Graphic Novel Review – Die Vol 2: Split the Party by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Graphic Novel
Length: 168 pages
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: February 11, 2020
ISBN-13 : 978-1534314979
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd vol in the Die series
Source: Bought
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“No one can escape DIE until everyone agrees to go home. Or rather, no one can escape DIE until everyone who is alive agrees to go home. The second arc of the commercial and critical hit of bleakly romantic fantasy fiction starts to reveal the secrets of the world, and our heroes’ pasts. There’s always the chance they’ll escape DIE. They’ll never escape themselves.”
Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Die graphic novel series. There are three TPBs right now with the fourth “Die, Vol4: Bleed” expected to release on Nov 9th. I bought a copy of this book.
Thoughts: I have mixed feelings about this book just like I did with the first book. However, there’s enough going on here to keep me interested. The artwork here is beautiful and I love that we dive deeper into the lives these characters had before they got brought back into the world of DIE. The characters are fairly unlikable but they are still fascinating to read about. I also really enjoyed seeing famous people from the world outside that are trapped in DIE; this hints at some bigger things going on with this supposedly made-up world. All the gaming references are awesome too.
Now for the issues I had. The story can be confusing and hard to follow; we are jumping around in time and between characters and there is just too much going on to follow clearly. Also, although I enjoyed getting a look into our characters’ non-fantasy personal lives, this messed with the pace of the story and just added to the confusion with what is going on. A lot of the characters make questionable decisions which can be frustrating and I also still struggle with keeping some of the characters straight as far as who is who in the real world.
My Summary (3.5/5): Overall I mostly enjoyed this but did struggle with the pacing and had to go back and reread sections that were a bit confusing. I love the artwork and think the story is interesting and holds promise. I am not sure I like the direction some of our characters are taking though. I would recommend this to those who enjoy RPGs and graphic novels about them. I am going to stick it out and see how I like the 3rd volume in this series, hopefully it’s a bit more solid as far as story cohesiveness and pacing.
