Eight years ago, Comic Beat reported that Andersnilsen’s new comic tongue “looks spectacular” by the publisher’s weekly fan favorite, award-winning cartoonist Andersnilsen. Well, here is finally a collected edition of that epic work.
After individual entries have been published by the artists themselves over the past few years, Penguin Random House Pantheon Books released the first volume of the edition collected on March 11, 2025. Please see here.
Beat caught up with Nilsen via email to discuss the release of his new graphic novel, the inspiration for his work, and the release of his artistic process.
This interview is edited in length (and more than ever).
Ollie Kaplan: Made in geometric shapes, but the panel layout is often organic and rustic. Is there a process to place pages?
Anders Nilsen: It’s generally pretty intuitive. However, there are some comprehensive ideas. Deep past scenes usually have rounded panel boundaries, but what is happening in the present is surrounded by straight edges, for example. That being said, I also joined the project with the idea of playing around with the boundaries of the panel in a certain way. Therefore, certain types of scenes include more panels. A reviewer of one book said that the early dream/memory sequences of the first scene were clearly intended to refer to the ritual reading of the extension that I absolutely loved. But I didn’t actually have that idea. Then use some heavy frames in some places to give the scene a similarly powerful feel.
For me, panels are the basic unit of comic storytelling. The panel is a comic, and the sentence is something that the sentence or phrase is prose, but if you want to play it like that, it can be more than that. There are ways in which they are the framework of reality. They can visually convey many actual meanings and content. You can create the entire context of the scene. We usually only use them as small containers, but they can become more aggressively part of storytelling.
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
Kaplan: How does tongues build in previous works?
Nilsen: It’s definitely a kind of high point. Most of my career up to this point is everywhere. None of my books look like everyone else in terms of visual style, storytelling style, and so on. When I started working on my tongue, I wasn’t necessarily going to put it all together, but that happened on its own. The way I play with the panel is just an example, but there is also the use of silhouetted images. This is a lot of the book’s themes, with myths and ideas about religion, politics and divinity. Almost every other major project I have done has grown from experimenting with my sketchbooks, while the tongue has grown from my other finished pieces. I drove one of the main characters out of Poseidon’s wrath from the dog and the water. I integrate abstract decorative forms from big questions into stories. I’m using myths in a way that goes back to the early augusts and goes back to the Sisyphus story I went for Kramer’s Ergot #4.
Kaplan: With an interest in creating meaning in comics, it makes sense that the legend of Prometheus influenced the work. What message (or meaning) do you want readers to take away from this story?
Nilsen: Well, hopefully the main thing they take away is that it was an attractive read. But I’m definitely interested in provoking readers and thinking about who we are as humans. Part of the book is a meditation on how remarkable we are and how terrible our influence on the world is. We are complex species. Much of the fantasy/sci-fi/heroic fiction is about “saving the world” and essentially means saving yourself. And it’s only natural that it’s a good idea. I’m not necessarily taking the opposite side, but I’m interested in messing around with that question.
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
Kaplan: What draws you to the contemporary referring of classic myths? What else has affected your work?
Nilsen: As a child, I was very engrossed in Greek mythology. In particular, some may know about D’Aulaires’ books on Greek mythology. The art of Ingri D’Aulaire in the book is very rich and gorgeous. I’ve probably read that hundreds of times. It would have been there in my Tin Tin book and X-Men comics, it burned in my brain. I know many of these stories back and forth, so it’s easy to soak in the back and use them as a kind of template to play around with. And the general concept of those stories is that they are definitely something else at a different time, which automatically makes setting them in the present interesting. Unlike Tintin and X-Men, there are no copyright issues to worry about.
Other influences likely include CS Lewis’ Narnia story and his book until we make our faces up to later books. Jrr Tolkien is hard to deny. There is also Lagerkvist, the Norwegian existentialist author. I read a lot when I first started to seriously work on making comics. I feel that his approach to storytelling has had an impact on me as well. And I always had to mention Chester Brown’s Ed the Happy Clown. For me, it’s one of the greatest masterpieces of comics, or general storytelling.
Kaplan: One of the previous works took 15 years to complete. This took about 10 cases. Tell us more about your artistic process while working on comics.
