‘Adventure Time: Volume 1’ Review
Written by Ryan North | Art by Shelli Paroline, Branden Lamb, Mike Holmes | Published by Titan Comics | Format: Paperback, 128pp
Adventure Time is one of those television shows which, despite airing on a kids TV network (where it is consistently rated #1), has crossover appeal – it’s not only young kids who love the show, but teenagers and geeky grown-ups too. Which is one of the reasons the series has become somewhat of a pop-culture behemoth, crossing the spectrum of tie-in merchandise (including plenty of clothes and cosplay items) and now, from Boom! Studios, a new comic, of which this is the first collected volume…
Written by acclaimed cartoonist Ryan North and drawn by the team of Shelli Paroline and Branden Lamb, Adventure Time: Volume 1 follows Finn the human and Jake the dog, along with Princess Bubblegum, Marceline the Vampire Queen and the rest of their friends in the Land of Ooo, as they fight to escape the clutches (and bag) of the evil skeleton dude, The Lich.
Much like tie-in video games, comics based on TV shows and cartoons were once seen as quick cash-ins for both comic companies and Hollywood studios. However in recent years, thanks to the likes of Dark Horse, IDW and Boom! Studios, the medium has come to mean more than tie-ins, what with books such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 (Dark Horse), Angel: After the Fall (IDW), and Boom! Studios’ very own Eureka comic. But there was still a big risk in producing an Adventure Time book, and not just because of the shows avid fanbase – oh no – there’s the issue of capturing what makes the TV show so great in comic book form…
So what about Adventure Time: Volume 1, does it capture the heart, the relationships, and more importantly the off-the-wall fun of the show? In a word, yes. Thankfully writer Ryan North has managed to capture the tone of the show whilst Shelli Paroline and Branden Lamb’s art looks like it has jumped straight off the screen onto the page.
Adventure Time: Volume 1 is without a doubt a comic that is a good as the show that spawned it and deserves to be in any Adventure Time fans collection. Volume 1 is out now from Titan Comics.
