EDITOR'S NOTES

This is just what it says: a page from Dylan's diary. So read it not as a polished comic, but as a dream-record. What jumps out at me is, Horrocks had already done something of what the dream suggests! His classic Hicksville (1998) shows a Kiwi town with a secret library of rare and brilliant comics--unpublished, barely published, commercial failures, unfinished, dreamed of... showing how comics publishers neglect and even cripple their own medium/art. An intricate blend of fiction and real history. Plus Maori culture. And nerd culture (and shyness, and humility, and the limitations that humility imposes.)

The dream might be a prompt to reissue Hicksville--except that he'd done that two years before the dream, in 2010.

So my best guess is... this dream's absolutely literal, no interpretation needed. It urges Dylan to edit a "New Zealand's Best" comics anthology. After all, who's better qualified? Who's a greater comics scholar? (Worldwide, I mean, not just NZ. He's read everything.) So why not?

Reader, he did. Later in 2012, Horrocks compiled a 110-page list/history of New Zealand comics. Not an anthology, and not comprehensive, but a good start. Viewable free at hicksvillepress.com/nzcomics

Also by Horrocks, also highly recommended:

• Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen. Are you morally responsible for your fantasies, for your art? Horrocks argues plausibly that these questions are distinct: fantasy is private and wayward by nature, and affects you alone; but you ARE responsible for how you let it shape your actions later. ART, though, is ALREADY action; it affects others, even if not with the same consequences or moral rules as acting-out the same fantasies would. Powerful, thoughtful, and I'm grateful Horrocks didn't rub our noses in the violent fantasies so rife in superhero comics, even though I think the latter are way more hurtful than the pulp sex fantasies he uses instead.
• Incomplete Works. Short pieces (well, one's 100+ mini-pages) over his whole career. Many styles here--the diary page above is raw and simple compared to most. I think he's grown over the years. Intelligent and sensitive work from the start, but stronger art & narration convey his sensibility best in the newer pieces. Some qualify as poetry, really. Like Siso (source of cover image of the Spirit of Love), My World, Cornucopia. And his comics-history riffs--Letter from Catwoman, To The I-Land (on Barry Linton), Li'l Anjil (on Herriman's last wish), Siso again...
• Atlas: tales about his imaginary country, Cornucopia. I haven't read these yet but believe me, I plan to if I can find them.

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