks’ abilities.
Thematically, there are the personal, the political and the personal-political, some dark, some humorous. Many are charmingly self-deprecating and self-referential; the plight of the comic strip artist is a theme he returns to continuously. The deliciously titled Freed from a Quill’s Prick is telling – Horrocks often complains, good-naturedly, of his vocation and the difficulty of completing, well, sometimes anything. One suspects there are drawing boards in the corners of his mind with myriad stories unfurling frame by frame.
Visually, the book is a smorgasbord, the finely etched first frame of Captain Cook’s Comic Cuts (yes, the great explorer was a cartoonist, didn’t you know?) contrasting in style with my favourite piece, Western Wind, its stark, dark frames erotic, wistful and deeply personal. Another highlight is the deeply disturbing There Are No Words in My Mouth.
Critical to the enjoyment of the collection is the list at the end that details where each strip has appeared. This helps give the works context: of time, place, intention and final publishing outlet. My only niggle is I would have liked a bit more explanation. Horrocks is clearly witty and clever, and some insights into his own work would have added an extra dimension.
However, the works must speak for themselves and despite some reading better than others, bringing them all into one place is great news for fans and shows a remarkable talent at work.
INCOMPLETE WORKS, by Dylan Horrocks (VUP, $35)
April 30, 2016
I've been wanting this book to become available in the U.S., and thanks to the good folks at Alternative Comics, this is now a reality. This had been published in New Zealand, and Dylan and mentioned this to us last year when we interviewed him for the podcast. And even then, he hinted that it might be available in North America in the not-too-distant future. I guess this is what he was alluding to. Many of the pieces in this collection connect to the narrative worlds he has created in Pickle/Hicksville, Atlas, and most recently Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen. More to love about Horrocks!
October 26, 2016
My expectations really let me down on this one. After reading the back and flipping through, I thought I would enjoy this, so I added it to my stack of library books. Unfortunately, I was left feeling bored and uncaring. I just didn't feel invested. The artwork and formatting was really interesting, though, which is why I gave this collection Two Stars instead of One. But I just feel that it was lacking in a way I can't put my finger on.
April 13, 2017
This is my first time reading Horrocks and I was quite taken by the variety, depth and passion here. His work on his fellow Kiwi artist was really interesting and that made me look into him more. I also enjoyed his sharing of his experiences in England and in battling with his French translation etc.
Overall I found this to be a reflective, mature, quirky and enjoyable compilation of his earlier work and I look forward to reading more of his stuff.
April 4, 2014
I found the shorts collected here always interesting and at times truly great. Dylan Horrocks has a great sensibility and the emotion and mood of a strip is always very clearly expressed. Recommended!
March 1, 2014
Brilliant personal over view of Horrocks career in stories and pictures
May 29, 2020
Bordélique et pas tellement construit. j'ai pas aimé.
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June 30, 2018C'était une mauvaise idée de m'introduire au travail de ce bédéiste avec ces planches-là, visiblement destinées aux fans aguerris. Mais une très bonne idée de l'emprunter à la bibliothèque numérique. ;-)
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