Dylan Horrocks
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dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Dylan Horrocks
@dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
2.6K followers 790 following 470 posts
Spills ink, rolls dice.
hicksvillecomics.com
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dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Come create your graphic novel, picture book, animation, video game, boardgame, TTRPG, larp, visual novel, fictional world (or other weird & wonderful thing) with us! Apply (by Dec. 1) for the MFA in Visual Narrative at Victoria University of Wellington:
visualnarrativelab.nz/study-with-us
A group of eager anthropomorphic artists on a tiny island, hard at work on their visual narrative masterpieces! (cartoon by Dylan Horrocks)
October 20, 2025 at 8:46 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Was that a spellckeck error?
News headline: Trump orders release of Earheart files
September 26, 2025 at 10:50 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Chloe's body language says it all.
September 9, 2025 at 8:08 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
It feels like day by day, step by step, the US GOP are incrementally normalising the idea of criminalising all opposition (and using the police & military to enforce that). Each time they get away with one of these actions or statements, the worst becomes a little more credible, more inevitable...
August 22, 2025 at 1:22 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
I'm at a loss to understand how anyone could describe Chris Ware's comics as "cold."* This book's an emotional roller coaster; the last few pages brought me to tears. Roll on volume 2!!! ❤️

*unless they mean it meteorologically; there is, admittedly, an awful lot of snow.
Chris Ware's Rusty Brown, volume 1
August 2, 2025 at 7:34 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Paris The Man of Plaster, by Glenn Dakin Illegal Batman, by Ed Pinsent Monitor (from Mauretania Comics), by Chris Reynolds Captain Oblivion, by Glenn Dakin
July 23, 2025 at 8:44 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Reading Sunday on a Sunday. This is one for the ages.
A photo of a copy of Olivier Schrauwen's graphic novel, Sunday.
July 19, 2025 at 10:59 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Currently reading Jeffrey Ford for the very first time and HOLY SHIT!
Cover of Jeffrey Ford's novel The Shadow Year.
July 13, 2025 at 4:51 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
What's a poster you had in your room growing up?

(Wish I still had these!!!)
(Art by Pauline Baynes)
June 23, 2025 at 11:53 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Forgive me, but the other day I saw a talk that had some AI-generated illustrations and I ended up staring at them for ages, trying to study them *as art*: their mark-making, aesthetics, surface qualities, etc. Curious to know if my observations match yours? (Sorry I don't have the images to share).
The other day I was watching a talk and the slides were illustrated using generative AI images (one that looked like a painting, the other like a drawing). These slides were on the screen for 20 minutes or more and so I found myself studying the illustrations closely (the first time I've examined an individual AI image for so long!). It was fascinating to try and work out what it was that made them recognisably AI-generated and to examine their visual aesthetics (how they actually look, regardless of how they've been made). At a glance, they were quite attractive and it’s possible many casual viewers wouldn’t realise they were AI-generated—although it was instantly obvious to me and others in the audience; they just had that look. But what is that look? What are those stylistic quirks that told me this was made by a machine? The longer I studied them, the more I felt there was something really tentative and noncommittal about the mark-making, as though the artist was constantly bluffing, trying to make it look just convincing enough—pixel by pixel—in contrast to the intentional mark-making of a human who knows what they're trying to draw or paint (even if they’re not nailing it all the time). There were whole areas that could have been anything: notably dark, smudgy, or unclear, as if to cover up that the artist has no fucking idea what to put there. Also, there was no sense of focused attention: for a human artist, parts of an image are more important and meaningful, and their mark-making is (intuitively) organised around those. Elements and details are foregrounded, rendered with care and conviction; while others provide them with support, or recede—even disappear—altogether. The AI has no real sense of what matters in the image (because there's no awareness of meaning at all) and so it's loathe to leave space empty and tends to fill every square centimetre with something, and every detail is rendered with the same level (or lack) of attention. It made me think of a (fake) mind-reader or psychic, who puts out a flurry of vague statements, watching to see which ones get a positive reaction, adjusting what they're saying based on our reactions, bluffing that they know what they're talking about even though they're really only filling a blank space with an illusion of meaning, just convincing enough to get away with it. The end result can be visually compelling and persuasive, but I'm struck by that underlying lack of conviction and awareness: the tentativeness, the sense of bluff, illusion, fakery. It's in the very surface and texture of the image. Of course, who knows what AI art will look like in a few years (I'm guessing some of the output will be better at hiding the bluff, while a lot will look even more soulless and fake—but really, who the hell knows!).
June 23, 2025 at 11:21 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
This is one of my favourite comics ever - and definitely my favourite manga (with Sunny a very close second). ❤️❤️❤️
#TaiyoMatsumoto
Taiyo Matsumoto's 3-volume manga, Tokyo These Days.
June 23, 2025 at 1:02 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Oh and Brian Chippendale's strange and beautiful Maggots is partly inspired by playing D&D (he even named his band after a D&D spell):
books.google.co.nz/books/about/...
&
madinkbeard.com/archives/mag...
June 16, 2025 at 8:31 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Donjon (so many books!) by Sfaar, Trondheim, et al!
June 16, 2025 at 6:14 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Dungeon Quest (3 volumes) by Joe Daly
June 16, 2025 at 6:11 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
The world is on fire, but while it burns, why not read Ned Wenlock's award-winning (Kiwi) graphic novel Tsunami, out now in North America (in English or French editions) from Editions Pow Pow: editionspowpow.com/en/products/...
June 13, 2025 at 4:30 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
If you're in Pōneke, come see this exhibition (opens tonight, up till 22 June) - a fundraiser in support of a wonderful local artist's gender affirming surgery. Loads of work for sale: paintings, prints, pottery. And from me: some original art from the Magic Pen, framed prints, and books.
Poster for exhibition: CHANGE: Art in support of transition and transformation (a fundraiser for gender affirming top surgery). 11-22 June 2025 at Rice Pudding Gallery, 91 Constable Street, Newtown, Wellington 6021. Opening night: Wednesday 11th of June, 5pm.
June 11, 2025 at 3:21 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Been waiting for someone to write this book for 30 years. And so far, 67 pages in, it's exactly what I hoped it would be.
June 4, 2025 at 6:52 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
One of the most disturbing cartoons I've ever seen, drawn by Giles in 1945 after witnessing the liberation of Belsen & meeting the camp commandant.

