Milo's Week - Dylan Horrocks

 Nov 11, 1995

 Nov 18, 1995

Milo's Week by Dylan Horrocks was a half page strip featuring the exploits of a political cartoonist which ran weekly in the New Zealand Listener from Nov 11 1995 to May 17 1997. Milo's Week combined a fictitious cast with real life New Zealand Politicians of the time to produce a blend of political satire and soap opera. Like fellow NZ cartoonist's David Low and John Kent, Horrocks managed to ruffle a few political feathers over the course of producing a weekly satirical strip.

I asked Dylan a few questions about his work on Milo's Week via email.

 

What led to Milo's Week featuring in The Listener?

It was blind luck, really. I had just quit my day job and was desperately looking for any kind of paying freelance gig. I visited the Listener with my portfolio, hoping to pick up some occasional illustration work. Turned out they were looking for a new comic strip, and they asked me to put together a proposal. I came up with a few ideas, but Milo was my favourite (and theirs, luckily).

Did you have to submit roughs for editorial approval on Milo's Week?

I'm trying to remember. I don't think I did; I just dropped in the finished strip, and the editors looked at them before they went to press. But I don't remember ever having a problem, except the one time I did a strip using characters from Murray Ball's Footrot Flats. It was just before the first MMP election, and the Electoral Commission had been running an advertising campaign explaining how MMP worked, starring the Footrot Flats characters. There was a lot of misleading information around on how to vote (I seem to remember ACT were urging people to vote strategically) and there were all sorts of metaphors and analogies being tossed about: dividing pies, cutting cakes, flushing votes down the toilet. My cartoon showed Wal in the polling booth, his head whirling with all those colourful analogies, too confused to vote.

I'd asked Murray Ball for permission to use his characters, and he'd said sure - although he later pointed out there might be complications with the Electoral Commission, given the contract they'd signed with him. So he said we should get their permission first. The deputy editor (Geoff Chapple) and I talked it over and agreed the Electoral Commission would probably take ages to decide, and then would probably want changes made to protect the clarity of their campaign's message. That would have ruined the whole point of the cartoon, so in the end we made a judgement call and took the risk of publishing without talking to the Electoral Commission first.

Sure enough, when the strip came out the electoral commission were furious and poor old Murray Ball ended up caught in the middle. I felt bad about that, but I'm glad Geoff went ahead and printed it. Politicians didn't get to vet cartoons about them, so why should the Electoral Commission?

Geoff was wonderful to work with; I think he quite enjoyed it when we ruffled a few feathers.
 

October 12, 1996

How was Milo's Week coloured?

The early ones were hand-coloured using watercolours (with a touch of coloured pencil here and there). Actually the "watercolours" I used were really inks designed for hand-colouring photographs. They were bright and transparent but not very mixable. I had no idea what I was doing, really. I still don't.

A month or so before the end, I started using Photoshop; but then I had even less idea what I was doing and some of those were terrible. I was learning on the job, I guess. Mind you, we were all Photoshop noobs in those days.

By the way, the earliest one coloured in Photoshop wasn't done by me, but by the art director. That's because I came down with suspected appendicitis late one night and was bundled off to hospital for a couple of days. That week's strip was all drawn but not yet coloured, so my wife dropped the black & white strip into the Listener office and the art director did the rest. The next week, it was back to watercolours, until the following year when I started experimenting with digital colouring myself.

Scanning was a constant problem. That was all very new back then, and the process was a little clunky. Whenever a new technology comes in like that, quality takes a few steps back before it improves.

Milo's Week digitally coloured by The Listener Art Director July 27, 1996

Did you receive much reader feedback?
 

We got letters now and then. Sometimes I actively tried to get readers involved, like when I ran a "Cartoonist Initiated Referendum" on a new National Day for New Zealand. Maybe half a dozen people sent in suggestions, ranging from Parihaka Day to Nuclear Free Day and Not The Queen's Birthday Day. One person even sent in a whole comic strip, and I wish I'd been able to run that. Nowadays, I'd have put it on the blog, but back then I barely knew how to send an email, let alone setting up a website.

