In “The Adventure Zone: The Game of Suffering,” the sixth installment in the New York Times bestselling graphic novel series, necromancer twins and game show hosts Lydia and Edward enter the page like glam rock gods, clad in caped jumpsuits and tights. liches Run Wonderland, a supernatural game show that promises to grant its winners anything their hearts desire.
Unfortunately, the game show is more like a “Saw”-style trap than a “Wheel of Fortune.” To progress in the game, contestants must sacrifice parts of themselves, from fingers to limbs to years of life. Hungry monsters lurk around every corner, ready to take over the unsuspecting contestant (Ken Jennings, take note!). All of this is made possible by the Animus Bell, a magical object with power over life and death.
Enter adventurers Magnus, Merle, and Taako. Their quest? Survive Wonderland, defeat Lydia and Edward, and escape with the Great Relic. It's a familiar story for the trio, who have been stealing magical weapons of mass destruction like the Animus Bell since, like, the first book. However, the appearance of a red-robed figure from their past disrupts their plans, forcing them to question their loyalty to their quest and their employer.
“The Adventure Zone” is comedy and fantasy at its best (and grossest). The graphic novel series is an adaptation of the podcast of the same name, which features the McElroy family—brothers Justin, Travis, and Griffin alongside their father Clint—playing the popular tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Artist Carey Pietsch and writer Clint McElroy began adapting the series with 2018’s “Here There Be Gerblins,” with Griffin McElroy joining as co-writer for subsequent outings after the fifth novel. McElroy’s brand of humor—consistently irreverent, occasionally witty, and alarmingly referential—along with Pietsch’s character design and brilliant colors have made the series a multiple bestseller.
That triumph only continues in “The Suffering Game.” By combining two story arcs and dozens of hours of audio from the original series, adapters Griffin and Clint have vastly improved upon the original narrative. Longtime listeners may notice that the adaptation wisely avoided including an entire subplot centered on a group of rival adventurers. Likewise, the superfluous fight scenes that took up entire episodes of the podcast have been cut entirely. The mindless repetition of the podcast’s plot is avoided, leaving crucial moments with more time and weight. The result is much better paced than the McElroys’ previous adaptations, which often felt a bit compressed and rushed.
This brevity allows the story to move at a brisk pace. Moments after escaping Wonderland more or less intact, Merle, Magnus, and Taako are thrust into an even greater threat. Without too many spoilers, our intrepid heroes have been tricked by their enigmatic employer, Lucretia, and their confrontation is of cosmic proportions. Questions raised in the very first book are finally answered, and the stage is set for the climatic finale, which will be released next year. Scenes move from witty jokes and visual gags (including a particularly memorable sequence involving a naked Magnus and a rather well-placed sword) to dramatic monologues in close-up with remarkable skill. It’s a build-up of tension the book series hasn’t yet tackled, and one it handles rather well.
Despite its short length, the book sometimes feels cluttered. Pietsch is an expert in character design and color, but her panel compositions can be cluttered to the point of being distracting. A larger page size might help alleviate some of the problem, but unfortunately, “The Suffering Game” is limited to a standard paperback format. This makes its pages difficult to read: loaded with detail and emotion, the action scenes are cluttered, and the line of movement through each panel is hard to follow.
Still, Pietsch makes Wonderland and its inhabitants as glamorous as they are deadly. Character design has long been a strong point of the series, and while his scenes are still packed with detail, the emotional range has been expanded. His close-ups are clearly his favorite during tense sequences, and for good reason. In those big, inset panels, every gooey tear or billowing shirt is beautiful and fluid. It’s just too bad the publisher chose not to play to Pietsch’s strengths by giving him more room to breathe.
“The Suffering Game” is an improvement on the original podcast story arc and the usual graphic novel adaptation formula. The series finale will be released next year, and the stage is set; all the questions are about to be answered; a final battle awaits our intrepid band of wanderers (as it does). With the resounding success of “The Suffering Game,” there’s nothing left to do but move on.
Daily Arts Editor Alex Hetzler can be contacted at: alexhetz@umich.edu.
