While we all wait for the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie to hit theaters, the comics are taking us back in time to a previous attempt at bringing the game to the screen. No, not the legendarily bad year 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie, but the Saturday morning cartoon from the 80’s.
Yes, the D&D cartoon is the latest classic animated show to get a comic book revival. Will the cast of characters finally escape the Forgotten Realms and return to the real world? Will they defeat Venger and/or Tiamat? Let’s see what this first issue gives us…
Written by Sam Maggs and David M. Booher
Illustrated and colored by George Kambadais
Lettered by Ed DukeshireLong before the world turned upside down and new generations discovered D&D, six kids boarded a magical roller coaster and were transported to the Forgotten Realms! Noble ranger Hank, intrepid acrobat Diana, quiet thief Sheila, impulsive barbarian Bobby, fearful cavalier Eric, and uncertain magician Presto only want to get back to their own world. But escaping the Realms has turned out to be much harder than getting there! Danger lurks at every turn, the enigmatic Dungeon Master is less than helpful, and Venger, the force of evil, will stop at nothing to get his hands on the magical weapons the kids have come to rely on. To top it off, Hank has made a startling discovery: Despite the dangers, Sheila, Bobby, Diana, and the others aren’t so sure they want to go home after all!
If you haven’t watched the 80’s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, the “Saturday Morning Adventures” comic catches you up on it pretty quickly: an amusement park ride sent them into the world of Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon Master gave them magic weapons, and now they fight evil while trying to return home. (And yes, this does mean that the cartoon would qualify as an “isekai.”)
A splash page gives us an overview of the characters, and that’s pretty much all you need to know. So while the comic is primarily targeted at fans of the old show (or at least those with a passing familiarity) it makes it easy to jump in without needing to get caught up on too much lore.
One other interesting tidbit is dropped: the location the characters are in is clearly established as the Forgotten Realms, AKA Faerun, the primary setting used in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. In the cartoon, the setting was just called “The Realm,” although later material from outside the cartoon eventually brought them in to Faerun. As the issue brings them to a major location in the Forgotten Realms, it looks like we’re going to see the cartoon characters interact more with established characters from “Dungeons & Dragons” lore, which is an exciting concept.
(Fun fact: the cartoon characters make a cameo in the upcoming movie, also set in the Forgotten Realms. Several cartoon characters have also made their way into official adventures, such as Warduke appearing in “The Wild Beyond the Witchlight,” and Venger was recently announced to play a role in an upcoming book.)
This issue serves primarily to set the stage for the story to come. In it, we’re introduced (or reintroduced) to the characters, the overarching interpersonal conflict is established, and the plot kicks off with a bit of action, before setting up the main story. It’s a pretty straightforward setup, but effective.
In this case, it looks like the driving conflict between the main characters is built around Hank growing more frustrated and struggling to maintain his role as the “leader” of the party, while the rest of the team is starting to question if they even want to return to the real world. As far as character-driven issues go, it works well; we get to see how far the characters have come and adapted to the Forgotten Realms, while giving reasonable explanations for the decisions that will be guiding them throughout the story. It also sets up Hank for some character development as this conflict calls his leadership into question, so it’ll be interesting to see how that develops.
The action portion doesn’t take too long, but it gives most of the characters some good opportunities to show off, primarily Diana’s acrobatics and Presto pulling off a bit of magic. Although the part about the battle most interesting to D&D fans may be the monsters they used – those were quite clearly driders and darkmantles, so Sam and David clearly know their lore.
Continued belowNow, the artwork, by George Kambadais, can be a bit hit-or-miss, although its hits are quite good. He doesn’t attempt to emulate the look or style of the original cartoon, instead leaning into his own style, while still holding true to the overall designs.
The characters themselves feel like the weakest point; when they’re just standing or talking, they look and feel a little flat, composed of sharp angles and expressions that don’t always convey the right emotion. There’s little depth to them, making it feel almost like cutouts on the page.
However, the art style works incredibly well for just about everything else. When the action sequences begin, the designs suddenly make the characters feel more dynamic, and the monsters more misshapen and otherworldly. We’re shown some great shots of characters in action (primarily Diana and Sheila), complete with bold shadows creating action lines across the characters. And the way the darkmantles are drawn as basically black silhouettes with red eyes and grey maws looks particularly neat, casting them as shadowy figures lunging at the party.
I’m also especially fond of how the artwork shows Shiela’s cloak of invisibility in action; it’s not an outline of her, it actually cuts away anything hidden under the cloak to just show the background behind it, while hands and faces left uncovered are floating against the inside of the cloak. It’s a really nice stylistic choice.
When the characters pass through a portal, we get some really neat artwork as well, showing the characters tumbling through warps, voids, and jagged cuts of space, each showing a strange view of a different environment or scene.
The color work also makes great use of its lighting effects and how it casts shadows over the characters, making the colors almost dance. It’s not the same vibrant cartoon shades as the show, but it suits the style while still using all the different color tones of the characters and their outfits. And the way the lighting effects are also often angular or utilizing sharp lines builds on George’s style.
So even if I’m not too fond of how the characters look in the art style, the stylistic flare and angular designs work extremely well for everything else. When it works, it works really well.
Overall, “Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures” is off to a decent start, with a good introduction to the characters, setting up the seeds of conflict, and some really dynamic scenes and often great stylistic choices. It can still feel a bit short, and the effectiveness of the illustrations can vary, but it’s a fun and solid way to kick things off.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – This return to the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon is a welcome comeback for fans, while bringing its own stylistic flare, but we’ll have to see where it goes from here.
