The Fall, Volume 1

The Fall #1-2

by Jared Muralt

Readers who found themselves gripped by the apocalyptic adventure of Robert Kirkman's THE WALKING DEAD and who were moved by the emotion in Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD will not want to miss Jared Muralt's THE FALL.

After just losing his wife, one father will have to face a world in freefall; shaken to its core by an economic, social, political and health crisis without precedent. Facing seemingly unreal and very unexpected dangers, he will do whatever it takes to protect his loved ones in a country on the brink of collapse. In this internationally acclaimed series, Jared Muralt not only tells the story of one family struggling to survive, but also questions the very reasons that brought mankind to this apocalypse.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Dystopia, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Bande Dessinée, Apocalyptic

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 2021

Reviews

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good apocalyptic book!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let us play the Post-Apocalypse Drinking Game!

Very infectious virus that everyone underestimates? DRINK!
Family with one parent and at least two children? DRINK!
The state/police/army can't be trusted? DRINK!
(But actually maybe they could be..? Parenthetical DRINK!)
Family leaves place of safety to other place of which they don't know whether it is safe? DRINK!
There's a baby? DRINK!
Implied cannibalism? DRINK!
People turn semi-evil under stress? DRINK!
Lots of men become (more) abusive? DRINK!
Children have to grow up fast? DRINK!

.. and we've run out of booze.



There are a lot of cliches of the genre on show here, some more convincing than others. The art takes away a lot of the pain, as it's quite beautiful in its detailedness.



And then there's a little twist at the end of the book, concerning one of only two characters of colour, that really rubbed me up the wrong way. It's unnecessary, it comes out of nowhere, and to me at least it seems borderline (if not full on) racist.



The book has pacing problems, possibly because of its original printing order, and it ends on an uninspired and tensionless cliffhanger.

A book of extremes.

(Picked up an ARC on Edelweiss)

[Mehsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from Edelweiss+ in exchange of an honest review.


Yep, I am now even going through Edelweiss+ to see what I can read! Haha, searching books everywhere so I got enough to read and hide.

This book was a bit too close to comfort at times, but still I soldiered on as it was also interesting. Though yes, sometimes I just had to look away. While thankfully things here seem to not go as far as the world of the characters, it was still too much. My not so OK mental health couldn’t take it a lot.
This book is about a world with a deadly flu, quarantines are happening, vaccins are apparently also happening though I guess given how things go from worse to horrible they aren’t working or there isn’t enough. So slowly the world is just falling apart (for reals, the world is a freaking mess, garbage piles everywhere, people are looting, people murder, people go for violence, and so much more. It was quite horrific to see). We see how a father tries to be there for his kids in this situation. We see how he tries to find food, find safety, find somewhere to go. They come across some horrific situations that no one should see or be in the neighbourhood of.

At times I was just confused about what was going on, things got a bit muddled nearer to the end. I just couldn’t always recognise the characters any more, at least not the boy and the girl. Haha, even at one point I thought the boy was the girl and was wondering what happened to the gun or the deer.

Plus, while I did like the first half of the story things just got less and less interesting and a bit too much/too gruesome/too weird/too boring for me in the second half. I struggled through it as I tried to keep up, struggled as I tried to keep myself interested. It was an interesting character study though, seeing how everyone tries to do something to survive. Most people just think of themselves so I loved that our family tried to stay together and tried to help the other out. I do think it was a shame that dad got wounded and that his kids had to struggle on their own/have to help him. The dad was my fav character and I just didn’t like seeing him like this. I wanted him strong and up on his feet, helping out his kids and figuring a way out of this hellhole.

Also, how did no one get sick with the flu? I thought it was so contagious and so deadly? Yet, the people for now just died because they get shot, stabbed, punched, or some other violent way. Everyone is holed up in those apartments and no one seems to get sick.

I do wonder how the rest of the world is doing. Is everything in chaos?

The art was OK-ish. At least at first, later on I just got less a fan of it.

