Anders Nilsen – författare

A New York Times Notable Book of 2011, included on Amazon.com, Publishers Weekly, and NPR'S Best Comics listsA haunting postmodern fable, Big Questions is the magnum opus of Anders Nilsen, one of the brightest and most talented young cartoonists working today. This beautiful minimalist story, collected here for the first time, is the culmination of ten years and more than six hundred pages of work that details the metaphysical quandaries of the occupants of an endless plain, existing somewhere between a dream and a Russian steppe. A downed plane is thought to be a bird and the unexploded bomb that came from it is mistaken for a giant egg by the group of birds whose lives the story follows. The indifferent, stranded pilot is of great interest to the birds--some doggedly seek his approval, while others do quite the opposite, leading to tensions in the group. Nilsen seamlessly moves from humor to heartbreak. His distinctive, detailed line work is paired with plentiful white space and large, often frameless panels, conveying an ineffable sense of vulnerability and openness. Big Questions has roots in classic fables--the birds and snakes have more to say than their human counterparts, and there are hints of the hero's journey, but here the easy moral that closes most fables is left open and ambiguous. Rather than lending its world meaning, Nilsen's parable lets the questions wander where they will.

Dogs and Water chronicles a piece of a lonely journey, without origin or destination. A young man wandering a nameless path has only a stuffed bear as a companion, which inertly endures his desperation, anger and musings along the way. The landscape is cold and bleak with few landmarks, and offers only precarious encounters with animals and armed men. These interactions are rife with instinct, the drive for survival, and human ethics concerning the killed and injured. He finds acceptance with a pack of dogs, though their nature is wild and their potential threat is as unsettling as the sudden presence of a massive pipeline on the horizon. In a dreamlike state, the endless land becomes a vast body of water where his boat is destroyed and his body floats in a subconscious space. On land, the road disappears and only blind circumstance remains. All is uncertain and all can be lost, but he continues on regardless. Dogs & Water received an Ignatz award for "e;Outstanding Story"e; and has been translated into several languages. This hardcover edition features a few new pages and panels not included in the original saddle-stitched comic.

A STORY OF LOVE AND LOSS INSCRIBED IN PHOTOGRAPHS, POSTCARDS, LETTERS, AND BEDSIDE SKETCHESIn this collection of letters, drawings, and photos, Anders Nilsen chronicles a six-year relationship and the illness that brought it to an end. Don t Go Where I Can t Follow is an eloquent appreciation of the time the author shared with his fiancee, Cheryl Weaver. The story is told using artifacts of the couple s life together, including early love notes, simple and poetic postcards, tales of their travels in written and comics form, journal entries, and drawings done in the hospital in her final days. It concludes with a beautifully rendered account of Weaver s memorial that Glen David Gold, writing in the Los Angeles Times, called 16 panels of beauty and grace. Don t Go Where I Can t Follow is a deeply personal romance, and a universal reminder of our mortality and the significance of the relationships we build. Originally published as a limited edition in 2006, this collection includes a new afterword written by Nilsen.

A keen observer of the natural world and the mystical treasures contained within, Anders Nilsen uses lush, inky lines to craft an enchanting, meditative journey. A Walk in Eden is part colouring book, part fantastical view of primeval creation, with an exquisite mix of sprawling landscapes and close-up examinations of plants, fungi, and minerals think giant crystal formations emerging out of pools surrounded by lush vegetation and flowers the size of small trees. Though this is a world void of humans, here and there are small reminders of our presence. Informed by the designs of Ernst Haeckel and other early scientific and botanical illustration, Nilsen's world is intricate, playful, and inspired, waiting for you to make it your own. With 80+ full-page drawings, Nilsen invites you to join in the fun and bring the adult- and kid-friendly colouring book A Walk in Eden to life.

New and formally inventive work from a New York Times notable authorIn Poetry is Useless, Anders Nilsen redefines the sketchbook format, intermingling elegant, densely detailed renderings of mythical animals, short comics drawn in ink, meditations on religion, and abstract shapes and patterns. Page after page gives way under Nilsen s deft hatching and perfectly placed pen strokes, revealing his intellectual curiosity and wry outlook on life s many surprises. Stick people debate the dubious merits of economics. Immaculately stippled circles become looser and looser, as craters appear on their surface. A series of portraits capture the backs of friends heads. For ten or twenty pages at a time, Poetry is Useless becomes a travel diary, in which Nilsen shares anecdotes about his voyages in Europe and North America. A trip to Colombia for a comics festival is recounted in carefully drawn city streets and sketches made in cafes. Poetry is Useless reveals seven years of Nilsen s life and musings: beginning in 2007, it covers a substantial period of his comics career to date, and includes visual reference to his works, such as Dogs & Water, Rage of Poseidon, and the New York Times Notable Book Big Questions. This expansive sketchbook-as-graphic-novel is exquisitely packaged with appendices and a foreword from Anders Nilsen himself.

A wise and funny collection of modern-day parables about the ties between humans and their godsImagine you are Poseidon at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The oceans are dying and sailors have long since stopped paying tribute. They just don't don't need you anymore. What do you do? Perhaps, seeking answers, you go exploring. Maybe you end up in Wisconsin and discover the pleasures of the iced latte. And then, perhaps, everything goes wrong. Anders Nilsen, author of Big Questions and Don t Go Where I Can t Follow, explores questions like these in his newest work, a darkly funny meditation on religion and faith with a modern twist. Rage of Poseidon brings all of the philosophical depth of Nilsen s earlier work to bear on contemporary society, asking how a twenty-first century child might respond to being sacrificed on a mountaintop, and probing the role gods like Venus and Bacchus might have in the world of today. Nilsen works in a unique style for these short stories, distilling individual moments in black silhouette on a spare white background. Above all, though, he immerses us seamlessly in a world where gods and humans are more alike than not, forcing us to recognize the humor in our (and their) desperation. Rage of Poseidon is devastating, insightful, and beautiful hewn; it s a wry triumph in an all-new style from a masterful artist.

From the revered graphic artist and writer Anders Nilsen, Tongues collects together in one volume for the first time Nilsen's cult comics and their retelling of the myth of Prometheus'Mindbendingly good. It’s up there with Maus, Fun Home, Persepolis, Jimmy Corrigan'MARK HADDON, author of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIMEIn the remotest reaches of Central Asia where rival groups war over oil, a minor god is chained to a mountainside. Unfolding in a series of conversations with his unlikely friend the eagle, who visits every day to carry out a gruesome sentence of torture, Tongues I follows the titan’s pursuit of revenge on the god that imprisoned him.Entwined with their story are those of Astrid, a teenage East African orphan on an errand of murder, and a man with a teddy bear strapped to his back wandering aimlessly in the wilderness.Tongues I is a postmodern, apocalyptic reimagining of Prometheus' story, here a fallible god failing in his duty as the creator and protector of humanity.A visual meditation on our deep evolutionary past and our complicated prospects for the future, Tongues I is both a propulsive story of adventure and an examination of human nature in our present moment.'A genuinely mind-blowing achievement. [...] A dazzlingly innovative feat which surprises and delights on every page, across the epic whole and in every strange detail.' MAX PORTER, author of LANNY'One utterly gorgeous comic'VULTURE