Dogs and Water

by Anders Nilsen

Dogs and Water chronicles a piece of a lonely journey, without origin or destination. A young man wandering a nameless path has only a stuffed bear as a companion, which inertly endures his desperation, anger, and musings along the way. The landscape is cold and bleak with few landmarks, and offers only precarious encounters with animals and armed men. These interactions are rife with instinct, the drive for survival, and human ethics concerning the killed and injured. He finds acceptance with a pack of dogs, though their nature is wild and their potential threat is as unsettling as the sudden presence of a massive pipeline on the horizon. In a dreamlike state, the endless land becomes a vast body of water where his boat is destroyed and his body floats in a subconscious space. On land, the road disappears and only blind circumstance remains. All is uncertain and all can be lost, but he continues on regardless.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Sequential Art, Post Apocalyptic

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Anders Nilsen is an American illustration and comics artist. He is the author of ten books including Big Questions, The End, and Poetry is Useless as well as the coloring book A Walk in Eden. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Kramer's Ergot, Pitchfork, Medium and elsewhere. His comics have been translated into several languages overseas and his painting and drawing have been exhibited internationally. Nilsen's work has received three Ignatz awards as well as the Lynd Ward Prize for the Graphic Novel and Big Questions was listed as a New York Times Notable Book in 2011. Nilsen grew up in Minneapolis and Northern New Hampshire. He studied art in New Mexico and lived in Chicago for over a decade. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Greg]

Beautifully depressing. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what is so depressing in this book, but the melancholy seems to transcend the confines of the story and hit at a nerve. Similar in theme and feeling to Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

[Alan]

A weird, solitary journey.

[Noah]

A short graphic novel, taking part in some kind of desert wasteland (maybe post-apocalyptic?). The drawings are simple, reminding me of Douglas Coupland's drawings in "Life After God," but where that book had some hope this one didn't so much.

I gave it two stars on the first reading, but three after thinking about it and reading through it again, and thought about four. It's rather hopeless, but I was reminded of a quote by Flannery O'Connor, saying something about how people without hope don't write novels. And maybe that's true, so I read it again - it is pretty bleak. I wondered if it were a metaphor of some sort for life or the hardships we go through. I wanted there to be something else to it, but I suppose sometimes that's all it feels like there is. And maybe there's a solace in sharing that feeling with others.

The ending was interesting, in that the final events are him shooting the wounded man as a service to him, to put him out of his misery, and then giving up the bear to that kid. After that, he has a last dream, wherein the boat is still sinking but he rises up and walks, away from it, on the water. I wondered if maybe he gained some power or at least resolution in his dream because he gave up the last thing that he could lose that he was hanging on to - as if giving up the ones you love, letting go of your attachment to them, frees you up in some way, to walk through life without drowning in some way. Or I wondered if it wasn't that so much as that, by doing things that were gracious to his fellow humans (helping out the wounded man, if that's how you can think of it, and giving away the bear), he gained a kind of freedom.

Also, I struggle sometimes wondering if the appeal of a tale like this is like the appeal of slowing down to gawk at a nasty car crash on the other side of the highway. (True, it's that appeal that makes the evening "news" all it's money, but that doesn't make it right.) There's just something about a brutal, post-apocalyptic landscape that can be appealing.

[Elizabeth A]

This graphic novel is all about the journey, so don't even think about getting to any particular destination. It's a quick, if rather surreal, bleak, and dreamlike read. There is is guy walking down a long road with a stuffed bear strapped to his back. It's not clear where he came from, and equally unclear where he's headed. What is fascinating about this book is that the author is able to convey such a variety of emotions within this stark and lonely landscape. The simple black and white art is quite effective in evoking the right mood, and when I turned the last page I was unsure who was doing the dreaming.

[Suhasa]

What did I just read?

Confusing and weird but oddly good.

[Drew Canole]

An enjoyable, surreal story by Anders Nilsen. It doesn't have the same depth as some of his other books like Big Questions. It's an enjoyable read but not an extremely memorable or satisfying one. Certainly worth reading for fans of his other work. It was the first book I read by him, and it was enough to get me to read his other books - so that's something.

[Renee Alberts]

On one family vacation, we ended up in the emergency room, waiting for doctors to remove a large bead from my three-year-old sister’s ear. When she emerged, hearing clearly again, she had only one explanation: “The bear did it.” We never met the imaginary bear, but we never figured out how the bead got in her ear, either. Anders Nilsen’s Dogs and Water is a little like that.

Nilsen renders his landscape in sparse black and white drawings that limit details to the most suggestive elements, wildly shifting perspectives when it suits the surreal mood. Emphasizing the tone of uncertainty, he doesn’t frame his panels, so scenes blend into each other via common walls, ground, and clouds.

