Ben Acker

The Thrilling Adventure Hour is a long-running stage-show and podcast with an old-fashioned radio-drama sensibility. Every episode features recurring characters and serial adventures acted out by actors and comedians in front of a live audience. Although some familiarity with the podcast is helpful – hearing Paul F. Tompkins’ voice in your head as you read can only improve your enjoyment – this graphic novel version of the show doesn’t require much familiarity with the source show more material. I’ve actually only listened to a handful of episodes, and none of them were recent.

Luckily, the show transitions well from stage to page. The writing is sharp, and the illustrations for each story are done by a different artist with a unique style. The book has a total of ten stories featuring the regular characters from the show. Each story takes its cues from common tropes of bygone radio dramas, then subverts them with humor. That mix of nostalgia and comedy might wear thin if it wasn’t clear how much affection the writers have for their subjects. I’m sure it also helps that these characters and stories were honed over eight years of live performances.

My favorite of the bunch is easily the story of booze-hounds Frank and Sadie Doyle, who solve paranormal mysteries by accident while searching for their next drink with charming disregard for danger. However, I also thoroughly enjoyed Down in Moonshine Holler, with its cross of Preston Sturges and Shirley Jackson. My favorite joke was the Murdermen, though. Always in the mood for murder.

The best part about this collection is that it’s the perfect primer for someone who has never heard of the show. They can read and enjoy it, then dive in to the show’s archives in iTunes. I know I certainly will. I’m also hoping to get a chance to see the live show sometime soon now that I live in Los Angeles. show less

The reader finds a letter addressed to them explaining how a previous occupant of that room had also been lured in from the street by the unusual home and is now being held captive by vampires, but learned that they can keep the vampires at bay by entertaining them with scary stories. After this opening letter, the book proceeds with numerous short stories, often only a few pages long, and occasionally interspersed with more missives from our narrator. At first the stories seem completely show more unconnected, but over time they start to intertwine with unexpected twist and turns. Did the narrator ever manage to escape the creepy home? And will you the reader also share their fate?

I was interested in this book because I enjoyed the author’s podcast, The Thrilling Adventure Hour, which is made up of numerous short tales, including a supernatural one that is ultimately more witty than scary. I feel that summation is a fair assessment for the stories in this book as well, although the audience here is in theory supposed to be children rather than adults. The tone of the stories has a snarky edge that reminds me quite a bit of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books, so I could potentially see some overlap in those readers enjoying this as well. Mostly the stories remain more silly than anything else, but they do dabble in the macabre so it’s not a read for very sensitive children. Again, I almost feel that adults are more of the audience as there are fun little references to classic campfire and scary stories that we heard growing up. For instance Alan Schwartz‘s story of the woman with the red ribbon around her neck, which traumatized the whole generation of small children, becomes the butt of a joke here.

All in all, this was an entertaining enough read, but I feel as though the audience is a bit niche. Black-and-white illustrations peppered throughout don’t necessarily add much to the overall storytelling, but they break up the text so that this already short book reads even quicker. show less

Consistently hilarious and charming, placing two of the Marvel universe's most beloved rogues in a (lampshadedly uneasy) rollercoaster of a team-up. Well worth the read. Slightly chaotic to follow at times, but if you read the whole thing in one or two goes (which should be easy enough, as it is a quick read), it all comes together and makes sense by the end -- or at least it did for me. But note some slightly deeper than average knowledge of Marvel characters might be good to get all the jokes.

Delightful as the podcast, which also means some segments bore me as much as others amuse me endlessly. The fake ads, likewise, are awesome. This was a well-done adaptation of audio play to visual format that was familiar (and included some of the same gags, tweaked to suit the format) without reading like a script (unlike the merely decent Welcome to Night Vale novelization). Not an easy feat!