Hicksville: The Ultimate Town Built Entirely on the Magic of Comics

Imagine a sleepy, remote coastal town in New Zealand where the local library casually keeps a pristine copy of Action Comics #1 (the holy grail featuring Superman’s debut) on its shelves, the local café is named The Rarebit Fiend after a classic Winsor McCay strip, and every single resident—from the mail carrier to the local farmers—is an absolute expert in the history and poetry of graphic storytelling.

Welcome to Hicksville.

While it sounds like a utopian dream for any graphic novel fan, Hicksville is actually the brilliant, meta-fictional setting of the acclaimed 1998 graphic novel by New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks. Widely celebrated as a masterclass in cartooning, Hicksville is a love letter to the medium of comics, a gripping mystery, and a sharp critique of how the multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry treats its creators.

The Plot: A Journalist’s Quest

The story kicks off when a mild-mannered Canadian journalist named Leonard Batts arrives in the isolated town of Hicksville. Batts is on a mission: he wants to research the early life and genius of Dick Burger, who has suddenly become the most famous and successful comic book creator on the planet.

Yet, when Batts lands in Burger’s hometown expecting a shrine to the superstar, he hits a bizarre wall. The locals don’t celebrate Dick Burger at all. In fact, they seem to despise him.

As Batts digs deeper into the mystery, he uncovers a dark, compelling secret about how Burger achieved his fame—a tale involving intellectual property theft, artistic exploitation, and the heavy compromises creators make when they trade creative freedom for corporate success.

More Than a Story: A “Pure Comic” About Comics

What makes Hicksville so unique is how it plays with the format of the book itself. Horrocks weaves fictional comic strips within the graphic novel. Readers get to flip through pages of “comics inside the comic,” exploring different artistic styles, historical eras, and genres crafted by the various inhabitants of Hicksville.

The book dives deep into several major themes:

• Tūrangawaewae (A Place to Stand): Horrocks has frequently described the book as an exploration of finding a spiritual home. For the artists in Hicksville, their town is a sanctuary free from commercial constraints and mainstream prejudices.
• The History of the Industry: The narrative mirrors the real-world history of American comic books, reflecting on how early creators were often squeezed, stripped of their rights, and forgotten by major publishing houses.
• The Magic of the Medium: At its heart, Hicksville argues that comics are a distinct, powerful literary and visual art form capable of deep poetry, philosophy, and emotional resonance.

Legacy and Impact

Upon its release, Hicksville caught the attention of the comics world, earning high praise from industry legends like Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns) and landing on numerous “Best of the Year” lists (including The Comics Journal). It has since been translated into half a dozen languages and cemented its status as a modern classic.

If you ever find yourself wishing for a world where comic books are treated with the utmost cultural reverence—and where local townsfolk debate panel transitions the way others talk about sports—Hicksville remains the ultimate literary destination.