Littlerary comics

I was tidying out my office this weekend and I found a bunch of comics I did for a job, when I was still figuring out what the job was. They are a bunch of NZ literary jokes and it helps if you have an understanding of NZ lit!

Frank Sargeson was a short story writer and novelist who was famous, amongst other things, for being an excellent gardener and for offering his shed to Janet Frame so she could write her novels there.

I am quite excited about Catherine Chidgey’s new novel, which is going to be out in a week or so – I’ve been a fan since way back.

“The Magpies” is a classic New Zealand poem I first encountered at school – I can’t go past a magpie without thinking of it (and also thinking of how I must greet it or else I will have bad luck.

And I was raised on Margaret Mahy – her first book, A Lion in the Meadow, was published only a few years before I was born.

I was also born at the right time to enjoy Maurice Gee’s children’s books, and when I moved to Auckland, I thought I’d stumbled across the inspiration for “Under the Mountain”.