February 10, 1996

April 13, 1996

The best feedback I ever got was when I did a series of strips where the Invisible Hand of the Market goes on a crime spree. That sparked a brief debate in the letters column between a couple of economists, which was rather gratifying. In fact, one of those strips has since been reprinted in two or three academic books on economics (including one from Germany).

Oh, and then there was the time I did a two-page strip for them reporting on the 'Beyond Dependency' and 'Beyond Poverty' conferences held in Auckland in 1997. Beyond Dependency was the "official" conference, part of a campaign run by the then-National government to sell its plans for welfare "reform" to the public. A group of anti-poverty campaigners organised an alternative conference called Beyond Poverty, and I talked the Listener into letting me attend both as a reporter/cartoonist.

When my comic strip report was published, the former finance minister Ruth Richardson called the Listener and cancelled a major feature interview they'd planned to do with her. She was outraged that the Listener had sent me to cover Beyond Dependency rather than a proper journalist; and I imagine the tone of my strip didn't exactly appeal to her either. Geoff Chapple chuckled when he told me about that.

 November 9, 1996

November 16, 1996

November 23, 1996

November 30, 1996

December 7, 1996

 December 14, 1996

What led to Milo's Week finishing in 1997?

That's simple: I was dropped. The editor who'd hired me was replaced with a new one (this happened depressingly frequently at the time, as circulation continued to decline throughout the 1990s). The new editor cancelled a number of regular features and brought in new ones. I was upset, of course, because I relied on that reliable weekly cheque. But then they launched a new strip by Anthony Ellison and it was a lot better than mine, so it was all for the best, really.

I tried a few other strips in the aftermath. I briefly tried selling Milo as a daily or weekly to the NZ Herald, without success (you can see some of those here.) Then Chris Trotter asked me to continue Milo in the NZ Political Review, but one episode in the magazine went into a long hiatus and I gave up. I tried out a couple of other strip ideas too: Scoop (starring a reporter who'd address the readers directly) and Life with PeeWee (about an advertising executive who has a midlife crisis and quits to write the great NZ novel; he discovers being a house-husband with 3 kids is more challenging than he thought. ( Samples here.) Both failed to convince the editors I pitched them to. The only success I had with a follow-up strip was Dot Com, which I drew for Ian Wishart's Investigate magazine at the turn of the millennium. I must have done five or six strips before giving it up. I can't even remember whether he dropped me or vice versa. Given how Investigate has evolved into a scary wingnut conspiracy rag since, I'm kind of glad I got out early.

The last Milo's Week published May 17, 1997

Horrocks drew a further two strips before Milo's was cancelled. He commented, "You'll notice I reworked the first one for the proposed daily strip. I was sorry the very last one never saw print, because it was my little tribute to NZ's editorial cartoonists, with cameos by Tom Scott, Slane, Ellison, Tim Bollinger, et al. I was sorry, too, that the strip ended with Milo and Sasha broken up. I never intended that to last forever. But there's something poetic about the last published strip ending with "it's important to know when you're beaten."

Dylan Horrocks Internet Portal: www.hicksville.co.nz

Milo's Week Copyright 2012 Dylan Horrocks

Dailies

The first edition of a new comics anthology, Dailies, was recently produced by the Silent Army publishing concern. Contained within the pages of the striking 32 page tabloid newspaper format are sixty artists from Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia producing their takes on 'newspaper strips'. Established cartoonist's such as Tim Molloy, Tim Danko, Mandy Ord, Glenn Smith, Ben Hutchings and more feature alongside emerging young talent. Cartoons are presented in a variety of forms from abstract art comics to riffs on popular newspaper strips as well as dense multi-panel narratives.

