The Secret Geography of Comics: Exploring Dylan Horrocks’ Hicksville

When people hear the word Hicksville, they usually think of a cliché: a sleepy, isolated, unremarkable rural town far away from the bustling centers of culture and industry. But for lovers of graphic novels and sequential art, Hicksville is something entirely different. It is the title of a legendary 1998 graphic novel by New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks—a book that treats the medium of comics not merely as a form of entertainment, but as an entire universe with its own geography, history, and spiritual core.

Widely praised as a masterpiece of meta-fiction, Hicksville remains one of the most inventive love letters ever written to the comic book medium.

The Premise: A Biography and a Mystery

The story begins with Leonard Batts, a mild-mannered Canadian comic book researcher and writer. Batts is obsessed with Dick Burger, currently the most famous and successful comic book creator on the planet. Burger’s rise has been meteoric, his style dominating the mainstream industry. Eager to chronicle the genius behind the icon, Batts travels across the globe to Burger’s remote hometown: a tiny, out-of-the-way settlement in New Zealand called Hicksville.

Expect to find a place completely indifferent or oblivious to pop culture, Batts instead steps into a bizarre twilight zone. In Hicksville, everyone is a comic book expert. The local postman, the farmers, and the shopkeepers are deeply literate in the nuances of sequential art. The local library casually preserves holy grails like Action Comics #1, and the café is named The Rarebit Fiend after Winsor McCay’s classic strip.

Even stranger: everyone in Hicksville hates Dick Burger.

As Batts digs deeper into the town’s history and its residents’ memories, he uncovers a dark, compelling secret about how Burger achieved his global fame—unraveling a web of intellectual theft, artistic integrity, and the corporate exploitation of a beloved folk art.

A Town Built on Tūrangawaewae

Beyond its clever mystery and industry satire, Hicksville explores deep thematic waters. Dylan Horrocks has frequently spoken about the New Zealand Māori concept of tūrangawaewae—which roughly translates to “a place to stand”—meaning a spiritual home or a place where you have the right to belong.

For decades, comic creators, particularly those working outside major cultural capitals, felt displaced. They labored under corporate-owned properties, commercial pressures, and societal disrespect that treated comics as disposable trash. Horrocks created Hicksville as a utopian metaphor: a sanctuary where comic artists are free from commercial constraints, where art is valued for its poetry, and where creators can finally find their tūrangawaewae.

Why Hicksville Matters

• A Masterclass in Meta-Fiction: The book doesn’t just talk about comics; it embodies them. Horrocks weaves fictional comics-within-comics throughout the narrative, illustrating different styles, eras, and philosophies of the medium.
• Historical Commentary: While fictionalized, the book serves as a sharp, critical commentary on the history of the American comic book industry—touching on copyright battles, creator rights, and the shifting tides of corporate control.
• Critical Acclaim: Over the years, publishers like Drawn & Quarterly have reissued the book to introduce it to new generations of readers. Giants of the industry, like Sin City creator Frank Miller, praised Horrocks’ ability to craft characters that “grab you and haunt you”.

Final Thoughts

Hicksville asks a deceptively simple question: What would the world look like if comics were treated as the highest form of literature and culture?

In answering it, Dylan Horrocks didn’t just write a clever mystery. He built an imaginary village that readers never quite want to leave—a place where ink on paper holds the weight of history, magic, and human emotion.