Poetry is useless

Anders Nilsen, 1973-

Book - 2015

"In 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 books, such as Dogs & Water, Rage of Poseidon, and the New York Times Notable Book Big Questions"--amazon.com.

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GRAPHIC NOVEL/Nilsen
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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor Comics GRAPHIC NOVEL/Nilsen Due Apr 12, 2024
Subjects
Genres
Graphic novels
Published
[Montréal, Québec] : Drawn & Quarterly 2015.
Language
English
Main Author
Anders Nilsen, 1973- (author)
Edition
First hardcover edition
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
222 pages : color illustrations ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781770462076
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Nilsen's previous sketchbook graphic novels, Monologues for the Coming Plague (2006) and Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes (2009), are portfolios of bleak existentialist comedy. This third is lighter in tone, mock philosophical in tenor, and easier to relate to. Although he again usually draws the speaker as a ball head atop a blunt-ended, lozenge body, this always seems to be Nilsen himself. Elsewhere, he essays realistic self-portraiture to depict travels to comics events hither and yon and interactions with friends and others, whom he renders in degrees of realism ranging from caricature (akin to R. Crumb) to fine-drawing mode (like, say, Käthe Kollwitz). Most pages display photographs of the adjacent pages of a flat-open sketchbook, and almost every spread contains a monologue or story in conventional comics panels, one or more to a page. Additional drawings and remarks appear in the generous bottom margins as a kind of self-conscious running commentary, and occasional depictions of Nilsen's favorite subjects the root balls of plants; pig silhouettes; fanciful machines; mash-ups of organic and inorganic forms; symmetrical designs occupy quarter, half, or whole pages. Nilsen has drawing chops for days, and that, combined with his humor, which here tends toward skewed hybrid clichés and aphorisms, makes this accomplished and playful to the max.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In the philosophical vein of his acclaimed Big Questions, Ignatz- and Lynd Ward Prize-winning cartoonist Nilsen pulls us into the world of his journal/sketchbook, which is reproduced here. Returning repeatedly to the theme of the foolishness of poetry, Nilsen explores mortality, morality, and fear with funny and absurd pictures and engaging monologues. The drawing style is his usual simple silhouettes with blacked-out words, and all mistakes showing. Interspersed with the basic yet beautiful sketches-sometimes inked with seemingly thousands of labored marks-are intricate, detailed life drawings of Nilsen's friends, strangers on trains, sea monsters, breakfasts, devils, and copies of works of art. There's an odd and moving nonfiction account toward the end about a man who comes to a reading of Nilsen's and has a strange and coincidental connection to the author and his dead partner. The break into more traditional comics narration forms a jarring and very effective addition to a book that is a little weird, but always humorous and perceptive. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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