Tongues volume 1 by Anders Nilsen

Published by ‎ Pantheon on March 11, 2025

I have to hand it to Anders Nilsen. He does not lack ambition. Not only does he take on a big story, merging Greek mythology with modern strife in the Middle East, he invents a new mythology of his own, one that sends a thirteen-year-old girl named Astrid on a mission that will either save the world or cause it to follow her into darkness.

Astrid acquired a suitcase but has not investigated its contents. A talking chicken tells her it might be used as a weapon but she will lack the knowledge to wield it. The chicken (which sometimes manifests as a less loquacious owl) tells her that her treasure is of immense importance to the human race.

The story is anchored in the myth of Prometheus, who spends each day chained to a mountain where he plays blind chess with the eagle who will eat his liver before the day ends. In some panels, the eagle is in flight, apparently communicating with Prometheus by telepathy, while the art focuses on urban marketplaces, streets filled with armored vehicles, soldiers mingling with vendors and shoppers, and pigeons perched on roofs next to buildings that have collapsed. Prometheus and the eagle chat about various subjects, but Prometheus has recently been obsessed with his unexplained plan to regain his freedom.

In another plot thread, a European soldier who calls himself I.O. is fighting or smuggling goods in a place he calls East Bum-fuckistan. I.O. and fellow soldier Nico come across and share their beer with a hitchhiking American. The American is trying to lose himself after killing some family members under circumstances he does not reveal. A teddy bear strapped to his backpack gives him advice that helps him survive. I.O. has made a promise to a dying friend that he will safeguard the friend’s monkey, but Nico — who is supposed to be helping I.O. with a side hustle — makes off with the American and the monkey.

And then there’s the swan who transforms each night into a red-eyed human male and appears in the bed of a young woman who is being pressured to choose a husband from an unappealing group of suitors. Some of this might seem silly, yet it all fits within the context of a modernized myth, given the prevalence of talking animals in Greek mythology.

The storylines will apparently be tied together at some point by the Omega, whose followers (“the Rings”) believe he is the Roman god Jupiter. The Omega long ago prevailed in a war against the maker, the progenitor of the gods. More than that we don’t yet know.

The plot is intelligent and the story is occasionally moving. By the end of the first volume, we see the contents of Astrid’s suitcase, which raises more questions than it answers. We also see inside a tower that seems to be protected by radar and a military presence, a tower occupied by a tormenter of Prometheus. I would be worried that such an ambitious beginning to a story might get lost without reaching a destination, but the story is told with confidence, suggesting that Nilsen has a plan that will eventually cause the storylines to cohere.

I’m not an art critic, but I was taken by the minimalist nature of the graphic art. Many panels tell the story in images rather than text, as good graphic novels should. Volume 1 of Tongues left me intrigued. I look forward to volumes to come.

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River's Edge by Kyoko Okazaki

First serialized in Japan in 1993 and 1994. Published in translation by Kodansha/Vertical Comics as a graphic novel on June 27, 2023.

Its publisher describes River’s Edge as “a celebrated work that shows the hardships and the realities of growing up as a teenager in early 90s Tokyo.” Ichiro Yamada’s hardships are harder than most. Boys beat up Yamada because he’s quiet — and probably because girls like him. They suspect (correctly) that he’s gay. Girls like Yamada because he’s stylish and has a pretty face.

Yamada is dating Kanna Tajima but she doesn’t know he’s gay. Yamada thinks he might start liking girls if he dates one. Not surprisingly, he only ends up hurting Tajima. Yamada should really tell Tajima that he's gay since she’s overdosing on teen angst about why Yamada isn’t getting physical with her. I guess teen angst knows no geographic or cultural boundaries.

Haruna Wakakusa rescues Yamada when her boyfriend Kannonzaki locks him inside his locker. Yamada confesses his secret to Wakakusa and they become friends, much to Kannonzaki’s displeasure.

Yamada found a dead body in a field (more of a skeleton at this point) and thinks of it as his “treasure.” There’s something about seeing a corpse that comforts him. The only other person who has discovered the skeleton is a pretty actress with an eating disorder named Kozue Yoshikawa. Kozue is strange in a warped and unpleasant way. Readers who don’t want to read about animal abuse might want to avoid this graphic novel, while nearly all readers will find Kozue’s interest in dead kittens to be unattractive. Wakakusa befriends homeless kittens, which makes it all the more strange that she isn’t repulsed when Kozue kisses her.

Wakakusa envies Rumi, a high school friend whose 38-year-old boyfriend buys her expensive cosmetics.  Wakakusa had sex with Kannonzaki just to experience sex (she finds it filled with “contradictions and mysteries”). Rumi has sex with him for fun (and is much more into it than Wakakusa) but she becomes pregnant, possibly by Kannonzaki. Now Wakakusa is ghosting Kannonzaki, which his ego can't handle despite having a second girl to use for sex. Naturally, Rumi has teen angst in the form of jealousy about Wakakusa.

Characters lose control and gruesome acts of violence occur the story’s second half. One is accompanied by this narrative explanation: “Tragedy doesn’t just occur at random. That’s not how it works. The truth is that it slowly, gradually prepares itself. In the midst of our stupid, boring daily lives, that’s how it comes, and when it happens, it’s like a balloon popping out of nowhere.” That passage sums of the graphic novel’s theme: life is boring until it becomes tragic, but both boredom and tragedy suck.

The story has some interesting insights, including a character’s observation that teenage girls gossip incessantly to avoid saying anything meaningful. The characters ruminate about death quite a bit, sometimes imagining they see ghosts. They don’t seem capable of imagining a future in which they are still alive, with new friends and new ways of seeing themselves, but that’s what it’s like to be a teen.

I’m not an art critic, but the comic is drawn in the simple, sketchy style I associate with Dagwood and similar comic strips. It’s sometimes difficult to tell characters apart, particularly when they are drawn without a face. The style didn’t bother me, but this isn’t a graphic novel that enhances the story with impressive art. At least the characters don’t have ridiculously big eyes.

Fans of Japanese manga and/or teenage angst might understand why River’s Edge is a “celebrated work.” I can only say that the story is sufficiently interesting (in part because Japanese culture is interesting) that I remained engaged from chapter to chapter.

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Prez: Setting a Dangerous President by Mark Russell (text) and Ben Caldwell (art)

Published by DC Comics on June 4, 2024

The Prez I remember from my teenage years was published from 1973 to 1974. The premise was that a constitutional amendment eliminated the age requirement for service as the United States president and lowered the voting age to 18. A teenager named Preston Rickard ran as a third-party candidate and prevailed. I don’t remember much about the series apart from my belief that it died a fitting death after a four-issue run.

DC’s Mark Russell gave Prez a reboot in a 6-issue series that was published in 2015 and 2016. In this version, the teen president is Beth Ross, a 19-year-old who works at Lil’ Doggies House of Corndogs in Eugene, Oregon. She gets enough votes from other young people to deprive the major party candidates of an electoral vote majority. That throws the election into the House of Representatives, where a tie vote encourages Congressmen to vote for Beth, never expecting her to get a majority but with the expectation that they would change their vote to whichever mainstream candidate promised them more political pork. Their shenanigans result in Beth’s inadvertent election to the presidency.

Betsy doesn’t owe anyone a favor and doesn’t care if she’s humiliated. That makes her an ideal president, apart from her ignorance of anything unrelated to corndogs. Fortunately, she’s a quick learner who isn’t afraid to ask for help. In this version, Preston Rickard was never elected, but he once ran for president and is now Beth’s vice president. She fills her cabinet with reality-based people who aren’t science-deniers. Her old boss at the corn dog restaurant was good with details, so she becomes Beth’s chief of staff.

Beth has some great ideas. Once of my favorites is an international apology tour. She personally apologizes to other nations for America’s history of unfortunate behavior (“sorry Vietnam; our bad, Nicaragua”).

At the time of its publication, Russell’s story earned recognition for its political satire. The story skewers America’s refusal to assure decent healthcare to everyone, price gouging by pharmaceutical companies, the dominant role played by social media (rather than debating, the candidates appear on Puppy Slap’s podcast), religious beliefs in God’s preference for bigotry and extremism, America’s hypocritical definition of terrorism (“it’s not terrorism if you can afford a stealth bomber”), border security, useless technology, government surveillance, the stock market, consumerism, self-driving cars, war, artificial intelligence, gun nuts, the Supreme Court, and cats.  The story even envisioned a pandemic and the search for a vaccine, although Russell didn’t anticipate the rise of vaccine-deniers as a political force.

Prez is pretty funny. DC is presumably reissuing Prez because this is an election year. This edition collects the 6 issues of the rebooted Prez, as well as a story from Catwoman: Election Night that was published in November 2016. It also includes a new story and “bonus material” (the usual collection of preliminary sketches). The reissue is a timely reminder that politics always provides fodder for mockery and satire (just ask Mark Twain).