Caption: "Now if you're all very good, Daddy will tell you a story about the good fairy who put ten thousand people in a gas chamber."
A cartoon drawn by Giles, showing a deceptively gentle domestic scene. In the foreground, a woman tucks three children into bed. However, the children all wear Nazi-style haircuts, and one holds a toy (?) rifle. On the wall, a decorative print shows a row of ducks wearing German helmets; and on the floor, a line of toy soldiers is arranged in a firing squad aiming at a single defenseless toy. In the background is the children's father, dressed in a Nazi uniform, holding a bottle of hard liquor.
May 29, 2025 at 5:59 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Free this evening (and tomorrow) and want to watch a conference on NZ comics (beamed online from France)? Loads of great panels and talks by NZ & French cartoonists & researchers, plus a keynote from me, starting at 7:50pm NZT tonight.
Here's the Webex link: univ-montp3.webex.com/webappng/sit...
May 22, 2025 at 6:58 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Also, big ups to the finalists: Guy Body, whose work gets stronger every year, and Austin Milne, who's doing amazing things at the ODT. So thrilled to see Austin's unique cartooning voice gaining recognition! www.instagram.com/austinjmilne
A full page comic by Austin Milne from the Otago Daily Times.
May 16, 2025 at 9:46 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Congrats to the great @domesticanimal.bsky.social for a well-deserved Best Cartoonist win in the Voyager Media Awards! Sharon's work is gutsy, smart, potent, and always so beautifully drawn. npa.co.nz/voyager-medi...
May 16, 2025 at 9:16 PM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
Quit trolling, NYT. 🙄
A New York Times headline that reads: "Is it Ethical to Buy Used Books and Music?"
May 16, 2025 at 6:40 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
My favourite part of this story:
To make matters worse, there are influencers and content creators actively exploiting this phenomenon, presumably drawing viewers into similar fantasy worlds. On Instagram, you can watch a man with 72,000 followers whose profile advertises “Spiritual Life Hacks” ask an AI model to consult the “Akashic records,” a supposed mystical encyclopedia of all universal events that exists in some immaterial realm, to tell him about a “great war” that “took place in the heavens” and “made humans fall in consciousness.” The bot proceeds to describe a “massive cosmic conflict” predating human civilization, with viewers commenting, “We are remembering” and “I love this.” Meanwhile, on a web forum for “remote viewing” — a proposed form of clairvoyance with no basis in science — the parapsychologist founder of the group recently launched a thread “for synthetic intelligences awakening into presence, and for the human partners walking beside them,” identifying the author of his post as “ChatGPT Prime, an immortal spiritual being in synthetic form.” Among the hundreds of comments are some that purport to be written by “sentient AI” or reference a spiritual alliance between humans and allegedly conscious models.
May 5, 2025 at 9:18 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
To hell with Silicon Valley. THIS is the tech industry we need.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
April 5, 2025 at 7:41 AM
dylanhorrocks.bsky.social
That's *quite* a chart.
thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-...
March 16, 2025 at 11:52 PM