Tongues I

About the book

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

'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

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.

'A genuinely mind-blowing achievement. [...] A dazzlingly innovative feat which surprises and delights on every page, across the epic whole and in every strange detail.'
MAX PORTER, author of LANNY

'One utterly gorgeous comic'
VULTURE