Dogs and Water’s plot is sporadic and symbolic rather than linear. (After I finished it, I looked up “dog” and “water” in dream interpretation guides.) The hoodie-clad main character walks along a deserted road into a desert. But does he stumble into a war zone? Or is he actually drifting far from land in a boat? Or is he underwater? Wherever he is, the character has only his teddy bear—with whom he’s apparently very angry— strapped to his back pack to talk to. Apparently, the bear put him up to all this.

[Chris Dietzel]

Ever heard a song on the radio and even though you don't understand the lyrics and thus have no idea what the song is actually about, you still enjoy it because the music is great? This is the graphic novel version of that. Even though I know what happens in the story and even though it's clear Nilsen is trying to say something very specific, I have no idea what this story was actually about. It didn't really matter, though, as I still enjoyed it. This is probably what a graphic novel would be like if David Lynch turned his surreal visions from TV and movies and instead drew a story.

[Katie]

the art is really wonderful, but the story isn't there. while the words and pictures succeed in evoking loneliness, the (sort of) endless journey of life, the need for companionship, the brutality of human contact, none of it ever coalesced into something that i will take very far with me. but really: the art is beautiful.

[Przemysław Skoczyński]

Wiele lat przed komiksową wersją "Drogi", Anders Nilsen tworzy komiks o gościu maszerującym przez pustkowia z pluszowym misiem na plecach. Atmosfera całości wskazuje na postapokaliptyczną otoczkę, natura jest nieprzyjazna, a uzbrojeni ludzie stanowią najczęściej zagrożenie...

Nilsen przedstawia historię jeszcze bardziej enigmatyczną i nieokreśloną niż McCarthy. O otoczeniu wiemy zaledwie strzępy, a o przyczynach bezcelowej wędrówki jeszcze mniej. Pluszak to zarówno towarzysz przygód, jak i obiekt, na którym bohater wyładowuje swoje frustracje. Napotkane psy to z jednej strony opiekuńcze zwierzęta, jakie znamy z wielu innych opowieści, a z drugiej przedstawiciele świata przyrody, z wszystkimi okrutnymi konotacjami, jakie się z tym faktem wiążą.

Uwielbiam stylistykę rysunków Nilsena. Z jednej strony są to minimalistyczne obrazy z ledwo zarysowanym tłem i pustymi przestrzeniami, z drugiej niezwykle klarowne i w gruncie rzeczy przyjemne dla oka kontury pozbawione klasycznego kadrowania. Ta forma sprzyja onirycznemu wydźwiękowi całości, w której sny i symbolika wody także odgrywają duże znaczenie. "Dogs & water" to w zasadzie miniaturka zdolna do generowania wielu znaczeń, dotyczących głównie zależności między celem, a samą wędrówką.

[Aidan]

Marching forward in search of who knows what while world conflicts rage mostly out of view, until the detritus of history washes up on the shores of your own little life. I happily remain ignorant of Anders’ intention here, but this felt real evocative of coming of age under a globalized economy and its series of violent conflicts that most of us have no control over. It makes sense Anders reuses in Tongues his character here, as that story follows individuals swept up in a story bigger than their own. Tongues isn’t a literal sequel, but if this shows how larger events can enter your own narrative, Tongues shows how you fit into that larger whole.

[Devin]

This was … fine.

There isn’t much of a story besides the general premise of a guy walking aimlessly with his stuffed bear and encounters a few things along the way.

The art was solid though. Felt like very early work which I believe it was.

Very fast read. Finished it in under an hour

[مصطفي سليمان]

كتاب عجيب عن الوحدة والونس، هناك جانب تجريبي وفانتازي وواقعي
الرسوم كانت تجعلني دائم السرحان
أحببتها للبساطة وأن القصة تمشي بهدوء دون اي أي استعراض أو التواءات مفاجئة
بديعة الحقيقة

[Jesús]

Haunting, minimalist, dreamlike, existentially bleak, politically engaged, darkly humorous, dimly hopeful... If this string of descriptions strikes your fancy, then you should be familiar with Anders Nilsen’s work.

And if you don’t know Nilsen’s comics, then Dogs & Water is a good place to start; it’s much shorter than Big Questions, and it’s much more accessible (i.e., less experimental) than most of his other published work. This one is also the most surprisingly hopeful of his books. I mean, yes, it’s still pretty bleak, but there is at least *some* genuine humanity and good humor that glimmers through the cracks.

[Robert Beveridge]

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

[Philip]

I saw somewhere - either in the description on goodreads, or the inset of the book - the word "minimalist." That really hit the nail on its stylistic head.

I don't know if you all come across books that, once you finish it you say to yourself, "huh... I could give that book anywhere from 1 star to 5... How does that even happen?"

I can't answer the "How does that happen" part, but I felt that way.

