The Adventure Zone Graphic Novels

Series · 6 books · 2018-2024

By Travis McElroy, Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, and more

Books in series

The Adventure Zone Vol.1

Here There Be Gerblins

2018

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.

The Adventure Zone Vol. 2

Murder on the Rockport Limited!

2019

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.

Petals to the Metal

2020

START YOUR ENGINES, friends, as we hit the road again with Taako, Magnus and Merle, the beloved agents of chaos from the #1 New York Times Bestselling books The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins and The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited. Our boys have gone full-time at the Bureau of Balance, and their next assignment is a real thorny one: apprehending The Raven, a master thief who’s tapped into the power of a Grand Relic to ransack the city of Goldcliff. Local life-saver Lieutenant Hurley pulls them out of the woods, only to throw them headlong into the world of battle wagon racing, Goldcliff’s favorite high-stakes low-legality sport and The Raven’s chosen battlefield. Will the boys and Hurley be able to reclaim the Relic and pull The Raven back from the brink, or will they get lost in the weeds? Based on the beloved blockbuster podcast where three brothers and their dad play a tabletop RPG in real time, The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal has it all: blossoming new friendships, pining for outlaw lovers, and a rollicking race you can root for!

The Crystal Kingdom

2021

Based on the blockbuster podcast where the McElroy brothers and their dad play a tabletop RPG and illustrated by cartooning powerhouse Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom takes this #1 New York Times bestselling series to haunting new heights. A desperate call for help interrupts holiday celebrations at the Bureau of Balance, and sends Taako, Magnus and Merle on a high-stakes mission to find and Reclaim a fourth deadly relic: a powerful transmutation stone, hidden somewhere in the depths of a floating arcane laboratory that’s home to the Doctors Maureen and Lucas Miller. An unknown menace has seized control of the stone, and is using it to transform the lab into a virulent pink crystal that spreads to everything it touches. It’s only a matter of time before this sparkling disaster crash-lands, but in order to find the stone and save the whole planet from being King Midased, our heroes will have to fight their way through a gauntlet of rowdy robots and crystal golems, decide whether they can trust the evasive Lucas Miller, and solve the mystery of what—or who—has put them all in peril, before there’s no world left to save.

The Adventure Zone, Vol. 5

The Eleventh Hour

2023

The fifth installment in the #1 New York Times\-bestselling Adventure Zone graphic novel series, a meta-fictional D&D adventure story based on the smash hit podcast. The Bureau of Balance has located yet another Grand Relic, and this time it's...time? A small mining town called Refuge has been locked away behind an arcane bubble, and somewhere inside it the Temporal Chalice is causing unknown mayhem. Taako, Magnus, and Merle are launched into their investigation, but they've barely had a chance to get their feet under them before the situation literally falls apart. When the town clocktower strikes noon, Refuge and its citizens are destroyed in a sudden chaos of flame and ruin, and our heroes' relic hunting—along with their lives—comes to an abrupt end. But woah, what's this? It's 11AM, they're alive again, and Refuge definitely hasn't just been exploded? Looks like a classic time loop, friends. This town is trapped in its final hour, and so are the three of them. And in order to escape, they'll not only have to solve the mystery of what happened to the Chalice, they'll also also have to resist what it offers: the chance to rewrite the worst days of their own pasts. Based on the blockbuster podcast where the McElroy brothers and their dad play a tabletop RPG, and illustrated by cartooning powerhouse Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour is a thrilling new chapter in this #1 New York Times Bestselling series.

The Adventure Zone, Vol. 6

The Suffering Game

2024

Taako, Magnus, and Merle are near the end of their quest to collect the seven Grand Relics, dangerous magical artifacts which threaten the world as they know it. The penultimate item on their adventuring to-do list is the Animus Bell, which The Director tells them is hidden at the heart of Wonderland, a carnival of torment. Once inside, the boys will have their shot at winning the Bell...but each step forward comes at a horrible cost. And the deeper they go ― the closer they get ― the higher a price they’ll pay. And if they can secure the Bell, surely then the worst will be over, right? Surely they’ll go back up to their Moonbase in the sky, and hand the Bell over to The Director, and Bureau life will return to normal while they begin their hunt for the final relic, right? They’re so close to the end, after all, and they’ve gone through so much to get this far. There can’t possibly be any further surprises in store...

Authors

Travis McElroy

Author · 5 books

Travis was born in Huntington, WV and attended the University of Oklahoma where he received his BFA in acting. After graduating, he worked a bunch of retail jobs before eventually being hired as the Technical Director at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. At the same time as he began his career at CSC, he and his brothers Justin and Griffin began recording the comedic advice podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me. MBMBaM was well received and was soon added to the MaximumFun.org network. Travis’s theatre career and podcasting career ran concurrently for several years during which Travis also appeared on stage in several CSC shows, married his wife Teresa and started his second podcast (In Case of Emergency) and third podcast (The Adventure Zone). In 2014, after 5 years with CSC, the time had come to focus fully on his podcast career. Travis and Teresa packed up their cat, dog and all their stuff and moved to Los Angeles for two years. While there, Travis started the podcasts Bunker Buddies, Can I Pet Your Dog, Trends Like These, InterroBang with Travis and Tybee, Til Death Do Us Blart, and Shmanners (with Teresa). During this time, he (along with his brothers) began pre-production on the MBMBaM TV show and production started on The Adventure Zone graphic novel adaptation. In preparation for their impending baby, after 2 years Travis and Teresa headed back to Cincinnati with a 2 month stop in Huntington, WV to film the TV show. Travis, Teresa, baby Bebe and their animals now reside back in Cincinnati. Travis continues to produce MBMBaM, Adventure Zone, Shmanners, TLT, InterroBang and TDDUB.

Clint McElroy

Author · 8 books

Clint McElroy is the father of Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy. He does the Adventure Zone podcast with them and has also appeared on several Maximum Fun donors-only bonus episodes. Clint is the Ultimate Dad.

Griffin McElroy

Author · 5 books

Griffin McElroy is a podcaster, video producer, composer and writer living in Austin, TX. He does a comedy podcast called My Brother, My Brother and Me, which was adapted into a TV show for Seeso in 2017. He also does a bunch of other podcasts with my friends and family. He was chosen as one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 for the Media category in 2017, which he's still kind of in shock about. He was a Senior Editorial Producer over at Polygon, which is a long-winded way of saying he made goofy videos for them full time. He also occasionally does a bit of writing.

Justin McElroy

Author · 8 books

Justin Tyler McElroy is a co-host of My Brother, My Brother and Me. He is the oldest brother of Travis McElroy and Griffin McElroy, and son of Clint McElroy. Justin McElroy was a founding Editor-At-Large (meaning editor on the loose–an editor who cannot be contained) of Polygon (the video-game/ pop-culture site of Vox media). Justin and Griffin left Polygon in 2018, but implied they'd still appear in/contribute to video content.