Luke Owen reviews Adventure Time: Flip Side from KaBOOM…
Finn and Jake find themselves without a quest and a little too much free time — what better place to look for a new adventure than the “Adventurer’s Posting Board”?! Only the adventure they grab might be more complicated than they first imagined…this might be the most complicated.
Although it’s been in the pop culture feed for a few years now, Adventure Time feels like it’s starting to break through barriers into the mainstream. While a few years ago only a handful of people would have known about the adventures of Jake the Dog and Finn the Human, now you can’t walk into a music/DVD store without seeing Adventure Time merchandise in various forms. KaBOOM have been pleasing fans with their various Adventure Time mini-series since 2012 and there is little doubt that their latest endeavour Adventure Time: Flip Side won’t be any different.
Poor Finn isn’t very well and according to Dr. Musclebump, it’s because he’s “quest deficient”. In order to help him out, Jake and BMO head out to find some quests to try and raise Finn’s spirit. After doing some menial tasks, they discover an odd quest on the back of the Adventurer’s Posting Board telling them that Princess Painting has been kidnapped by the Monkey Wizard. With Finn now back on his feet, the group set off for their TOUGH QUEST.
To the untrained eye that last paragraph would read like the bizarre ramblings of a mad man or, more likely, as though a comedy writer who “specialises” in “random” is trying too hard to be funny (Noel Fielding for example). However, fans of the series will read that paragraph and think “nothing new here then”. And it’s true that there is nothing new here in terms of Adventure Time‘s style, but one shouldn’t dismiss it as meer “random comedy”. Adventure Time is a very clever cartoon and this comic is just as clever.
Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover have really captured what makes the show the cult success that it is which really isn’t as easy at that would seem. This isn’t like adapting Ghostbusters or Godzilla for comic form, this is taking something that is very unique that plays to a certain crowd on a certain medium and mirroring it to not only apease fans, but also attract in new ones. Tobin and Colleen pack an obscene amount of jokes in this 22-page comic with almost every single panel acting as a gag. It’s incredibly impressive. The artwork from Wook Jin Clark is also really strong as it feels like an extension of the show rather than an off-shoot which again helps elevate this to more than just a cash in on the franchise.
Adventure Time: Flip Side #1 is incredibly funny and definitely worth a read – even if you’re not a fan of the show. It might be wise to watch at least a few episodes online (they’re all on Netflix in the US) before diving in head first, but this is a good place to see what all the fuss is about. If you’re an Adventure Time fan however, then you have nothing to worry about. This is great extension of the show and it will have you grinning from ear to ear as well as laughing out loud.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published January 10, 2014. Updated November 7, 2019.
