Hicksville: The New Zealand Village Where Comic Books Are a Way of Life

Imagine a quiet, remote coastal town where the postal worker, the local farmer, and the barista are all high-level authorities on the nuances of twentieth-century cartooning. In this town, the public library casually houses a pristine copy of Action Comics #1, the local cafe is named The Rarebit Fiend (after Winsor McCay’s pioneering early 20th-century strip), and once a year, the entire community dresses up as their favorite illustrated characters for a massive bonfire.

This is Hicksville, the fictional setting of New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks’ landmark 1998 graphic novel of the same name. Widely celebrated as a masterpiece of comics literature, Hicksville is much more than a quirky mystery story—it is a love letter to the medium of comics, an exploration of artistic integrity, and a profound meditation on what it means to find a place to stand in the world.

The Premise: A Quest to the Edge of the Earth

The story kicks off when Leonard Batts, a young Canadian journalist and researcher, arrives in the sleepy, isolated New Zealand coastal town of Hicksville. Leonard is on a pilgrimage to uncover the formative early years of Dick Burger, a hometown boy who has recently rocketed to global superstardom as the most powerful and successful comic book creator on earth.

Expect locals to be proud of Burger, Leonard instead encounters a puzzling wall of silence, resentment, and outright hostility. As Leonard digs deeper into the town’s eccentric culture, he discovers that Hicksville is a utopian enclave of comic book obsession, historical reverence, and hidden secrets. Far from being a cultural backwater, the village serves as the spiritual heart of the medium.

Key Themes of Hicksville

Horrocks weaves multiple layers into the narrative, transforming a simple investigative plot into a rich tapestry of ideas:

• Art Versus Commerce: Dick Burger represents the seductive pull of corporate fame, wealth, and intellectual property exploitation—mirroring the real-world trials of mainstream American comic creators. In contrast, Hicksville represents a space where artists are entirely freed from commercial constraint, creating for the pure poetry of the form.
• Tūrangawaewae (A Place to Stand): Horrocks, a New Zealander, infused the book with the indigenous Māori concept of tūrangawaewae—having a secure spiritual home. Hicksville acts as a literal and metaphorical geography where comics, often marginalized as lowbrow pulp, are given the dignity, history, and majesty they deserve.
• Metafiction and Form: The graphic novel is structurally brilliant. It features characters reading comics that contain other comics, blending fictional humans with fictional comic strips and characters created entirely by Horrocks. It is a “pure comic”—a story that could only exist and be told effectively through the unique vocabulary of sequential art.

Legacy and Impact

Originally serialized in Horrocks’ acclaimed solo comic series Pickle before being collected in 1998, Hicksville immediately captivated critics and creators alike. Legends of the industry like Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman praised its wit and depth, and the book went on to win international acclaim, including nominations for Harvey and Ignatz awards. It frequently ranks on lists of the greatest non-superhero graphic novels ever made.