Review: Diskordia – Feels Like Falling

I came very close to giving up on reviewing this title. That’s not often the case, and in this instance I’m glad I forced myself to read beyond the first issue, because it has a lot to offer.

What put me off initially was the challenging way the story is told. I just found the different story threads hard to pick up initially and I also struggled with the regular changes between first and third-person perspective. However by mid-way through Chapter 2 the   flow of the story established itself for me and it’s a more than interesting one. The official synopsis covers it pretty nicely:

Feels like falling introduces readers to the surreal and bizarrely captivating world of Diskordia, A place where thought, dream and reality are interchangeable concepts; where the rich and powerful buy and sell emotions and minds like stock; where just beneath the surface of our consciousness lie terrible and fantastic beings who could destroy the world utterly if they were to ever emerge from its depths.

Exploring the vastness of this psychedelic everscape is sardonic youth Jackal Black; a man who is abruptly ripped from his unfulfilling existence and exposed to the true nature of the world he thought he knew.  Now Jackal must decide his place in it all lest he remain a helpless leaf blowing in the winds of chaos. Hero or villain, victim or victimizer, Conqueror or crushed insect, the nature of his very identity is up to him.

There’s some great pages of prose to flesh out the world even further, although the story stands up well enough if you want to skip those initially.

Onto the art: it is nothing short of stunning. As you’ll see from the couple of examples in this post, this is a story set in dimensions that free things up nicely to create some surreal landscapes and situations. Diskordia‘s creator Rivenis (Andrew Blackman) has some superb art chops and it’s that in particular that’s kept me interested in a big way. I’d personally love to see some prints of some of the pages, they’d be brilliant to hang on the wall.

If you like dark fantasy, great art or both, this is a series worth immersing yourself in. Here’s where to buy issues of Diskordia and a trade is on its way in coming weeks collecting issues 1-9.

8/10