It Flows Down From The Hill Review: Norrie's Near-Silent Fantasy Epic
Reading time: 3 minutes
How about a beautiful fantasy sci-fi comic showcasing the power of visual storytelling with minimal dialogue, tackling trauma, anger, and guilt powerfully through the adventures of a not-so-heroic warrior in service to an imposing machine? It's the gorgeous It Flows Down From The Hill by Norrie.
Norrie Miller, not to be confused with the walk despite search engines' insistence, is a Dundee-based illustrator, character designer and comic creator. Norrie delightfully introduced us to Chirps being derps in the exceptional Flesh & Flora (reviewed here). That book earned the creator a number of Selkie Award nominations in 2024. Alongside his comic illustrations, Norrie is the lead character artist for the video game Aero GPX. Damn talented doodle king described we'll do that thing we do.
So, let's start with the art. Talk about a talent for impact. Norrie delivers from the very first page with a cold, imposing structure of formidable scale that continues consistently throughout. This is a much colder world than that of Flesh & Flora.
Norrie's style is beautiful and engrossing on every panel. The consistent delivery of extremely strong comic book visuals throughout the entirety of this book is nothing short of impressive. Despite the desolate landscapes depicted, Norrie utilises every millimetre of space to produce art of powerful interest. The only negative I can find with this book is a want for more, which paradoxically would be too much. This is a complete comic experience.
The art is suitably enhanced by impressive and intelligent colouring and lettering, cementing an entrancing experience. The highlights for this one really are every single panel for faultless precision in comic book storytelling. With that wavered in on, it's story time.
It Flows Down From The Hill packs so much into twenty-four short pages with an absolute minimum of dialogue. Still, it manages to convey an excellent, powerful, poignant tale. Following a warrior from adolescence to adulthood in service to mountain based machine obelisk. This warrior inflicts violence on the innocent populace, repeating a cycle of hatred. The book encompasses the cycle of trauma, anger and guilt and presents them in the perfect universal language of comics.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of succinct, efficient, expert and gorgeous storytelling any other way than what Norrie brings here. It's a comic like this that reminds you how strong the medium can be. It feels like an important piece to add to any discerning comic book fan's collection.
There's not much more to say, not because this is a comic I couldn't enthuse over and continue to unpack it. Really, the comic speaks volumes for itself. So please don't let me keep you, go and get it for yourself, you won't be disappointed.
For fans of comics, fantasy, sci-fi, a cold, abrasive, imposing mechanical representation of traumatic peers imposing its will on a young man, causing him to repeat its cycle on the innocent and the battle to break such a relationship; awesome-looking swords, powerful colouring, powerful storytelling, powerful messaging, trauma, anger and guilt with absolutely beautiful art. You should own It Flows Down From The Hill.
To get your copy of It Flows Down From The Hill, the absolute best place is Norrie's Ko-fi here. It is ridiculously reasonably priced, so while you're there, look around and support Norrie as much as you can. We could all do with more comics from him. You should also be following Norrie on Instagram and Bluesky.
It Flows Down From The Hill review: 5/5
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