The book felt like a dream about loneliness, only there seemed to be dream sequences (drawn with blue ink) inside the dream. I walked out of Inception asking my wife, "What the hell just happened?" I occasionally felt that way with this book too, but whereas Inception spoke to the action side of my psyche, the book spoke to the beauty side.

I also wondered, if it wasn't a dream, where did it take place? My guesses are Alaska and Sudan...

[Matt Graupman]

Anders Nilsen’s “Dogs And Water” is not a graphic novel for readers who like a linear, “event-event-event-climax-resolution” kind of story. It does not have nice, tidy answers to give, relying instead on mere brushstrokes of a plot, hinting at a somewhat post-apocalyptic wasteland where a nameless protagonist wanders around with a teddy bear strapped to his back, searching for who knows what. It’s moody and melancholy and, honestly, I found it to be spellbinding. Nilsen’s borderless artwork is open, raw, and evocative, like he scrawled this thing on any sheet of paper he could find, with just a single pen. There’s an urgency to it, despite the “plot” - such as it is - feeling very measured, very deliberate. “Dogs And Water” won’t be satisfying to a lot of readers, I get that, but I found it to be hypnotic; I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

[Nate Portnoy]

it calls to mind the existentialism of waiting for godot, with the added dimension of openness to the alien or unusual; “oh… you want THIS?”; like a tenderness towards the strange i guess, without a diminishing of its strangeness

[Lindsey]

Anders Nilsen builds grandiose emotional architecture from something as simple as the white space that goes unused in the borders of these desolate drawings. The surrealism of this graphic novel approaches dream chronicle, but there is something very resonant about the idea of an aimless journey that feels relatable, regardless of station in life or religious value. It's the kind of story that leaves plenty of room for its reader to interpret, and it's clear that Nilsen wanted to leave these possibilities wide open. Because the work is wholly beautiful, that never feels like a cop-out; instead we feel lucky to have this template to come back to, to project feeling and meaning on to - he has created a thing that can be a million things to a million people, and it is for us to revel in that and say: thank you, thank you.

[nicole]

Sad, lonely, surreal... and really funny. This guys traveling down a seemingly endless road toward a vast emptiness with nothing but a teddy bear strapped to his backpack and a sack lunch. The "conversations" he has with the bear are the best part, particularly when, too wounded too carry on, the protagonist asks the bear if he should untie him, so that he can carry on without him. Bahaha.

Visually satisfying, but nothin' fancy. Simple line drawings and perfectly sparse language (lots of ums, uhs, and i don't knows). Certainly worth the ten to fifteen minutes it'll take you to absorb it.

[Dan]

Try this sometime: read this while in transit; headphones on, "Yanqui UXO" by Godspeed You Black Emperor playing: great soundtrack for it.

In the end, I was left with 2 sentiments: I would have loved this more back in my 20s; if I had known they were going to publish stuff like this now, I'd have made more of an effort in my 20s.

Like the book, we walk on, dogs at our heels.

Let me get my AK...

[Emilia P]

Oh strange eerie bad dream comics. Anders Nilsen you're kind of in the same school as John Porcellino and I'm really learning to like that school, but ... there could be a little more of a point, a little bit more of the disclosure of your own sadness/despair/whatever. Nonetheless, beautiful, good use of negative space (fancy commentary, me!). I'll keep absentmindedly picking your sad stuff up at the library.

[Jennifer Sundt]

This one's heavy and dreamlike. You don't know where the guy is coming and you don't know where he's going - or if the world has ended, or if he's just out on his own. Then come the blue parts, the parts that make even less (but all the more) sense, that make you nervous for land... and the clock keeps ticking, the pages keep turning, and there it ends but doesn't, really. And you're just left there, wondering what that all means. Damn.

[Tyler]

The best description I found of this was written on the back of the book - "Nilsen uses spare renderings that will leave you wondering if you've if you've read a book or walked through a dream." Haunting and strange, and I'm not really sure what the point of the book is, but it does leave you thinking about it.

[Tripmastermonkey]

the cover of a dog holding a rifle in its mouth is probably the best part of this book. other than that, the story just kinda sucks- fine concept, no real substance. i like the dude's art, and if he has another project that i find randomly in the library, i'll check it out

[Hannah Garden]

Another string of Anders Nilsen's bleak, plaintive little windsongs, barely troubling the surface of the long white page, curling around your heart and clenching it, cold and lonesome in the watery grey light.

[Liam O'Leary]

Desolate, utterly desolate.

Anders Nilsen's take on Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Would have been more affecting if the character had a clearer struggle, goal or love, but I don't think that would have fit Nilsen's style.

[Joey Alison Sayers]

Beautiful, subtle, and strangely moving.

[Kim]

Better than Big Questions.

[applesaucevictim]

Alright, one of those "makes-no-sense" books. A little too postmodern for my taste. Interesting read though, fun to try and make sense out of it.