Customer Reviews

Dogs and Water

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anders's first big publication through Drawn and Quarterly. To be honest, I have plenty of friends that can't deal with minimalist and simplified style, but to me his linework REALLY opens up a complexity of space and organization rarely seen in comics today. This story reads a lot like a dream, or free association that got paid a good amount of attention, and I find myself not even caring about the 'why's' and 'wherefores' of STORY when I read this. It's rhythmic and melodic, with plenty of the human condition to satiate a readers who desire more subtle or complicated situations that happen both abstractly and literally in a certain kind of space.
Anders has amazing control over his characters and you can tell this artist knows what he wants and doesn't stop until he gets it. I can imagine these pages being redrawn quite a bit. But the final product rarely misses the mark.

Anders Nilsen, Dogs and Water (Drawn and Quarterly, 2007)

Dogs and Water is quite unlike any other graphic novel I've ever run across; if you turn your head and squint right, it's got a bit of Renee French running through it, but without a shred of the absurdity French brings to her wonderful little books. Or Shaun Tan without the fantasy elements, or the hope. Nilsen (Monologues for the Coming Plague) has crafted something here that's deeply depressing, lonely, and yet compelling enough that once you've cracked the cover, you'll end up reading it in one sitting, wondering just what the hell is going on, but not really caring all that much whether anything actually is.

The plot involves a guy with a stuffed bear tied to his knapsack wandering through what seems to be the Alaskan tundra. (You'll understand why I assume this is Alaska about halfway through the book.) The bear is his only companion, and he holds conversations with it. Does this make him lonely, or mentally unstable? We have no idea. He's definitely paranoid, despite the animals he runs across being generally friendly. Soon enough he runs out of food, and his wandering becomes increasingly desperate as he searches for more.

Yeah, that's pretty much it, though there is a climax to it (I don't really want to spoil what happens in the final third of the book, but Nilsen does a fantastic job of setting it all up). It's a very cold, one-man Waiting for Godot, perhaps. Yes, I'm still trying to find something to compare it to, and the fact that nothing really fits is a mark in the book's favor. You will have no idea what it is Anders Nilsen is on about here, but most likely it won't matter one bit. This is a glorious nightmare, a vicarious depression, and it deserves your attention. *** ½

I came across an excerpt of this book in the The Best American Comics 2007 collection, and it really stood out, both in terms of style and content. The style is perhaps best described as minimalist -- for the most part a very spare fine-point black line on stark white background, with no panels. And the reader is dropped into this empty background, where we find a young man trudging along an almost featureless landscape with a teddy bear strapped to his backpack. Over the course of the book his encounters grow stranger and stranger: a herd of reindeer, a mysterious bus, a pack of dogs, an abandoned war-torn village, and finally a crashed helicopter and dying man next to giant pipeline that plows across the page. Interspersed with these seemingly random encounters are strange dream sequences which are differentiation by the use of a light cyan ink. Interestingly, both the real and dream encounters almost always involve an element of threat, perhaps offering a rather pessimistic comment on human nature. So, there's no real "story" per se -- the book acts more a a commentary on traditional narrative form. There is no beginning, middle, or end, the character's journey is ongoing and possibly neverending. Throughout, the man talks to the bear, and in one passage, articulates what appears to be the central theme of the book: "I know this whole venture is not about having a goal," he tells the bear at one point. "But doesn't the whole idea of a journey become kind of meaningless if there's not a sense of some destination?" If your answer to that is "yes," then this probably isn't the book for you. However, if you're open to a more impressionistic style of storytelling, this is an interesting piece of work.

Length:: 8:43 Mins

Graphic Novel Gems is a review show where we check out new and exciting graphic novels! In this episode we take a look at Anders Nilsen's Dogs & Water. Find us on Facebook or Youtube for more reviews!

even though the drawing style is kinda simplistic i found the book very disturbing and thought provoking.
it has been a while since i read it but is still remember the scenes (maybe more vivid than they actually were). this book definitelly grows on you.
i dont know if it was good or bad - but i still remember it, i keep thinking about it - and it counts for something.