“It’ll be over by spring, they said… but spring never comes.”

By Hussein Wasiti — I’m not a tabletop role-playing game fan, and so I was intimidated by Die when its first issue hit shelves late last year. It’s not hard to see why: series writer Kieron Gillen is a fan of RPGs, so much so that the comic was marketed as a love letter to those very games, and that first issue introduced a lot of RPG-like elements that, quite frankly, scared me off. I didn’t read any subsequent issues, but I was happy to see that fans of the series were enjoying something that captured their experiences playing those games.  

Many months later, however, I have since realized I’ve made a mistake in not sticking with the series. I recently picked up the first volume in trade, Fantasy Heartbreaker, and I’ve found that this comic is so much more than just a throwback to RPGs I’ve never played. It’s a comic about storytelling, about the thin line between fiction and reality and how blurred it can be, about how much more of ourselves we put into stories than we realize. Simply put, it’s a damn good fantasy story, and I loved it. 

With Stephen King’s It currently in the cultural zeitgeist due to the massively successful film adaptations of the book, my immediate reaction to the first issue upon re-reading it was that it felt very similar to King’s yarn, in that a group of adults return to a fantastical, horrific trauma they experienced…27 years ago? Hm. 

Jokes aside, I found this to be a nice and ultimately much darker subversion of King’s book. The group of friends aren’t dealing with a cosmic clown, but instead, they must grapple with their friend who has been driven insane after being left behind in a game that he and his friends were sucked into and lost within for two years. There’s a personal stake to the story in that each of these characters are now adults with adult responsibilities; they simply can’t be gallivanting through this fantasy realm at the behest of their insane friend. 

I haven’t read much of Gillen’s work aside from his long run on Star Wars, but I’ve always been aware of the relationship his readers have with his work, which comes across to me as an intensely emotional one. It’s not something I regularly find in fandom circles on the Internet, but I developed a weird attachment to this book. I’m a big fan of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy work. I find comfort in it, the film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings are some of the greatest things I’ve seen. Gillen peppers in a lot of Tolkien references and actually channels Tolkien himself into the story in an earnest and beautiful way that nearly had me in tears. If this comic is about how much of ourselves we put into our stories like I mentioned previously, then Tolkien is the perfect analogue for that, given the remarkable life he led and how his life experiences drove his narratives. Gillen used Tolkien to suck me into Die, and it worked flawlessly. Perhaps there should be some reticence on my part since I’m connecting to another author’s work rather than the author I’m actually reading, but this isn’t the case. I read the Tolkien section of the book as a thesis of sorts on the man and the world he created, as told to me by Gillen. 

Stephanie Hans is also one of the most interesting artists working today. Her work is so unconventional to me, both in terms of her figures and color work. The first issue of the series is kind of rough; we spend a lot of time with the characters as children and their faces look a bit plastered on, like she designed the adults first and transposed their features onto their younger counterparts without taking into account age and general wear and tear. Things pick up when they enter the world of Die, and from the second issue onwards this book just sings. It’s one of the most gorgeous books I’ve read all year. Hans’ sense of design is fantastical and immaculate. 

She brings this world to life in a way that I don’t think any other artist could. Her style is so dream-like and hazy, lending itself to the fantastical element of the story perfectly. I will also say that her work improved greatly over the course of the five issues in this volume; I sensed a lot more confidence in her expression work and her character acting in general. There’s the occasional moment where her sequential storytelling loses me, however. When she gets into a more abstract or action-oriented panel, it’s hard to see what’s happening since her coloring can be very heavy, making it hard for me to distinguish between characters and their surroundings. Aside from these small hiccups, her work is fantastic. 

I know there are people like me out there who don’t care for RPGs and aren’t reading this comic. The purpose of this review is to assure you that you should definitely check this out. Are there instances where the RPG language leaves you a little lost? Absolutely. However, Gillen and Hans frame these moments in easy-to-understand ways that leave you satisfied nonetheless. 

Die Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Stephanie Hans
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: June 11, 2019 

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Hussein Wasiti is a history undergraduate with an intense passion for comics. He is a staff writer on The Beat and a contributor to Batman's Bookcase. You can find him on Twitter as bullthesis. He lives in Toronto with his hordes of comics.