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King in Limbo Omnibus vol. 1 by Ai Tanaka

Published by Kodansha Comics on January 16, 2024

This omnibus edition collects the first two issues of a six issue “thriller manga” series. To me, manga means comic book drawings of teens with really big eyes. I must be wrong, since every comic book that comes out of Japan is labeled manga even if the characters have beady eyes and are in their twenties. If marketing materials can be believed, The King of Limbo is hugely popular among Japanese manga fans, despite the absence of teens with big eyes. Since it was originally published in Japanese, readers will need to read the panels on each page from right to left. At least the book doesn’t require readers to read from back to front.

In 2086, Adam Garfield was on a mission for the US Navy when a bomb exploded, causing him to lose a leg. He’s been reassigned to work as a companion to a diver. The job involves diving into people’s minds as they sleep and removing chunks of their memories. Adam’s partner will be Rune, more famously known as the King, the diver who ended the sleeping disease pandemic. The King can speak to the infected as they sleep and isolate the infected memory so he can destroy it.

A new strain of the infection is spreading and only the King can defeat it. Except the King doesn’t want the job until some puzzling drama unfolds involving his wife and an eight-year-old girl.

During the dive, the King and Adam go to a place the King calls Limbo. Limbo holds the memories of the infected person. The people in Limbo are surreal. Some are violent. It seems strange that memories can attack Adam, but they do. Somehow the memories take Adam back into the war he was fighting when he lost his leg. I can’t make much sense of anything that happens in Limbo.

Back in the real world, Adam and the King speculate about the cause of the new pandemic. By the second issue, the King and Adam are playing detective. They stumble into theories about how the new virus might be spreading but they’re still working on why. Someone or something with nefarious intent seems to be controlling it. People who view COVID-19 as a conspiracy theory will probably love King in Limbo.

Even as a rational reader, I enjoyed the story so far. Adam and the King are working through personal issues that give their characters some weight and the tension between them adds to the drama.

Panels are drawn as if they come in and out of focus. I guess that’s sort of interesting.  The art is detailed in some panels and in others it seems more like an incomplete sketch. Maybe there’s a purpose to that. Rune has the shaggy hair that is characteristic of manga characters. Adam is more a caricature of an American soldier. The art doesn’t strike me as anything special but manga fans can feel free to correct me.

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The Dyatlov Pass Mystery by Cédric Mayen and Jandro González

First published in France in 2023; published in translation by Europe Comics on December 27, 2023

The Dyatlov Pass Mystery is a graphic retelling of events that have no satisfactory explanation. In early February 1959, ten experienced hikers went to Mount Otorten in the Urals. Two were women. Nine hikers vanished, including their leader, Igor Dyatlov. Only Yuri Yudin returned. Prosecutor Lev Ivanov is assigned to solve the mystery, although it is clear that the KGB is in charge.

Yudin has a back injury that prevents him from continuing with the other members of the expedition. He accompanies the hikers as far as an abandoned mine, the first stop in their trek. Yudin searches the mine for minerals, then returns to the university with their driver.

Ivanov brings Yudin and some KGB agents to the place where Yudin last saw the hikers. They follow a path and find the place where the missing hikers camped. Their tent appears to have been cut open from the inside. They left their boots and other gear in the tent. Did something frighten the hikers?

The searchers begin to find bodies. Some are mutilated. Others died of hypothermia. There are burns and blast marks on nearby trees. Some bodies show signs of radiation exposure. Did military tests contribute to the deaths? Did the hikers encounter aliens with powerful weapons? The military won’t let Ivanov conduct a proper investigation. He wonders if the army is covering up the truth. Ivanov can only conclude that the hikers encountered a “sudden overwhelming force” that he cannot explain.

Ivanov poses questions that can’t be answered with certainty. What caused the hikers to cut a hole in their tent and abandon their boots and gear in below-freezing weather? Why did they split into three groups? Why did some hikers suffer broken bones (as if they had been in a traffic accident) while others did not? Why did some suffer from radiation burns while others did not?

The graphic novel alternates an imagined version of Ivanov’s investigation with an imagined version of the hikers’ journey, up to the point where they made their final camp. The story explores the possibility of jealousy (seven men and only two women) and conflict, but it doesn’t venture a guess as to the cause of the nine deaths.

After the story finishes, a lengthy narrative brings together facts and theories that proffer solutions to the mystery. The most promising solutions involve geotechnical engineering and equations, coupled with a certain amount of speculation. I’ll leave it to scientists to evaluate the theories. Military shenanigans and aliens are more interesting, but the current prevailing theory might be more plausible.

The graphic novel, on the other hand, I can evaluate as a fan of graphic literature. The story is detailed and compelling. It made me feel cold. It captured the frustration of an investigator who can’t find the truth and the fear of people who are confronted with a crisis. To my untrained eye, the art isn’t anything special but it helps tell the story, which is what art should accomplish in a graphic novel.

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