Big Questions #[nn]

Anders Nilsen's Big Questions from Drawn & Quarterly is a quietly striking work, and the cover captures that sensibility perfectly — a softly painted pastoral meadow, framed by an intricate mandala-like burst of geometric linework, with a small bird hatching from a speckled egg at its center, flame-like plumage emerging from the shell amid coiled, serpentine forms. A lone bird perches on a sketched branch in the upper corner, rendered in Nilsen's characteristically spare ink line, a gentle counterpoint to the lush painted scene below. It's a beautifully composed image that balances the hand-drawn and the painterly, signaling the kind of thoughtful, unhurried storytelling that made this 2011 collection one of alternative comics' most distinctive achievements.