Die Comic Review: Die, the Heart-Wrenching Fantasy

I was recently discussing Lev Grossman’s The Magicians with a friend—a genre deconstruction by someone who clearly hates magic school tropes and wakes up in a cold sweat dreaming of burning Hogwarts. His pages are filled with unlikable caricatures of human beings, and while it’s a fascinating read, the main takeaway is that the author has some serious issues he needs to talk through with someone.

While reading Die, the Heart-Wrenching Fantasy, I was reminded of The Magicians many times. Both works take a beloved genre and its tropes in a new direction. In the case of Die, the kids with nuclear wands are replaced by an original and highly compelling take on the isekai and LitRPG mix. Add a dash of classic Dungeons & Dragons, a pinch of Tolkien, and a whole heap of original weirdness.

On every page, you can see that Kieron Gillen, the writer, is a massive nerd who has put in his time in dungeons drawn on graph paper. I appreciated the sheer number of obscure references, and I’m sure I missed just as many. Unlike The Magicians, Die doesn’t approach the subject from a place of hatred, but from a place of love for the genre and RPGs, even if the story itself is anything but kind.

When Sol and his friends were sixteen, he organized a special game for them, something like Dungeons & Dragons. The moment they rolled the dice, they vanished from the world. Six months later, they returned—without Sol, scarred in body and soul, carrying trauma they couldn't talk about.

Twenty-five years later, the dice are back in their hands. And they are back in the game.

In the world of Die, they become powerful heroes. A diplomat who can command anyone with her tongue. A hacker powered by fairy gold. A dealer with gods who can buy miracles. A knight whose grief is both a weapon and a curse. A fool kept from a violent death only by supernatural luck.

And Sol is back, too. He doesn't want to be alone. So, he’s set up another game for his friends.

Leaving is easy. They just all have to want to…

But beneath the surface of their heroic alter egos, they are still the same traumatized adults, carrying not just the shadows of the past, but the new burdens of growing up in the real world. In the meantime, their lives have accumulated losses, failures, and guilt that even the power of a magical world cannot fully erase. On the contrary, it holds up a mirror to them.

And that is what makes Die such an amazing comic. The strange fantasy of mechanical Prussian dragons and zombies communicating in binary code is balanced by all-too-believable and brilliantly fleshed-out characters. Both parts complement each other, making the result much, much more than the sum of its parts.

The experience is further enhanced by Stephanie Hans’s absolutely brilliant art. It’s gloomy, atmospheric, and adapts perfectly to the plot. During action scenes, it’s full of contrast, with aggressive red bleeding out from the dark surroundings. Melancholy, on the other hand, plays with complementary muted yellow and orange shades.

Every few pages, there’s a scene so impressive I wouldn't hesitate to enlarge it, frame it, and hang it above the bed in the guest room.

If it hasn't hit you yet, Die is brilliant, and if you have even the slightest connection to role-playing games, it’s essentially required reading. It’s smart, mature, action-packed, fantastic, moving, and sad. It’s beautiful and deserves a place on your bookshelf.

By the way, Die has its own role-playing game where you, too, can find yourself trapped in an RPG against your will, and if all goes well, it might even appear in our shop. 😉

author Ondřej Mráz