Dylan Horrocks

@dylanhorrocks.bsky.social

2668 Followers 842 Following

Spills ink, rolls dice. hicksvillecomics.com

Front cover of the zine Secret Door #2, with a drawing of a night-time scene with something strange in the sky.
BOOK LAUNCH The Len Lye Foundation and Roger Horrocks are pleased to invite you, together with friends, family &c. to the launch of Happy Moments by Len Lye: Len Lye’s memories of his childhood and adolescence, and how he became an artist. In celebration of the 125th anniversary of Lye’s birthday. Lamplight Books — G01/100 Parnell Road, Parnell 3.30pm — Sunday 5 July Introduction and Refreshments ALL WELCOME
BOOK LAUNCH The Len Lye Foundation and Roger Horrocks are pleased to invite you, together with friends, family etc. to the launch of Happy Moments by Len Lye (edited by Roger Horrocks): Len Lye’s memories of his childhood and adolescence, and how he became an artist. In celebration of the 125th anniversary of Lye’s birthday. Unity Books — 57 Willis Street, Wellington Central 5pm — Sunday 19 July Introduction and Refreshments ALL WELCOME
The cover of the graphic novel Return to Eden by Paco Roca.
Screengrab of RNZ news feed. At the top: LIVE: AUCKLAND HOUSE SET ALIIGHT BY LIGHTNING STRIKE. Next headline: 'Electrify everything we can': Greens isdue warning in State of the Planet' address
Olivier Schrauwen's graphic novel Sunday (from Fantagraphics)
Bluesky post by @trungles.com: "It always feels like all the wrong people die, but I think it's because there are far more beloved people than there are bastards."
A highly respectful sketch-portrait of NZ's favourite public servant, with the caption: On a typical day, Hon. Judith Collins, M.P., radiates sufficient hatred to power two medium-sized cities.
Book launch for Music Without End: a Book of Listening, by Roger Horrocks. At Lamplight Books, G01/100 Parnell Road, Parnell. 3:30pm, Sunday 23 November. Introduced by Wystan Curnow. All welcome
A group of eager anthropomorphic artists on a tiny island, hard at work on their visual narrative masterpieces! (cartoon by Dylan Horrocks)
News headline: Trump orders release of Earheart files
Chris Ware's Rusty Brown, volume 1
Paris The Man of Plaster, by Glenn Dakin
A photo of a copy of Olivier Schrauwen's graphic novel, Sunday.
Cover of Jeffrey Ford's novel The Shadow Year.
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.
Taiyo Matsumoto's 3-volume manga, Tokyo These Days.
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.
A full page comic by Austin Milne from the Otago Daily Times.
A New York Times headline that reads: "Is it Ethical to Buy Used Books and Music?"
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.
An extremely respectful political portrait of the Right Honourable Prime Minister, rendered lovingly in brush & ink, with coloured pencil highlights. Happy holidays, everyone - especially to our unbelievably wise and competent Right Honourable Prime Minister & his equally brilliant ministers. May they continue their benevolent governance until not a single job, public service, or trace of community wellbeing remains to trouble the corporate leaders and landlords of this magnificent nation.
Sketchbook drawing of a thumb in a suit.
Tsunami by Ned Wenlock Duffy and the Bullies by Ant Sang and Jeff Szusterman Detective Beans & the Case of the Missing Hat by Li Chen The Tower and Other Graphic Tales by Dean Ballinger Ohu by Dean Ballinger (with Aaron Christiansen) Episodes by Alex Scott Ultra Wild by Steve Mushin Marrow & Other Stories by Sloane Hong The Writing Desk by Di Morris
Cover of King Arthur Pendragon core rulebook, 6th edition, by Greg Stafford et al, published by Chaosium
Weird doodles drawn in ballpoint pen in a small, lined, pocket notebook. At the top are the words "School Meeting 14/2/24." Then a number of strange faces with mostly incomprehensible speech balloons, only one of which contains actual words: "for the love of God!"