Jul 24 2025
Ooh, look, a standalone graphic novel from one of my favorite creative teams! And, interestingly, an object lesson in how to write a book that doesn’t explain everything yet still manages to feel both satisfying and complete, which I’ll delve into more later on in this review. This is also my first review of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/24/we-called-them-giants-by-kieron-gillen-stephanie-hans-clayton-cowles/
Jul 08 2022
I’ve had time to think about it, and tho this final installment of the RPG-nerd series made me cry, it also made me kind of mad, and this is why: there’s a bizarrely “time to put away childish things” overtone to the ending that really irritated me. Kieron Gillen was trying to tread a fine …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/08/die-vol-4-bleed-by-kieron-gillen-stephanie-hans-clayton-cowles/
Jun 27 2022
Tho I’m a ginormous fangirl of both this series and its creative team, I must say that I’m glad that this installment was passed over for the Hugo nomination (for purely temporal reasons) because things definitely start to fuzz out of cohesion here. So! Our intrepid heroes were originally, literally sucked into the twenty-sided world …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/27/die-vol-3-the-great-game-by-kieron-gillen-stephanie-hans-clayton-cowles/
Nov 11 2021
The first volume of this outstanding homage to RPGs absolutely broke my heart. It was my favorite for last year’s Hugo for Best Graphic Story, but I was unsurprised that it didn’t win. It’s VERY niche, even for nerds, and not everyone was going to adore it the way I did. The second volume amplifies …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/11/die-vol-2-split-the-party-by-kieron-gillen-stephanie-hans-clayton-cowles/
Jun 30 2020
Semi-tangent before I get into my review: my 9 year-old and I have taken to saying “okay” to each other in the voice of Princess Daisy from Super Mario Party. It’s a weird in-joke. My kid is the best. Anyhoo, I had to sit and think about this volume for a while before I could …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/30/the-wicked-the-divine-vol-9-okay-by-kieron-gillen-jamie-mckelvie-matt-wilson-clayton-cowles/
Jun 29 2020
Post the stunning story arc of Vols 1-4, our Pantheon has now entered their Imperial Phase, at the height of their powers and looking down at a slow decline towards death. With Ananke out of the picture, the surviving gods are free to do as they please… or is there more afoot than our troubled …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/29/the-wicked-the-divine-vol-5-8-by-kieron-gillen-jamie-mckelvie-matt-wilson-clayton-cowles/
Jun 26 2020
I had the weirdest visceral reaction after reading the first four volumes of this comic book and that is this: I felt young again, like a 20-something again, all over-sexed and full of energy and the certainty that I’m being misunderstood. Reading The Wicked + The Divine reminded me of waiting outside clubs in the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/26/the-wicked-the-divine-vol-1-4-by-kieron-gillen-jamie-mckelvie-matt-wilson-clayton-cowles/
Jun 09 2020
This was the first of the Hugo-nominated graphic stories I picked up for review and wow, inject it straight into my gamer veins! Immediately after finishing, I emailed my favorite former Dungeon Master and sent him the link to the first issue, just in case he hadn’t read it already. Any book I immediately want …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/09/die-vol-1-fantasy-heartbreaker-by-kieron-gillen-stephanie-hans-clayton-cowles/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire