Anders Nilsen: a look inside the cartoonist's sketchbook – in pictures

Anders Nilsen's book Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow documented his relationship with Cheryl Weaver, his girlfriend of six years, and of her death from cancer at the age of 37. His next book, The End, is a more considered exploration of his grief. The images that follow are from his sketchbooks
Illustration: Anders Nilsen

'I'd give you my body and die myself if I could,' Nilsen writes in the prologue to The End. 'But the doctors don't know how to do that, so you die.' He follows with six panels depicting the outline of a man going up in flames; these are the sketches
Illustration: Anders Nilsen

Nilsen carries Cheryl's ashes to the promontory where they were due to be married. 'Dear Cheryl, This is me on the way to promontory point after setting up at the church. I don't remember who I was walking with, I think Adam, probably my mom. When we started out everyone was behind me, following. I stopped for a while to let them pass. That's you in my arms'
Illustration: Anders Nilsen

Illustration: Anders Nilsen

Illustration: Anders Nilsen

Illustration: Anders Nilsen

Illustration: Anders Nilsen

Nilsen decided two people in outline with no distinguishing features were more powerful than detail. In the last panel, after his last bereavement group, he asks Cheryl: 'Do you kind of wish I would stop doing all this work about you dying?' He imagines her replying: 'Well, firstly it's not about me dying, it's about you. And secondly, if I was alive I would secretly like it, except when… I only like it because I'm dead. If I was alive I'd secretly sort of like it, but I'd hate that other people got to see it'
Illustration: Anders Nilsen