Also sorry girl, but why did you not just hold the bunny? I just knew what was going to happen.
Another problem was that the font was quite small and ADE is a piece of junk that, if you try to zoom in, just crashes or makes every page go by in slow motion. My eyes are good enough but mini font + reading on a pc = recipe for disaster. But hey, my abs got a good exercise with this going back and forth movement. XD

Will I be reading the next one? Not sure. I will need to see something cute and funny to get my mind right again. I am not sure if, by the time the second volume appears, Corona is still around and how big. If it is still around, I probably won’t read. Plus, given how muddled things got in the end and how I struggled… the second book has to be really awesome for me to read it.

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/

[Jammin Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic novel is very timely during this pandemic. In the story, a bad strain of flu breaks out killing most of the population and creating a police state. A small family (father, daughter and son) try to survive fleeing to the mountains and meet up with some people there. I liked the story and thought the artwork was really good too.

An e-ARC was provided to me by the author and publishing via Edelweiss. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[Kuba ✌ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5⭐️

Przyjemnie mi się czytało. Kreska jest ładna, a fabuła ciekawa. Jednak było sporo momentów, w których nie wiedziałem co się działo, bo był taki "przeskok" - bez jakiejkolwiek informacji. Dużo niedomówień. Historia z paroma lukami fabularnymi wpadająca w sztampowe schematy dla tego gatunku.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Better than solid art, but even if we weren't currently living in a global pandemic, nothing about this story felt original. It was several things in dystopian stories, comics, and videogames that we have all seen since at least the early 2000s strung together. I didn't feel strong emotions, at all, while reading this, which admittedly could be due to pandemic-related numbness, but apocalypse/humans-doing-terrible-things-to-survive stories should be able to provoke more compassion or disgust in me.

Digital review copy

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quote/unquote 'summer flu' is killing, well, hundreds of people, and the world is in uproar. Nobody can use public transport, education is online or nothing, and every tenth word on the radio news is 'vaccine', You seriously are going to have to stop me if any of this sounds at all familiar. Yes, this book looks at the life of a small, fractured family unit in the world of a modern-day plague. A modern-day plague that allegedly justifies lockdowns, quarantined-off city blocks, facial coverings and panic buying at the shops. Oh fer him-on-a-stick's sake you will have to tell me when this starts to feel close to home.

Unfortunately, of course, this book hits us in 2021 when we all know the set-up much more intimately and memorably than the creator could ever have known when he first knocked this up, for this is a European book in translation after a year or two's work. And unfortunately, the circumstance that this has so much in common with our recent history is actually the best thing for it, because the 'who's a goodie, who's a baddie, who lives, who helps who and who dies' mish-mash of the bulk of the book is a heck of a lot less interesting (plus conveyed very awkwardly, when the number of characters and the mediocre art makes people impossible to differentiate). This volume offers deja vu in two very different ways for two very different reasons, then, and as a result has curio value but not much more. This seems to be a fifty-plus page section, and an 80-or-so-pages chunk, and neither end with anything like the pulling power to get a reader coming back, and that's whether real life is so close to it or not.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting, though a bit cliched. It also feels like it was possibly translated? I mean, it obviously takes place in Germany (I guess it's actually Switzerland, though), plus there were lots of places in the story where there was a hiccup, as if a panel or two (even a page or two sometimes) was missing. Still, I did enjoy it and the artwork is nicely detailed. If there's more to come, I'll certainly give it a try.

[Ray Flores · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does anybody else likes to read about apocalypses (still) in the middle of a pandemic? Well, let me tell you this is what 2020 felt like: there is a strange virus infecting everybody which leads to an economic crisis, collective hysteria, people killing each other in the streets and in a few words, what every apocalypse has. One would think that fiction is only made for entertaining but no. In reality we’re so much worse.

The Fall had all the elements a movie of the same genre would have, so on that side it wasn’t that original. The art wasn’t really my favorite either but it worked for the theme ‘cause we see the characters struggle in a city that’s half destroyed. Most people are not ready to survive on their own. We’re not meant to be captive, even if that means we won’t get sick.

