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mars2k 's review for:
The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal
by Griffin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Carey Pietsch
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
So... I want to start off with a disclaimer that Petals to the Metal is probably my least favourite arc of the Balance campaign. It’s not bad, but it is flawed. The same is true of this graphic novel.
One of the main flaws Petals has (in the podcast and in the book) is the major tonal dissonance. On one hand, there are a lot of sexual jokes (even by TAZ standards), to the point where it starts to get pretty uncomfortable to read/listen to. On the other hand, this arc is also incredibly sincere, tender, and emotional. The lewd goofs and the genuine heart don’t complement each other at all – in fact, they undermine each other and it gives the whole arc this weird, uneasy quality that I can’t quite put into words. It does make sense that this would carry through from the podcast to the graphic novel adaptation, and I know it would be unreasonable to expect unfeasibly drastic changes that would alter the entire plot and structure of the story. It does feel kind of unfair to fault the book for being a faithful adaptation, but at the same time this tone issue is difficult to overlook.
Quite a few changes were made, however. Some were small while others were quite significant, and some were much-needed while others seemed counter-intuitive. I can’t discuss every alteration because that would involve diving into the deep end of spoiler territory (and making this review ridiculously long) so I’ll just talk about the masks as an example.
In the podcast the animal masks were worn for anonymity. I understand why Pietsch drew them barely covering the characters’ faces – so that their expressions are still visible – but it kind of defeated the purpose. I think masks with Spider-Man-like inexplicable expressiveness would have worked better. For some reason, Hurley picked out the boys’ masks in this version, but Taako was still asked about the significance of the mongoose. This no longer made sense because he wasn’t the one who chose it, making the whole scene pretty confusing.
While I’m talking about Hurley, I just want to say she’s so cute and I love her design. I like Sloane’s design too, and I think they look great together. It would have been nice to spend more time with Sloane, but I’ll take what I can get.
The artwork in general is nice, though in some ways I feel it’s not as good as in the previous instalment. Something I praised in Rockport was the characters’ spot-on expressions (specifically Taako’s), but here he and other characters keep doing this ugly, distracting, Ren and Stimpy-esque pout. I’m not sure why this decision was made, but I’m not a fan. Some pages have way too much text. Exposition dumps aren’t a problem in a podcast, but in a graphic novel it does get a little annoying. The second half of the book is basically one big action scene, which isn’t Pietsch’s strong suit unfortunately. I worry that someone who isn’t familiar with the podcast would have a hard time following this story. I did appreciate the splash pages and the full-body character introductions, though – something I felt the previous two graphic novels were lacking.
I didn’t enjoy this book nearly as much as I enjoyed Gerblins and Rockport. I guess that makes sense since I didn’t enjoy the Petals podcast arc so much, but some of the problems this graphic novel has aren’t present in the podcast, so I can’t really attribute my disappointment to it being an adaptation of something I’m not a huge fan of. There were some touching moments and some funny easter eggs (like “Robots harder to draw than cars?”) but overall I just wasn’t into it. I’m giving it three and a half stars, though it’s probably closer to a three than a four. Hopefully the series will only get better from here.