Nilsen: Well, my artistic process often involves telling stories longer than they were in the concept. Unfortunately, for such a big effort, I’ll start with some basic ideas of what I want to incorporate. Many of the ideas had been pervasive for quite some time before I started drawing or writing, at least since Sisyphus and the dog. When I actually end up planning a book, the ideas may not all make sense together strictly when I am planning a book, but I am also interested in throwing together some different, irrelevant elements to see what happens. To throw some obstructions on my path and make sure I’m not very comfortable with my route to the other side. I want to create some space to make some discoveries along the way. I would be a little surprised if possible. And I sit down and start writing. Write the script on the first 40-50 pages, at least in the first issue. Then I thumbnail it and block what’s in each panel. Next, plan and plan which panels go to each page. I’m a very rough pencil. It’s really just to place characters and objects. And ink. All drawings occur in ink. It is scanned and all colors occur in Photoshop.
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
Kaplan: What is the typical R&D process when creating a new work? Did you approach your tongue differently than your previous works?
Nilsen: The tongue certainly involved more research and reference than anything else I’ve done. I come up with ways to draw the Eagles correctly and how to draw places as broadly and differently as Afghanistan in Kenya and Mazar Sharif in Nairobi. Under the humvee. I don’t naturally draw to the research part, but it was necessary and I tried to accept it. This book has absolutely developed my abilities as an artist. Once upon a time, I was looking at image banks in public libraries. Now Google Image Search is my constant companion.
Kaplan: Is there a time when readers can expect a second volume?
Nilsen: I’m reasonably sure the second volume will be faster than the first, as the entire story could be 95% scripted and thumbnailed at this point. My fingers crossed. I just say three or four years and when the book comes out in 2035, we can all laugh together.
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
Kaplan: Your work regularly explores militarism. Do you think the political situation in 2025 will affect the way this work is received?
Nilsen: Yes, unfortunately, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I hope we don’t go back to war. I hope the theme is relevant regardless of who is in power, but the current administration is really leaning towards the argument that humans are badly qualified to manage the planet. So is that a good thing for the book? But if I was given the option, I would like to see the book bombs and planets flourish.
Kaplan: From reading other interviews with you, I understand that your parents are artists too. Your father, the painter. And your stepmother, the artist. How has it influenced the development of your art?
Nilsen: In many ways. I saw my dad and stepmother being artists and normalized it for me. Similarly, this is what people do. And I was definitely encouraged, more or less, by my stepfather too. Writing and drawing, both. No one ever told me to take more responsibility in my life or do something financially viable. In the end, they all made their homes in other ways, but that didn’t affect their enthusiasm for my choices. My dad took me aside at some point and tell me that it may not be the easiest way to live. But I think he just felt obligated. I don’t think he was trying to tweak me another way. I feel so lucky like that. I trusted my interests and supported them. Many kids don’t have it.
Courtesy of Penguin Random House
Kaplan: Both my mother and uncle were art professors at the University of New Mexico, so I was thrilled to learn you got a BFA out there. How did the program and/or New Mexico itself affect your work?
Nilsen: Ah, that’s wild. I love New Mexico. The arts program there was amazing. Of course, it’s very far from the large arts centres in New York and LA, but it forced us to create our own scene. Two of my best friends today come from that program. We saved each other’s work, ideas and ambitions. The program was very focused on ideas rather than techniques. I certainly didn’t understand or interest in manga at the time, but in the end I don’t know that it really was that important. Some of me may have wanted to start comics before, but I am grateful that I was forced to experiment and play with a bunch of other sandboxes before setting off on one medium. I think it will probably make my comics even more interesting.
Kaplan: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Nilsen: I don’t know when this will come out, but I’ll mention the group’s profit art show that we’re putting together for this Chicago release. It is called Xlaooc. I make large prints of a bunch of original artwork by cartoonists. The work will last for several months, with benefits auctions taking place for weeks starting March 25th. Other artists include Charles Burns, Chris Ware, Aidan Koch, CF, Kevin Huizenga, Ivan Aragbe, Geneve Castre, Laura Park, and Maripol. And I have a beautiful collage fantastic four pages from Jack Kirby. This show is being held at a restaurant where I returned to cook at the early Aughts at the Lula Cafe in Chicago. I’m very excited about the work I can get and I’m so happy to be able to raise a little money for some groups trying to ease some of the chaos and destruction that the government is currently engaging in the world. So I want people to check it out.
Pantheon Books released the first volume of the collectible version of Anders Nilsen’s Tongues on March 11, 2025. Please see here.
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