Tongues

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



In 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.

Review

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-Time

A 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 Porter

We 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

About the Author

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.