Anyway, if I’m honest, I liked the first half better than the second because at some point, the father decided that he was going to take his kids to his parents’ house outside the city –and from here own, things get tougher. Also, it ends with a cliffhanger but I’m not sure I’ll be continuing with the series. Still, I would recommend you to check it out if you’re ever in the mood for an apocalypse story. I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll like.

I received and ebook copy in exchange for an honest review via Diamond Comic Distributors.

[Joe Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Lauredhel · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's nothing new here. Plague, downfall of society, people are terrible. Yawn.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Muralt's tale of a family struggling to survive as society collapses thanks to a pandemic flu hits all of the typical beats we'd expect from a apocalyptic story. The art is quite well done, and the writing is sharp, but there is nothing new here; we can see every turn coming pages away. And you know what? Publishing a story about a society collapsing from a pandemic while there is a pandemic on isn't particularly insightful or helpful or even provocative. It's just in extremely poor taste and seems to disrespect those who have already fallen to COVID-19. Come on.

[Permanently_Booked · Rating 4 out of 5]

**Thank you to Diamond Book Distributors for the gifted e-arc in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts are my own.**

I absolutely love post-apocalyptic based novels, movies and now I can add graphic novels to my list. There is something chilling when authors and illustrators can take real life issues and weave them into a very realistic scenario. In this story we have a family that is facing hardship in the time of an escalating virus (sound familiar?). Soon the virus is out of control and the government goes into a state of emergency. Restricted zones are created and things get much worse. Citizens start taking matters into their own hands and an onslaught of violence and the family’s desire to survive together ensues.

I enjoyed the realistically bleak and chaotic atmosphere that follows the family in their pursuit of safety. The mix of cultures, differences and quiet escalation of factions and hostility was engrossing to watch unfurl. I loved the eye-catching aesthetics of the illustrations and the overall looming sense of danger and violence that permeated the pages perfectly. There are some pretty graphic areas and situations that can make you cringe but they hold a carefully cultivated truth about them in their brashness. I did struggle a bit with the scenario jumps and overall timeline. The transition from scenes was not as smooth and the overall pace felt a bit more rushed than I would’ve liked. I also wondered what happened to the virus partially through. What started with the virus ended with very little mention of it.

The illustrations are expressive and thematically vivid. I like when I can feel the emotions of the characters and visually see the rawness of the situations and this delivers. As mentioned above, there are instances that make you cringe and the plot line holds nothing back in a world where rules are delegated by the people in different areas. I battled between whether too much was put into this for the sheer shock factor or if it truly was a good theme for the fall of government order. There are just certain individual scenes that begged the question if it was necessary for the plot. Overall, I would recommend this to readers who enjoy graphic apocalyptic scenarios with a family dynamic. True rating 3.5/5.

Content mention: quid pro quo towards a minor, an instance of animal cruelty, debatable female slavery/capture

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m really curious about how this book will do. On the one hand, the writer / artist does an incredible job of creating a visceral and gripping reading experience. On the other hand, I suspect the reaction will be a resounding: “too soon.” The story is essentially the worst-case scenario of our current, pandemic-dominated, world. What would happen if the fatalities became so disruptive that governance and economic production faltered and then collapsed? In the marketing materials, the publisher makes a comparison to Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and “The Fall” does share with that literary masterpiece the idea that there’s virtually nobody left that one wants to run into – i.e. everybody left is looking out for number one, and is, thus, untrustworthy. While that’s not strictly true, it’s true enough that one has to treat everyone with suspicion and with a finger on the trigger (literally or figuratively, as one’s state of armament allows.) Looking at the matter from the other direction, everyone left has done (or will end up doing) something of which they aren’t proud.

The story is built around a blue-collar family. The father and two children (a teenaged daughter and pre-teen boy) had one of the early variants of the flu, giving them adaptive immunity with a less lethal strain. The mother, a health-care worker, succumbs to the highly lethal evolved variant, leaving the three to survive in a rapidly escalating apocalyptic scenario.

