Big Questions

This exquisite comic is simultaneously very big (in ambition, in sheer size, in the evocative white space opened up for imaginative expansion) and very small (in its modest drawings of birds, snakes, and stripped down nearly iconic human figures, its designedly minimalist lines and pointillist compositions, and its spare black and white palette). In its poetic, even elemental grasp of the workings of life at a range of scales, from the molecular to the universal, this comic opens up a potent space for meditation on the human/animal continuum, the origins and meanings of violence, and the inexorable, consoling cycle of life.  –S. Squier

 It is incredibly difficult to be successful in comics using a minimalist approach to art. Maybe as comic readers we have an expectation of the grand- whether it is line work, inking, page layout, etc.  The great achievement of Big Questions is its unwavering examination of “big questions” while being both simple and grand. At times surreal, dark, laugh out loud funny and sad, Big Questions in many instances uses the most basic of technique and construction. But part of what makes the simplicity of many pages of bird conversation so effective is the juxtaposition of these panels and pages with the beautiful, detailed line work of the humans, machines and other animals.
–J. Secreto

When I first read it, I was amazed how this story could only be told in a graphic narrative format. I could not see how any other medium would do the themes justice, and I cannot see how this story could be told so imaginatively in any other format.  Big Questions shows what an artist can do with a relatively new medium. –G. Masuchika

An unusual achievement.  Nilsen’s gentle and quiet drawings of birds and other helpless creatures (all the characters seem helpless in some sense) do, indeed, slowly insinuate big questions.  Do life’s conditions and events have meaning? Is communication with The Other ever really possible? Do answers come with patience? Is that little speck edible?  If Waiting for Godot was for the birds, this might be it. It is difficult to imagine this world of articulate finches and inarticulate humans being created in any other medium.  Shadowless lines keep the 3rd dimension in our heads.  White space lets our imaginations run.  After reading I cock my head sharply to consider life with my left eye, then tilt again to try with my right.  What a big little book!  
–H. Pisciotta