Open Access"No Ordinary Assignment": Graham Kirk's Dick Sargeson
Author(s) -
Dean Ballinger
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of new zealand studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.102
0eISSN - 2324-3740
pISSN - 1176-306X
DOI - 10.26686/jnzs.v0i20.3880
Subject(s) - adventure , comics , comic strip , style (visual arts) , narrative , politics , art history , popular culture , mainstream , cultural politics , sociology , media studies , art , history , visual arts , literature , law , political science
Comics are a popular medium that are often overlooked in terms of New Zealand cultural history. This article discusses Taranaki artist Graham Kirk’s comic strip Dick Sargeson, which ran in the New Zealand Listener from 1984 – 1988, as a significant piece of contemporary New Zealand popular culture. The two extended serial adventures that constitute the strip are used as a vehicle for socio-political commentary on the New Zealand of the mid-1980s through the application of distinct narrative and aesthetic approaches, such as parochial Taranaki settings and a photo-realist drawing style.