While we look forward to ComicFest 2024, meet Dylan Horrocks in this “5 minutes with” interview.
What first got you interested in comics?
My dad had plenty of great comics in the house, and as soon as it was clear I had developed an obsession, he and my mum would bring home anything interesting they found. So I grew up reading Tintin and Asterix, but also compilations of Golden Age comics and early newspaper strips, but also weird underground comix, French comics magazines, histories of comics – all sorts of stuff. I started drawing my own comics in notebooks when I was very young; I loved drawing and I loved writing and making up stories, so comics was the perfect medium for me!
What is your average day like?
These days, I’m teaching comics and visual storytelling at Victoria University of Wellington, so my day is often full of class prep, lecturing, tutorials, catching up with post-graduate students, and (of course) answering emails. Seeing our students develop their own unique comics is constantly thrilling and helps keep me excited about working on my own (when I manage to carve out some time!).
Can you tell us about a current or recent project you’ve worked on?
I’m currently working on a strange, personal project called Secret Door. It’s part of a PhD in creative writing that I’m doing, looking at how tabletop role-playing games (like Dungeons & Dragons) open up new ways of thinking about narrative. I’m publishing it as I go in the form of a series of zines – a mixture of comics, essays, and games (and whatever else comes up along the way). I’m having a blast with it (as someone who’s been obsessed with role-playing games for 44 years)!
Do you have any traditions or rituals that help you when you get to work?
Music helps. If I’m at my office, I put on my headphones and crank up one of several massive playlists. Most people I know can’t write while listening to music with lyrics, but somehow that doesn’t bother me. It helps me tune out all the distractions and lose myself in the act of making stuff.
Who/what is your biggest influence or inspiration?
There are too many to choose just one! Tintin has been a lifelong companion, but also Tove Jansson’s Moomins, Chris Reynolds’ Mauretania, and many others. Often whatever comics I’ve read most recently will be on my mind, either because I’m inspired or repelled (or both). Writing and drawing is always partly a conversation with everything I’ve read before.
What or who are your favourite NZ comics or creators?
Again, there are so many! I’ll just mention a few who I associate with something I’m especially interested in at the moment: a thread of deeply personal and idiosyncratic lyrical comics that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s: people like Timothy Kidd, Sophie McMillan, Robert Scott, Tim Bollinger, Lisa Noble, Adam Jamieson. I now see this thread woven through the work of people like Mat Tait, Sophie Watson, Hana Chatani, Sloane Hong, Tara Black, Lauren Marriott (Ralphi), among others (and, of course, it’s still there in Tim Kidd and Tim Bollinger’s recent comics). I could add dozens of names to that list – NZ has a long tradition of beautiful, poetic comics, and today it’s absolutely thriving.
What is your dream comic project?
I’d like to take all my unfinished comics projects and somehow tie them together into one big project that I’d work on for the next ten years, so I could tell all those stories at last, clearing them out of my head.
What are you excited to share with ComicFest attendees? Just a taster!
If anyone asks, I’m happy to show them the rough drawings for Secret Door #2. Also, I’m excited about two events we’re hosting at Victoria University of Wellington on the same weekend as ComicFest: a Comics Zine Market and a Comics Studies Aotearoa symposium – both on Sunday 5 May, at our Architecture & Design campus at 139 Vivian St. Both events are free and all are welcome!
If you were to enter our cosplay contest, who/what would you dress up as?
I used to be able to do a good Tintin; but the older I get, the more I seem to be turning into Professor Calculus…
You can catch Dylan at the below events:
With Dylan Horrocks, Daniel Vernon and Zak Waipara. Hosted by Stephen Clothier.
As the audience for comics grows, so too does the medium itself expand into new universes of style, content and delivery. This panel explores the work of comic artists who are at the forefront of this expansion, breaking new ground with comics and cartooning, and finding new ways to tell stories using comic techniques.
Featuring Daniel Vernon’s inimitable take on political cartooning; Zak Waipara’s work traversing comic creation, teaching, kids’ books and games and Dylan Horrocks’ adventures into the complex world of tabletop gaming systems. This panel promises to expand your conception of what comics are now, and could become in the future.
Panel: Happy Anniversary ComicFest
With Dylan Horrocks, Sarah Laing and Jem Yoshioka. Hosted by Sam Orchard.
Our closing session for ComicFest is all about our 10th anniversary. We’re reflecting on 10 years of free comics, events, panels and, of course, the incredible comic artists who’ve made this festival possible.
We are joined by an amazing panel of comic artists who’ve been with us across the years. Dylan Horrocks, Sarah Laing and Jem Yoshioka will explore the ever-changing world of comics in Aotearoa New Zealand – where it’s been and where we’re heading.
