"Adventure Time: Volume 1" by Ryan North

Book cover, courtesy of Barnes and Noble

               If you like comics based on cartoons, but weren't born in the 1980s, "Adventure Time: Volume 1" by Ryan North might be more to your liking. The feel of the show is skillfully recreated right down to the show's opening sequence, which is written to be a video filmed by Jake the Dog "just in case [they'd] even need it." Ryan, better known as the author of the hit webcomic "Dinosaur Comics," brings together your favorite Adventure Time characters in an original story featuring the return of Season 2's big bad guy, The Lich, in an epic battle to save the world and explore the mysterious origin of new character the Desert Princess.

                While "Adventure Time: Volume 1" is true to the cartoon it is based on, it is definitely written with people who are already fans of the show in mind. Characters who are familiar to fans appear without any sort of introduction and names of characters who do not appear in this book are dropped, leaving new readers to wonder who people are talking about and why they wouldn't be present in this story.

                Readers of "Dinosaur Comics" will be familiar with the hidden Alt-Text that accompanies each comic and Ryan North manages to bring that concept to "Adventure Time: Volume 1" by providing at the bottom of each page snarky comments or mini-comics featuring characters not on the rest of the page. The back of this book also includes several short Adventure Time comics by guest authors and artists that aren't part of the main story. These one- or two-page comics typically take place shortly after the events of several episodes.

                This book is a must-read for Adventure Time fans, but other readers may want to familiarize themselves with the show before reading, though the casual reader can still enjoy the story and pick up who's who as they read.

Be sure to check out the Adventure Time cartoon opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Jvk6__23I

North, Ryan, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb, and Pendleton Ward. Adventure Time. Los Angeles, CA: KaBoom!, 2012. Print.