At first, the family tries to survive in the city, but the father discovers that there is no food left and there are dangerous elements about. The trio then heads to stay with relatives in the countryside, not without running into challenges. They end up in a town that is allowing “tourists” to stay (with all the fatalities, housing is the only necessity that’s not lacking,) but there is not enough food or medicine for everyone. The characters are repeatedly pressed up against the kinds of challenging scenarios one might expect in a post-apocalyptic winter wonderland. Most pressingly, the father suffers an infection that seems like it may have him on his deathbed.

This is an intense read. As I say, I’m not sure everybody’s ready for it. If you have anxiety about where we are presently, I wouldn’t recommend it as it might take you to dire places that you wouldn’t have imagined yourself. That said, for readers of horror, dark stories, dystopian and post-apocalyptic wasteland stories, it’s a strong entry.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collecting the first six issues of the Kickstarter funded series, this book was originally published in French and certainly has a very European vibe to it. Which is good in my opinion, we have had many, many stories of society collapsing set in the United States - many actually written by Europeans - but this is the first one I’ve read - and maybe I just need to expand my reading pool - set in Europe. The blurbs constantly compare it to The Walking Dead, to attract American audiences no doubt, but apart from the collapse of civilization, The Fall is its own unique book.

Set in the German speaking section of Switzerland, a deadly flu has been ravaging the continent, killing large numbers of the population - Gee, I wonder what his inspiration was? After his wife succumbs, a man must protect and provide for his two children and a baby picked up along the way. Starvation, dehydration, infection, and predators all of sudden become the forefront of their lives. While not the most brutal of these types of stories, it does not shy away from animal death - you gotta eat - child suffering, rape - not actually shown - and sexual coercion.

The book is mainly plot driven, with not much character development except that certain people go from being alive to dead. There are also no division pages given between issues, so sometimes the action takes a major leap from one page to the next. It would be less jarring, had the issue numbers or covers been included between each chapter. This is also not a complete story. It is only part one and ends on a bloody cliffhanger, with all the character’s fates up in the air. Let’s hope there is a lot more of this story to follow.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork in the The Fall is beautiful: that detailed, fine-lined European style that I never grow tired of. The backgrounds sing with realism. Which makes it all the harder to fully enjoy the book, since this gorgeous, realistic art is depicting a pandemic-, climate change-, and recession-fueled end to society as we know it. It's basically The Walking Dead with a pandemic instead of zombies.

You'd think at this point in the (increasingly contained) pandemic, it wouldn't feel completely unacceptable to read a book about a fictional pandemic. The Fall tests that idea with its especially virulent strain of the flu that leads to lockdowns, masking, and mutations. Having been written three years before the COVID-19 pandemic, The Fall reads less as interesting fiction and more as unsettling prescience.

The plot follows a small family unit escaping the increasingly desperate big city for a "safe" mountain lodge. Know this: nothing goes well in the The Fall. This is not a book where things work out in the end. The Fall is grim and gritty and, again, painfully realistic. The pacing is capable and the action is startling. The dialogue is stilted at times, particularly with the word balloons being far from the speaking character's face. This is a "good" book, but it's a hard recommend under current circumstances.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. I felt like the art was a little off. I was interest in the European view of social collapse. I think it was similar to what I would see in an American imagination, but less violent and with fewer well prepared survivalists. I also thought his plague seemed a little underpowered. I think a disease that actually forced government to collapse and people to be generally at loose ends would have to kill at least half the population, maybe more. The plague here doesn’t seem that bad.

Non-European refugees from Syria and Africa crop up pretty frequently. It’s a timely subject and probably elicits a whole spectrum of emotions from European readers. I kept thinking that the survival rate among recently arrived refugees during a plague/social collapse would be higher than the existing population (which would include settled refugees).

I'd also think language would be more of a problem for apocolyptic Europe. May people have a language in common, but maybe often not their native tongue. Once people started moving around in large numbers language barriers would have to arise.

The dialogue is stiff in places and I can’t tell if it is the writing or the translation. In a few places the lines seem to be delivered by the wrong characters.

[Doctor Action · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars for effort but this was a disappointment.

