CBR Playing With Fire

Their relationship might be over (for now?) in the cartoon, but in the comics Finn and Flame Princess are still going pretty strong.

Here's a look back at one of FP's earlier adventures.

You know what time is it? It's ADVENTURE TIME!!

Adventure Time
Adventure Time Vol. 1 / Vol. 2 / Vol. 3
Marceline and the Scream Queens
Bravest Warriors Vol. 1

Comic title: Adventure Time: Playing With Fire
Art by Zack Sterling
Written by Danielle Corsetto

Published by BOOM! Studios/Titan Comics
From 2013
Lineup Adventure Time series
Format: Digest-sized graphic novel.

Here's another Adventure Time book. But this one's a different sort of comic book.

After a pretty popular and successful monthly on-going series, the Adventure Time series got expanded into several mini-series.

The last in date?

"Adventure Time: Playing With Fire"!

A 160-page digest sized original graphic novel in the same sort of manga-format popularized by Oni Press' Scott Pilgrim.

Playing With Fire is an adventure centered on the Flame Princess as she goes on a tale of her own for one of the very first times. She's a recent addition to the show.

The story opens as Finn The Human, Jake The Dog and FP go to the Carnival Kingdom, Finn wants to show her "the Sword and The Slurf" game.

Flame Princess lived most of her entire life trapped by her own evil father, the Flame King. FP isn't well accustomed to most of Ooo's bizarre tradition and unique world - like the reader. So she works as a great protagonist to explore this mysterious world.

After checking out a fortune teller, Finn gets captured.

The Princess and Jake are able to find him back... only now trapped as a miniature-sized Finn, they need to explore an entire dungeon filled with puzzles in order to save Finn's soul!

What hides behind those doors, can the team up between FP and Jake work? And more importantly can she resists the darker side of personality to explore an entire dungeon in full control of her abilities?!

Playing With Fire was written by Danielle Corsetto. A web comic cartoonist, she's mostly known for her awesome series Girls with Slingshots.

She perfectly captured the general crazyness yet deeply developed characters of the show.

The story still retained a childish sense of humor at first glance, yet it's well thought enough to give FP the occasion to flesh her out a bit more.

She is still battling her father's evil influence.

Playing With Fire tells her very first adventure (taking place some time before the events of this season, but after her first dungeon on the show as mentioned on these pages). An effort was visible made so that it appears to be very much canon with the show.

The book was illustrated by Zack Sterling - artist on the Bravest Warriors comic.

The tone is voluntary close Scott Pilgrim-style American mangas, featuring very silly and random expressions (even by Adventure Time standards). Anim-esque details to illustrate Finn and FP's respective crush on each other.

The art is top notch, great quality.

It is also fun to see FP's relationship in regards to JAke.

There's a lot of references and mentions from the show.

Several familiar faces make some appearances, such as NEPTR the robot.

Finally there's a back-up feature in the form of 4-koma* comic strips near the end. (which makes me think this was probably meant to be published in issues originally instead of direct-graphic novel)

Called "Adventure Time with BMO!", these little vignettes were illustrated by Meredith McClaren.

It's a silly dialogue-free adventure of BMO around the house, in pure perfect style of the show.

It's hilarious, albeit a bit too short in my eyes.

This whole book just goes to show Adventure Time can perfectly work as well in black and white and even more so as a full feature original graphic novel.

Adventure Time: Playing With Fire went on winning an Harvey Award!

Overall, this is a very fun book, well recommended for any fan of the show.

It also works as a nice jumping on point for new readers who haven't familiar with any of the previous AT comic book material.

It was originally meant to be followed by a 2nd Volume of "Playing With Fire" but plans were changed to follow the status quo changing on the show. So next volume will now instead revolve around a bunch of princesses!

Anyways, like I said, great characterization and great use of the medium.

Very fun, recommended!

I give it:

3 / 3 Snoopies!