A WISE AND FUNNY COLLECTION OF MODERN-DAY PARABLES ABOUT THE TIES BETWEEN HUMANS AND THEIR GODS

Imagine you are Poseidon at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The oceans are dying and sailors have long since stopped paying tribute. They just don't don't need you anymore. What do you do? Perhaps, seeking answers, you go exploring. Maybe you end up in Wisconsin and discover the pleasures of the iced latte. And then, perhaps, everything goes wrong.

Anders Nilsen, author of Big Questions and Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, explores questions like these in his newest work, a darkly funny meditation on religion and faith with a modern twist. Rage of Poseidon brings all of the philosophical depth of Nilsen’s earlier work to bear on contemporary society, asking how a twenty-first century child might respond to being sacrificed on a mountaintop, and probing the role gods like Venus and Bacchus might have in the world of today. Nilsen works in a unique style for these short stories, distilling individual moments in black silhouette on a spare white background. Above all, though, he immerses us seamlessly in a world where gods and humans are more alike than not, forcing us to recognize the humor in our (and their) desperation.

Rage of Poseidon is devastating, insightful, and beautiful hewn; it’s a wry triumph in an all-new style from a masterful artist.

PRAISE FOR RAGE OF POSEIDON

Nilsen’s attractively packaged graphic novel consists of a single, long sheet of paper that accordions together to fit between the book’s covers. Each “page” consists of a silhouetted, woodblocklike illustration, accompanied by a subtitle, and represents a single panel in a series of comic strips. Seven in all, these strips range in length from one to twenty panels, but all address the same issues: the interaction between the mythologies of ancient Greece and Judeo-Christianity, and the continuing relevance of each... School Library Journal

Whether writing through birds or gods, the mundane or the divine, Nilsen’s true subject matter remains much the same: explorations of metaphysical and existential concerns, here more directly concerned with faith and religion than elsewhere... the stories and their surface content, the writing and the illustration make this perhaps Nilsen’s most readily accessible work to date. Robot 6 - Comic Book Resources

A darkly humorous anthology of tales putting a modern twist on Greek myths and Christian religious stories. Los Angeles Times

[Rage of Poseidon is] Anders Nilsen's trenchant (and fucking hilarious) accordioned extension of Greek myths... Austin Chronicle - Best Books of 2013

Anders Nilsen began self publishing in 1999 by photocopying drawings and comics from his sketchbooks and stapling them together into a mini-comic called Big Questions.

In the time since he has drawn numerous strips and graphic novels including Dogs and Water, Big Questions, Don't Go Where I Can't Follow, Rage of Poseidon, The End, and others. His work has been anthologized in Kramer's Ergot, Best American Comics, and Mome, amongst others. His illustrations have appeared on a number of book covers, and in newspapers and magazines.

Nilsen's work has garnered several Ignatz awards, and Big Questions received the 2012 Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year, as well as a citation as one of the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2011. He also still self publishes work now and then. Nilsen grew up in Minneapolis and New Hampshire and studied art at the University of New Mexico and, briefly, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently lives in Minneapolis.