The art is the main win here. The style and cleanliness is really skillful. The surroundings are especially good but it's quite hard to pick out various characters and not always clear what's happening. It's busy in a Where's Wally sort of a way.

The dialogue is simply functional, lacking sparkle or personality. (This could be to do with the translation from the original German. Impossible to say.)

The plot feels clichéd and arbitrary. The pacing is very lumpy and the characters are weak. It reads like a children's book, actually, but with subject matter too heavy for kids. The author is no writer, imo. It's miserable, relevant to today, of course, but I'm not sure what the point is.

In short, Jared is a great artist but he's got a way to go to make his pages sing and would probably succeed more by drawing a separate writer's work.

[Hannah (hngisreading) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A standard, run-of-the-mill apocalypse story:

Deadly virus ✅
Quarantined ✅
Economic crisis ✅
A city in chaos ✅
Warring groups of survivors ✅
A family doing anything it’ll take to survive ✅
A baby (so stressful!!) ✅
Humanity turning on itself ✅
Cannibalism ✅

The setting of the ski chalet was cool. I feel like there were some gaps in the story, though, and the pacing was off. Some of the art made it difficult to follow. I’m hoping the focus stays on the daughter in the next volume. I don’t really vibe w/ the dad.

I think at this point, if you want to do an apocalyptic story, you need that unique spin (think Severance of Station Eleven). This has been done before, time & time again. It feels formulaic at this point.

[OneMamaReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 Stars

This was a great start to a series. I really enjoyed the graphics, the detail of the characters highlighted by the darkness of the colouring. The colouring and details lend themselves to the storyline. I would have liked a little bit more backstory, or even just dialogue, to help lay out what was happening. Some of it you could confer, but a couple times I was a little confused as to what happened to some elements, or what was going on in general. It is very tragic, but I think the author did a good job of relaying how quickly things can go downhill in a global catastrophe. How easy it is for humans to turn on each other in order to survive or even to fulfil their own dark desires.

[Mutated Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking for an insane story of the apocalypse due to a virus? Do you want to see kids really have to take things into their own hands in that kind of world? If so, this might be something you want to look into the next time you're looking for a graphic novel to read. It really shows the gritty parts of a terrifying future fantasy, and that's just what I love about reading comics. And who knows? You might too.

Check out my full review here!

https://radioactivebookreviews.wordpr...

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Besides feeling like plenty moments are borrowed from The Walking Dead or (specifically Spielberg’s) War of the Worlds, this is a pretty cool apocalypse story that really only suffers from the timing of coinciding with an actual pandemic. As for being a survival story without zombies or aliens, only a drastically reduced population, it is definitely engaging.

[Roland · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art is great, and I like that it's set in Europe, you don't see that too often, but in terms of post-apocalyptic stories there isn't anything new here, and I can't give it more than 2.5, because the cliffhanger it ends on is very underwhelming. Maybe once the series ends it will be a better read overall but currently, I hate to describe it this way but it's "all style, no substance"

[Paul Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew - dark story. One of the reviews on the back cover called it Walking Dead meets Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and that nails it. A bit too heavy for my taste but if the above comparison sounds good to you then go for it.

[Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story in this is very basic (also WHY am I reading a book about a postapocalyptic pandemic world DURING a pandemic - that one's on me), but I have to love anything that's fully written and illustrated by the same person. And the art in this is excellent.

[Clair · Rating 3 out of 5]

E-book, GN 4 of 2025: The Fall
Apocalyptic setting following a French family fleeing toward the Alps in search of safety. When fleeing the city the oldest daughter, finds an abandoned baby who they decide to take care of.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some stuff may have not translated well, and otherwise, now might not be the best time for a pandemic-related read. (e-galley from Edelweiss)

[Elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am both in awe and devastated. There’s a symmetry in the panels that’s juxtaposed by the complete disarray of the environment. The Fall absolutely ranks top tier in art and story. Beautiful.

[Shivakukatla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice 👌🏻👍🏻.

[Sonic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 2, Please!