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.