Excerpt of Mandy Ord's Desperate Times

Each release will feature different versions of contemporary views of the comic art strips presented in black and white, two colour, and full colour spreads.

I asked Dailies Editor M P Fikaris a few questions via email about his latest project.

What was the impetus to publish Dailies?

There were a few really. But mostly, as with all anthologies I have published, to show the fine talents of my friends. Also, with dailies it is a little bit of an idea on doing things quickly and without too much pre design and study as most comics tend to be). I asked the artists to submit something in a short time frame, hoping not only to get us doing something without too much thought but also to get something that could be repeated and continued like the daily comics of old newspaper cartoonists.

 Excerpt from The Pox Girls Plan 9 From Outer Space

Some of the material in Dailies seems far removed from the concept of  'the comic art strip', some perhaps more in the realm of art comics, were there editorial guidelines for Dailies? Were you involved in editorial guidance with any of the contributors?

I asked a lot of friends, some with a more traditional comic strip making background and others who I thought were doing things that are very similar in nature to the comic strip. My mind is very open to comics in many mediums and I certainly don’t restrict a comic to squares on a page with characters talking.

 Excerpt from Leigh Rigozzi

 What was the print run of Dailies? Are you satisfied with the finished product?

The print run was 3000 copies. I am satisfied that it is complete, but there are certainly a lot of pips in it. It is the first time I have laid something out for newsprint and I have learnt a bunch of things. My budget was pretty low (but very gratefully it was covered by a fellow artist who wants to remain unknown) so I did it with a printer that was possibly less helpful than I could have hoped. The first issue is not about perfect layout for me but more about getting it complete and making it a progressive thing. The next issue is due in May this year and the following to come out in August, then again in November.

Were there any difficulties in assembling an anthology with this many creators spread out over the globe?

Yeah, a little frustrating – but that was the challenge.

 

Excerpt from 'Megg's Coven' by Simon Hanselman

Where is Dailies available from?

With this collection I plan to take it to the streets and sell it  like a paper – but with a twist. Combining my background as an artist on the streets and doing work with local theatre companies I am very excited to try something a little different … to have unadvertised ‘happenings’ each month in a Melbourne laneway… each will be plastered with the papers contents on the walls(done the night before) and myself and another dressed to impress with paper in tow ‘performing’ a selling technique I hope will make the paper a more interesting and mysterious collection of stories and artworks for all sorts interested in ‘culture’.

I have plans to do this next week and will be recording it for future reference.

Currently I am also selling it on the silent army website - www.silentarmy.org. and successfully at various art fairs/stalls and markets. The plan with this has always been to glue into laneways of the city and distribute through other less traditional comic outlets. Flexing creative flare instead of bending to the needs of the stores.

 

 All cartoons copyright 2012 their respective creators.

Loose Crayons - Hawkes Bay Comics Anthology

Covers of Loose Crayons #4,#5 (Apologies to Ant Sang for swiping his parental advisory logo!)

WARNING: Some of the comics in this post may be deemed offensive

My first foray into publishing comics was as an editor and contributor for an anthology, Loose Crayons, which ran for five issues in 1996. Living in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, at the time I was inspired by my neighbour who a few months prior had launched a music fanzine. With contributions from musicians and art students at the Eastern Institute of Technology I published the first 16 page (incl covers) black and white A5 issue in early 1996. It was well received at the local comic shop who managed to sell through a few small runs.

Elixir Joy by Cherie Rosvall ran in the first four issues of Loose Crayons

After the first issue I added colour card covers and the page count expanded to 28 pages. A lot of submissions were from art students that were not particularly interested in comics or versed in comic form which lead to some interesting results. Over the five issues there was only one submission that could have been regarded as a typical superhero story.

 

 

Menno Huiber's The Adventures of Rob + Ronny was serialised in the first three issues.

