|
|
Title | Here There Be Gerblins
| |
Author | Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy
| |
Illustrator | Carey Pietsch
| |
Publisher | First Second - 2018
| |
First Printing | First Second - 2018
|
|
|
|
Title | Murder on the Rockport Limited!
| |
Author | Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy
| |
Illustrator | Carey Pietsch
| |
Publisher | First Second - 2019
| |
First Printing | First Second - 2019
|
|
|
|
Title | Petals to the Metal
| |
Author | Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy
| |
Illustrator | Carey Pietsch
| |
Publisher | First Second - 2020
| |
First Printing | First Second - 2020
|
|
|
|
Title | The Crystal Kingdom
| |
Author | Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy
| |
Illustrator | Carey Pietsch
| |
Publisher | First Second - 2021
| |
First Printing | First Second - 2021
|
|
|
|
Title | The Eleventh Hour
| |
Author | Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy
| |
Illustrator | Carey Pietsch
| |
Publisher | First Second - 2023
| |
First Printing | First Second - 2023
|
|
|
|
Title | The Suffering Game
| |
Author | Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy
| |
Illustrator | Carey Pietsch
| |
Publisher | First Second - 2024
| |
First Printing | First Second - 2024
|
| |
|
Category | Graphic Novels
| |
Warnings | None
| |
Main Characters | Taako, Merle, Magnus
| |
Main Elements | Elves, Dwarves, Warriors, and pretty much everything else too
| |
Website | ---
|
|
 Here There Be Gerblins
Welcome to the Adventure Zone!
SEE! The illustrated exploits of three lovable dummies set loose in a classic fantasy adventure!
READ! Their journey from small-time bodyguards to world-class artifact hunters!
MARVEL! At the sheer metafictional chutzpah of a graphic novel based on a story created in a podcast where three dudes and their dad play a tabletop role playing game in real time!
Join Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior for an adventure they are poorly equipped to handle AT BEST, guided ("guided") by their snarky DM, in a graphic novel that, like the smash-hit podcast it's based on, will tickle your funny bone, tug your heartstrings, and probably pants you if you give it half a chance.
With endearingly off-kilter storytelling from master goofballs Clint McElroy and the McElroy brothers, and vivid, adorable art by Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: Here There be Gerblins is the comics equivalent of role-playing in your friend's basement at 2am, eating Cheetos and laughing your ass off as she rolls critical failure after critical failure.
Murder on the Rockport Limited!
In the second Adventure Zone graphic novel (adapted from the McElroy family's wildly popular D&D podcast), we rejoin hero-adjacent sort-of-comrades-in-arms Taako, Magnus, and Merle on a wild careen through a D&D railroad murder mystery. This installment has a little of everything: a genius child detective, an axe-wielding professional wrestler, a surly wizard, cursed magical artifacts, and a pair of meat monsters.
You know, the usual things you find on a train.
Hot on the heels of "The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins", the smash hit graphic novel that launched the series, "Murder on the Rockport Limited" picks up the saga where volume 1 left off. Both books are based on "The Adventure Zone," a tabletop RPG comedy podcast with downloads numbering in the tens of millions and an army of passionately devoted fans. With art and co-adaptation from Carey Pietsch, the McElroys are once again turning their raucous freewheeling D&D campaign into some damn fine comics.
Petals to the Metal
START YOUR ENGINES, friends, as we hit the road again with Taako, Magnus and Merle, the beloved agents of chaos from the #1 New York Times Bestselling books The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins and The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited.
Our boys have gone full-time at the Bureau of Balance, and their next assignment is a real thorny one: apprehending The Raven, a master thief who’s tapped into the power of a Grand Relic to ransack the city of Goldcliff. Local life-saver Lieutenant Hurley pulls them out of the woods, only to throw them headlong into the world of battle wagon racing, Goldcliff’s favorite high-stakes low-legality sport and The Raven’s chosen battlefield. Will the boys and Hurley be able to reclaim the Relic and pull The Raven back from the brink, or will they get lost in the weeds?
Based on the beloved blockbuster podcast where three brothers and their dad play a tabletop RPG in real time, The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal has it all: blossoming new friendships, pining for outlaw lovers, and a rollicking race you can root for!
The Crystal Kingdom
Based on the blockbuster podcast where the McElroy brothers and their dad play a tabletop RPG and illustrated by cartooning powerhouse Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom takes this #1 New York Times bestselling series to haunting new heights.
A desperate call for help interrupts holiday celebrations at the Bureau of Balance, and sends Taako, Magnus and Merle on a high-stakes mission to find and Reclaim a fourth deadly relic: a powerful transmutation stone, hidden somewhere in the depths of a floating arcane laboratory that’s home to the Doctors Maureen and Lucas Miller. An unknown menace has seized control of the stone, and is using it to transform the lab into a virulent pink crystal that spreads to everything it touches.
