Assembled from work done in Anders Nilsen's sketchbooks over the course of the year following the death of his fiancée, Cheryl Weaver, in 2005, The End is a collection of short strips about loss, paralysis, waiting, and transformation — a physical manifestation of grief.
The End is a concept album in different styles, a meditation on paying attention, an abstracted autobiography and a metaphysical travelogue, reflecting the progress of his struggle to reconcile the great upheaval of a death, and to find a new life on the other side. The book blends Nilsen's disparate styles, from iconic simplicity to collaged art to finely rendered pieces.
This new edition of The End is substantially expanded and revised — it is almost twice as long as the original edition — incorporating new work from the past 15 years that adds greater perspective to an already intimate window into the way we grieve, a process that can span decades. The new material includes added content from the original sketchbooks, over a dozen pages of new comics, a new afterword by the author, additional notes, and over 20 pages of Cheryl Weaver's work.
"A strikingly universal response to an inescapable part of being human. ... Through straightforward drawings and simple dialogue, the artist explores, with a perspective gained through time, the evolution of his grief.” ― The New Yorker
150 page full color hardcover
Fantagraphics Books, 2022
