The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour
By Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Carey Pietsch (illustrator)
The Tres Horny Boys are back with one of my favorite story arcs of the Balance Campaign. Time traveling inside a looping hour, doomed to die every sixty minutes unless they can lift the curse plaguing the town of Refuge, and claim the Temporal Chalice for destruction. You know, classic D&D shit. This arc had some of the most interesting game mechanics, allowing the story to unfold in a complex and unique way, within a setting that changed the way my baby roleplaying brain saw storytelling potential. Ever since these episodes first aired, I’ve wanted to recreate the feeling I got while listening to them. While I still haven’t figured out how to bring it to a tabletop scenario, The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour graphic novel recaptures what was so wonderful about the podcast, and presents it for readers to experience; whether for the first or hundredth time.
Of course you should read the other books leading up to this point, but TAZ: The Eleventh Hour stands separate from other entries in the series pretty solely until its final pages. The time loop aspect allows characters and the setting itself to settle without having to go into a deeper backstory about why this or that person is so important for this one unique story. Everything new that pops up can effectively be ignored the next time you see it, giving more space for familiar storylines to be explored. The Mcelroys and Carey Pietsch do a really good job at developing the breadcrumbs of the characters that they had been dropping up to that point. Through magically explained flashbacks, they are able to fill in big picture moments that might’ve taken up space in the beginning or end of the comic, leaving room for more dramatic sequences to start and end this story. As usual, Pietsch explains away some of the impossible to include moments, like the bomb defusal puzzle and some of the other traps, with visual gags that serve as a wink to podcast listeners.
Pietsch once again did beautiful work with The Adventure Zone story, drawing expressions that communicate every emotion clearly and often humorously to the reader. The settings are gorgeous, and her use of color fills scenes with the appropriate vibe whether the tension is high, a moment has been suspended in time, or is simply happening in a character’s mind between deaths. The time bubbles themselves are especially nice to look at, her approach to coloring magic always being the exact right shade for whatever spell or effect she is looking to create. The bright blue of the time loop against the red flames makes for a special look that ties the pages of this entry together in a common refrain.
This chapter also signals the kick off into what the Balance Campaign actually represents, The Suffering Game being the last chapter before the big bad and simmering mysteries are all finally explained. I know we’re still a couple years off from the final encounter, but with this graphic novel finished, The Eleventh Hour is more than just a clever play on looping time mechanics, it is a metaphor for the end to this story. As Istus says to the unfortunately named Tres Horny Boys, “The three of you… you’re going to be amazing.”