Penguin Books Australia

She always said it started, or became apparent to her, when their father brought him a guitar for his tenth birthday. At least that was the family legend, repeated and burnished into a shared over-memory. But she did really think it was true: he changed in one identifiable moment. Up until that point, Nik's main occupations had been reading Mad magazine and making elaborate ink drawings of dogs and cats behaving like far-out hipsters. He had characters—Mickey the shaggy mutt who smoked weed and rode motorcycles, Linda the sluttish afghan who wore her hair hanging over one eye, and Nik Kat, his little alter ego, a cool cat who played pranks and escaped many close calls. Nik Kat addressed the reader directly, and gave little winky comments about not wanting you to turn the page. Denise appeared as Little Kit Kat, the wonder tot. She had a cape and followed all the orders Nik Kat gave her. Nik made a full book out of each episode. He would make three or four copies with carbon paper and then later make more at some expense at the print shop, but each of the covers was created by hand and unique: he drew the images in Magic Marker and then collaged in pieces of color paper cut from magazines. Denise still had Nik's zines in a box somewhere. He gave one copy to her and Mom (they had to share), one to his girlfriend of the moment (Nik always had a girlfriend), one was put in a plastic sleeve and filed in his fledgling archives, and one went to their father, who lived in San Francisco.