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.
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This was such an amazing sequel!! My fiancé, Matt, listens to the podcast and told me this story line was his favorite to listen to and now I know why because it was so fun to read. It's genuinely one of the funniest things I've read. The characters have so much comedic timing and chemistry. I can't help but picture the characters having the voices of the McElroy's because that is who does the voices in the podcast. Which makes it even funnier to me, I am not really sure why. Maybe it's because I know the McElroy's are goofballs.
The characters are just as amazing as the last one, maybe even better because we get more of who they are. The reader also gets to see them really support and love each other in between all the bickering, joking, and teasing. Which I think makes the reader love the trio even more. Taako is still my favorite of the three, but I love them all so much.
The story itself is a bit of a murder mystery on a train mixed with fantasy elements, and it's super clever and fun. I do think the reveal of who the murderer was all along was a bit predictable but I don't see that as a bad thing. I was still entertained the entire time reading this volume. And the story isn't really about the mystery but more about the characters working together. I think the main things I love about this series are the characters and the comedy and everything around those two aspects is just a bonus for me.
I said this in my review for the last volume, but I absolutely love the art style. It's the same in this one, but I think Carey Pietsch did more beautiful backgrounds that I loved. There's a lot of gorgeous sunsets, galaxy skies, mixed with her style and I think it was just super aesthetically pleasing to read. I love a more cartoon-y art style versus realism and I am also a sucker for colorful cute art. So her work is right up my ally.
I honestly don't think I have many negative things to say about this volume. My only real con about the volume as a whole is that because I don't play D&D or know much about it I can sometimes get a little lost but not lost enough that I don't know what is happening. I think because it's easy to glaze over the D&D aspects is why I don't mind, but I assume it's a better reading experience if you know about D&D. I do think it's the best of the two (but the first one was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it!) which makes me even more excited for the next volume! It makes me want to listen to the podcast but I'm so bad at keeping up with podcasts, for some reason I get a bit distracted and none of the ones I've tried can fully keep my attention, I am not sure why.
Overall, if you're into funny fantasy D&D stories you'll love this! If you like podcasts Matt along with basically the entire internet recommends the podcast as well. I already can't wait for the next installment of this graphic novel series. If you've read these graphic novels or listened to the podcast (up to the end of the train murder mystery! Don't spoil past that please!) I'd love to talk about them!
Thanks for reading!
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