I read somewhere that Anders doesn’t like to use pencil and goes directly to ink when drawing. This seems amazing to me since all of his compositions and page layouts seems so perfectly thought out. (Although I just looked at the site where you can buy his real art and it seems he collages drawings a lot for mistakes–ahh so it’s not magic) His drawings look like they were made for comics but somehow feel lighter and looser. Big Questions is a series of comics about conversing birds who find a bomb that’s dropped from the sky. They think it’s a giant egg and contemplate what it all means sort of philosophically. There are other character’s too like an old woman and her grandson(?) who come and go but mostly the comics are about birds trying to figure things out. Issues 1-8 are self-published and 9 is published by Drawn and Quarterly. They also published his big long comic Dogs and Water and his newer work Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, which is a book made in memory of his fiancee who died of hodgkins lymphoma. It’s letters, drawings, comics and photographs documenting their relationship. I have yet to pick up a copy of this book for fear it may be too depressing. I think Anders is one of the great comic artists of our time so if you haven’t checked out his work yet, it’s about time.

© Julia Rothman 2007