Thoughts on Die #1 - Once Again They Return

Written by Kieron Gillen - Illustrated by Stephanie Hans - Lettered by Clayton Cowles - Designer Rian Hughes - Editor Chrissy Williams



After reading Die #1 several times, I’m struck with the issues use of nostalgia as setup for the adventure (horrors?) to come, the color play of artists Stephanie Hans, and how darn creepy it is at points. The quick pitch of referring to this new series as “Goth Jumanji” is functionally apt, as a group of friends come back together 25 years after surviving several years in a fantasy realm. The pithiness of the description dose something the main character in the first issue, Dominic, dose a lot it deflects and maybe in a way lies about the emotional weight (burden) that underpins it.

Die is properly nostalgic in its first issue. The Greek roots of nostalgia translate out to mean “homecoming” and “pain/ache.” Nowadays when nostalgia is employed there is a heavy emphasis on the homecoming part, often in the form of an imagined idyllic past that didn’t really exist in the first place. That idealism overwrites any sense of pain from this wistful gazing. Die #1 features several homecomings and lots of pain. Artist Stephanie Hans, who paints the entire issue, plays into the popular understanding of nostalgia in the first section of the issue set in the past. The dominant color is a golden brown, imbuing a sense of innocence that softly lights everything and warms up the pages. Even as someone who doesn’t role play that much, there is something warm and fuzzy about the first image of the series: Dominic and Angela walking up to his friend’s house ready to play a game. The sunset and electrical light both giving off the same tone, swallowing and softening everything around it. This looks like a happy memory, but the black on white lettering from Clayton Cowles have a way of disabusing that notion.

The specifics of the pain in the first issue are left unsaid to the reader. Dominic, who plays the Dictator and our window into everything via Gillens use of internal monologue, is constantly asked “what” happened and all he can ever say is that he can’t really say. The trauma of their first experience hangs over everything, from Dom’s judgmental internal monologue to the fact his sister no longer has an arm. When they land back in the game world Matthew, who plays as the Grief Knight, is staring down at his flamberge his body language tells you everything. The entirety of this issue is centered around Dominic’s perspective, showing how he has or hasn’t delta with their first traumatic adventure. I wonder if the following issues will shift that perspective around issue to issue.

Making this issue oversized was the right call, at about 30 pages of narrative content. It gave each of the three settings just the right amount of space without feeling cut short. The first issue reads like a good episodic chunk of serialized storytelling should, it is fulfilling in itself and gestures towards a longer term narrative. A technical side of creating that feeling is Hans choosing one dominant color for each of the three sections of the book the past, present, and fantasy world. These sections are dominated by previously mentioned golden brown for the past, white in the present, and red in the fantasy world. Funnily enough the only time these three colors seem to come all together is during the second homecoming in this issue.

I’m curious to see what the reaction to this series is from people who don’t do a lot of role playing. While I don’t do it that much I do listen to shows like Critical Role and WebDM, of Gillen’s independent work it’s probably the most foreknowledge I’ve had compared to series like Phonogram or The Wicked + The Divine.(I’m boring and primarily listen to wind ensemble and electronica.) Other than the different types of dice each character gets, it hasn’t delved into the mechanical side of things yet. I suspect/hope Stephanie Hans art will be enough to keep people around. Her paintings, these sort of impressionist shots put sequence with this abstract color play as a binder are just wonderful to look at. Those attributes also give the book this tenebrism quality.

The impressionist style comes more into focus after the book jumps into the present. The facial features of figures will be represented in a painterly detail, with the odd realist touch as it relates to brows or age marks. A figures relative detail is than contrasted in the backgrounds chromatic abstraction. While juxtaposing something that is more representational with the abstract sounds like a surefire route to dissonance and eye pain, the difference isn’t too great. There is a technical sense of unity between everything. Doing backgrounds in this way has the effect of turning the modern cityscape into swirls of color like when you expose the shutter and moving the camera a bit. Hans artwork doesn’t highlight or detail figures in the way you traditionally expect out of comics but it creates these moody emotionally evocative pages that narrate to the reader the emotion of the moment.

As abstract moody the images in this issue can be at times, Hans also crafts some plain creepy ones with the use of Solomon in the opening pages. Solomon is the Grandmaster, he wields the D20, he also has a habit of staring right at the reader. I counted four times this occurs in the first issue. With this being Gillen, and inspired by wondering over whatever happened to the kids from the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, reflexive bits are expected. But there’s something just creepy when reading and seeing a pair of eyes staring back at you. Reflexive elements in past series were a bit of a gag, or not as fourth wall breaking in this way. Never the less that decision feels appropriate.

Die is an excellent first issue, doing everything a reader should expect. It is a strong first act as themes and characters were drawn together and pushed by the not so simple choice of what to do with a blood covered D20.