It’s only a matter of time before this sparkling disaster crash-lands, but in order to find the stone and save the whole planet from being King Midased, our heroes will have to fight their way through a gauntlet of rowdy robots and crystal golems, decide whether they can trust the evasive Lucas Miller, and solve the mystery of what—or who—has put them all in peril, before there’s no world left to save.
The Eleventh Hour
The fifth installment in the #1 New York Times-bestselling Adventure Zone graphic novel series, a meta-fictional D&D adventure story based on the smash hit podcast.
The Bureau of Balance has located yet another Grand Relic, and this time it's...time? A small mining town called Refuge has been locked away behind an arcane bubble, and somewhere inside it the Temporal Chalice is causing unknown mayhem. Taako, Magnus, and Merle are launched into their investigation, but they've barely had a chance to get their feet under them before the situation literally falls apart. When the town clocktower strikes noon, Refuge and its citizens are destroyed in a sudden chaos of flame and ruin, and our heroes' relic hunting -- along with their lives -- comes to an abrupt end.
But woah, what's this? It's 11AM, they're alive again, and Refuge definitely hasn't just been exploded? Looks like a classic time loop, friends. This town is trapped in its final hour, and so are the three of them. And in order to escape, they'll not only have to solve the mystery of what happened to the Chalice, they'll also also have to resist what it offers: the chance to rewrite the worst days of their own pasts.
The Suffering Game
Taako, Magnus, and Merle are near the end of their quest to collect the seven Grand Relics, dangerous magical artifacts which threaten the world as they know it. The penultimate item on their adventuring to-do list is the Animus Bell, which The Director tells them is hidden at the heart of Wonderland, a carnival of torment. Once inside, the boys will have their shot at winning the Bell...but each step forward comes at a horrible cost. And the deeper they go - the closer they get - the higher a price they’ll pay.
And if they can secure the Bell, surely then the worst will be over, right? Surely they’ll go back up to their Moonbase in the sky, and hand the Bell over to The Director, and Bureau life will return to normal while they begin their hunt for the final relic, right? They’re so close to the end, after all, and they’ve gone through so much to get this far. There can’t possibly be any further surprises in store...
This year I read a fair amount of Dungeons and Dragons, and I also read a fair amount of graphic novels. This combines the two and puts a silly twist on it by having the most inept and self-centered characters. I thought I would love it, but in the end, not so much.
I didn't mind the swearing at first, but then it just got gratuitous and non-stop, which made it less fun and more crass. And while I laughed at their misadventures and hopeless heroes and inept villains, it again, was a little too crude and rude for me. I don't watch things like Saturday Night Live because I think the humour is dumb, and this is along those lines. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't entirely to my tastes either.
I did learn a bit about how to play D&D and what a Dungeon Master's role is so that was a plus, not having ever played the game myself. And the artwork was good, it matched the style of the storytelling. And the little insets with the DM were super cute.
If I had to buy the books, I'd go Critical Role all the way. But that said, I'm curious to dig up The Adventure Zone podcasts, I wonder if it might actually be more fun listening to the dialog then reading it? And when the weather warms up a bit and I can walk to the library again, I'll be borrowing the rest of the series, after all, it is silly fun.
Aaannd...I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out if Taako is a guy or not, they never referred to him as he or she, though at one point the group is referred to as "dudes". A little Google came up with this, which sounded about right to me! I love the "may or may not be" bit...
Taako is a "gay dude." This is "100% canonical," according to Justin. He may or may not be a man, but uses he/him pronouns.
April 2024
Petals to the Metal is no less crazy and wacky than the previous two. I think I liked this one the least of the three I've read so far, maybe because Mad Max car racing is not my thing, but its still fun to see the three goofballs messing up all along the way yet somehow always achieving their missions. Since the library is kind of enough to supply me with the rest, I'll keep on going!
June 2024
You know I think The Crystal Kingdom might have been my favorite one. Lots of pink, not that I'm a huge fan of pink but it made for spectacular illustrations. The story was interesting (I'm not big on Mad Max type races which the previous book was), and the introduction of the reaper makes me hope we'll see more of him.
September 2024
The series is really growing on me, The Eleventh Hour might be my new favorite now. I loved the time loop (and seeing the team bite the dust about a hundred different ways, but hey, its a time loop, you just start over again). And you get to learn more about the pasts of the characters when they are being tempted to use the power to fix the mistakes. And at the end of the book there's a huge reveal which made me want to rush out and get the next one...but I'll have to wait till someone returns their copy to the library first.
But I must admit The Suffering Game was...dark. While the multiples deaths in the previous one was funny, here characters had to give up limbs or otherwise be tortured to retrieve one of the artifacts they've been collection. Also there are huge reveals in this one, that there is so much more to this silly series than appeared on the surface. I have to wonder if that were there from the start or something that got built up as it went along, but it was blowing my mind. And now...I have to wait till next year for the grand finale! Looking forward to the billion questions that came up in this book get resolved.
|
