Comics / Press Releases

Fantagraphics Books Announces Dylan Horrocks Book Tour

By The Editor
August 25, 2015 - 23:17

Dylan Horrocks tour poster

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen Book Tour: Cartoonist Dylan Horrocks's Anticipated U.S. Tour

Critically acclaimed cartoonist, Dylan Horrocks bids farewell to his native New Zealand as he travels to the United States for his first convention appearance in over a decade on a book tour in celebration of the fan-favorite release, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen. His first graphic novel since the classic, Hicksville, collected in 1998.

Sam Zabel is an exploration of the highs and lows of fantasy through the lens of Zabel, a popular, but creatively stymied, cartoonist. This provoking and thoughtful meditation on the comics medium as art, outlet, and industry leads the reader on an epic adventure with sex-crazed aliens, monks, pirates, and web-cartoonists. Horrocks approaches this one-of-a-kind tale with careful consideration for the artist, the reader, and of course, the story we all yearn to tell.

Tour Dates

September 18..........................Politics & Prose - Washington DC

September 19-20......................Small Press Expo - Bethesda, MD
Special Guest*

September 22.................................Desert Island - Brooklyn, NY
w/ Joan Cornella*

September 24.............................CCS - White River Junction, VT
Visiting Artist Lecture*

September 26......................Harvard Bookstore - Cambridge, MA

September 28.........................Magers & Quinn - Minneapolis, MN

September 30..........................Challengers Comics - Chicago, IL

October 2............................Cartoon Crossroads - Columbus, OH

October 5-7.................Sequential Arts Workshop - Gainesville, FL
Visiting Artist Workshop*

October 22..............International Festival of Authors - Toronto, ON
Special Guest*

Praise for Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen:

"A creator only knows if something succeeds once it's in someone's hands and, even then, there's no guarantee that feedback makes its way back to the place of origin. But, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen shows that when the loop of creation to appreciation is complete-and better still if the creative energy spins out on its own unpredictable orbit-that the relationship between audience and artist carries its own sort of eldritch power."
-Evan Narcisse, Kotaku

"This is a complicated, rich story about confronting the sometimes-lurid or nakedly obvious wish-fulfillment aspects of comic books, but it's also about the ways Sam's distress with the world can't be satisfied by other people's ideas of paradise."
-Tasha Robinson, NPR

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12