Press Release

Award-winning comics artist Anders Nilsen will officially unveil his new book Tongues at Floating World Comics in Portland on September 7th.

Original artwork from the book will be on display in conjunction with Portland’s First Thursdays Art Walk, and Nilsen will give a short talk about the book and the process of putting it together.

Set in Modern Central Asia Tongues follows the intertwined stories of an imprisoned god, an East African orphan on an errand of murder and a young American man with a teddy bear, lost on the tattered fringes of the human world. It is a story of adventure and revenge and a meditation on human nature in this fraught present moment.

The full-color, large-format Tongues is Nilsen’s most ambitious work to date and marks a return to something a bit closer to the more traditional comics form he last explored in his multiple award winning Big Questions (Drawn and Quarterly, 2011). The artist is serializing the book in large-format, full-color comics to be self-published and distributed in conjunction with No Miracles Press over the next few years until the story is complete.

WHO: Anders Nilsen
WHAT: Tongues book release and art show
WHEN: Thursday, Sept. 7, 6-9pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

“Excellent dialogue and characterization... pure subconscious melody.” – Paste

“The writing is beautiful... Tongues is simply amazing” – Comic Bastards

“Nilsen has plumbed the philosophical depths of existence and meaning in every book he’s produced.” – Portland Mercury

"Anders Nilsen [is the] creator of cartoons both terrifying and meaningful." – A.V. Club

"... a vivid approach to narrative, immediate and unexpected." –Los Angeles Times

About the author: Anders Nilsen is the author of nine books including Big Questions, The End, and Poetry is Useless. His comics have appeared in the New York Times, Kramer’s Ergot, Medium and elsewhere. His work has been translated widely, and exhibited internationally. He lives in Portland, Oregon.