I would sneak into my workplace around midnight, ring the security firm to offer an explanation for deactivating the alarms, and then make as many copies on the photocopier as I felt I could safely get away with. One night I used a whole toner roll which I feared would lead to my discovery but it was never mentioned.
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 Michael Hawksworth contributed the three part Scared of the Juice in Loose Crayons #3-#5

In issue four I published three comic strips by a high school friend that proved a bit controversial. I was of the mind that I would publish anything and I considered Loose Crayons to be informed by what I understood as a punk aesthetic. I was also drawing inspiration from what little I knew of the sixties American underground scene. Unfortunately many contributors took offence to these strips and informed me they no longer wanted to be a part of the anthology. I limped along for one more issue that was primarily filled with my own comics with issue #5 in August 1996 being the last.

Two of the three controversial strips from Loose Crayons #4
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Loose Crayons was never distributed beyond Hawkes Bay. It's quite possible no-one outside of this part of New Zealand ever saw it. Many small press efforts like this I'm sure have been created in corners of the world never to see any wider audience. Perhaps less so in today's Internet age.

All Comics featured are copyright their respective creators. Loose Crayons was edited by M.Emery.

Little Hongi - George F H Taylor

George F H Taylor is another obscure New Zealand comic artist that I have found several examples of but no trace of anything biographical. Taylor produced Little Hongi - Adventures in Maoriland for Auckland publisher John G. Helleur, a Jaygee production, in the fifties.  Another mystery figure in New Zealand comics Helleur was also involved in the New Plymouth printed Bingo Comics although I am unsure if this was on the production side or solely as a distributor.

Though undated the byline of 'This is an approved comic' along the top left spine side of the cover would indicate it was published after 1954. The byline provided assurance for parents that were aware of Frederic Wetham's Seduction of The Innocent, a treatise on the dangers of comics and children. New Zealand had it's own 'Seduction of The Innocent' with a thirty page essay by Margaret Dalziel published in the literary journal Landfall in March 1955.

George F H Taylor also produced Science fiction titles Space (of which I'm aware of two issues) and Dick Astro of Space Patrol as well as tackling funny animals in Wonder Comics (1958).

In the 1950's Jaygee produced children's albums similar to English annuals with thick card covers with pages sometimes of a similar stock. Taylor contributed illustrations to these which were typical of the boy's own prose genre with titles like 'Thrilling Adventures'.

Sources: Landfall Vol. 9 No. 1 March 1955 - Comics in New Zealand - Margaret Dalziel, Space #1 and Dick Astro of Space Patrol from collection of Geoff Harrison, The Australian Comic Collector - The Comics of New Zealand - Geoff Harrison.

Big Arse 2 Comic Launch

Big Arse Comic Book Launch #2 To Be Held in March

Melbourne, Australia - Following the success of 2011’s Big Arse Comic Book Launch 

the Melbourne comics community in hosting a second, even bigger event to launch of fifteen (15) new works created by authors from the fast-growing local scene.

These books are published by a diverse array of publishers, from the small press to national publishers, with reach into the newsstands and the global comics market.

Presented by the inimitable, indomitable, inglorious and invincible Bernard Caleo.

Saturday, March 3rd from 2:00pm

Sentido Funf

243 - 245 Gertrude Street

Fitzroy

Victoria, Australia

High Seas - Terry Currie

High Seas is twenty pages, black and white, and undated although I would guess it was published in the 1950's. No credits are featured although the artwork is signed Terry Currie in a few places. Back cover has an advert for another comic, Clancy The Clown and a printer/publisher credit - Marketing Services (N.Z.) Ltd, New Plymouth. - J.G.H. The lead feature is a High Seas Adventure followed by some shorter back up's, Kid Kiwi and Arrow Boy.

Phantom Commando - Flame Over Korea

Flame Over Korea is a nine page Phantom Commando story by Maurice Bramley from Page Publications Phantom Commando #16. This issue also features two other Maurice Bramley stories, The Big Gun and The Raiders.