Tongues I

One of the best comics I have ever read, a tangle of fantastical stories which snake outward through time and space from the seed of the Prometheus myth … 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-TimeA genuinely mind-blowing achievement. I think Tongues is a landmark book not only in the history of the graphic novel, but in the history of mythic storytelling. A dazzlingly innovative feat which surprises and delights on every page, across the epic whole and in every strange detail. My favourite comic by a living artist. – Max PorterWe live in a fallen world, but perhaps we can take some comfort in the knowledge that that’s nothing new. Millennia ago, Aeschylus wrote of humanity’s inherent fallibility and venality, and today, the brilliant Anders Nilsen… one utterly gorgeous comic * Vulture *It’s more than just pretty to look at, of course. Nilsen’s episodes bewilder and engage the reader, building to climaxes that are wryly humorous or downright sinister - and often both funny and sinister. Nilsen’s inventive register in Tongues though shows an artist surpassing any anxiety of influence. We have here the promise of something original, strange, and engaging * Comics Journal *Tongues is absolutely astonishing. A psychedelic collision between our most degraded contemporary realities and some of the oldest mythologies known to our species, written with a granular insight into both, drawn with beautiful savagery in a style that at times recalls Moebius but is utterly Nilsen’s own. Some passages made me cry, and I didn’t want the story to end. This book feels momentous. – Leela Corman

Anders Nilsen (he/him) is the author of ten books including Big Questions, The End and Poetry is Useless. Nilsen’s work has received three Ignatz awards and Big Questions was listed as a New York Times Notable Book in 2011. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Pitchfork and elsewhere, and his comics have been translated into several languages.