The Adventure Zone: Here There be Gerblins by Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Carey Pietsch

Synopsis: 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.


Review: I'm going to start by saying I don't play D&D, nor have I listened to My Brother, My Brother, and Me, the podcast this book was based on. That being said, I love adventure based video games and fantasy novels, so I figured I would give this a shot. I was delighted when I read this book. It is one of the few stories that made me laugh out loud because of the character interactions. You can really get a feel for the relationships the family have while they were playing this D&D campaign. Taako is absolutely my favorite character. I would always loot without shame when playing games, so I loved seeing Taako do that too. He had a great, annoyed attitude towards Magnus which always made me laugh. Magnus had some good "Leroy Jenkins" moments, and it was fun to see him just start attacking characters or making dumb decisions. He is the stereotypical barbarian character, and I was living for it the entire time. Merle is a dwarf character and, while he was funny, he didn't have as many great moments as the other characters. Though, there was a really great scene with the Zone of Truth that I loved. Those are the main "characters" but I loved how they made the DM, Griffin, a character too. You would see his little picture in panels as he would make comments. It's a little thing, but I thought it was really well done and it reminded the reader that the DM is definitely a part of this story too.


The overall story was goofy, and hilarious. We follow Magnus, Taako, and Merle as they are trying to locate Bogard, Merle's cousin who has gotten into some trouble. This is an introductory story, so it's a lot of understanding how the characters interact with each other in the scope of this D&D built world. I understand the mechanics behind D&D, but I don't like to play it, yet I never felt like I needed to play the campaign or listen to the podcast to enjoy the story. I'm sure there are elements I would have appreciated more if I had listened to the podcast, but this is a quick, fun adventure story. Little things like how Taako would be able to convince Magnus and Merle to touch items or other suspicious things in order to see their effects was always fun to read. I loved seeing Magnus try to do something, then the DM would pop in and remind him that he doesn't actually have that skill. There's an element where the story starts to blend fantasy with sci-fi and, while this normally isn't my thing, it was done rather well within this book. I will say that I wish they made a few more jokes about rolling for certain skills, because this was built around D&D.


Delightful story that was fun and I can't wait to see what the next volume holds.


4 howls