Is It Good? Adventure Time 2014 Annual #1 Review

Ever wanted to know what the deal was with Baby Fionna and Cake? If not, then you probably could care less about this comic, unless of course the answer is yes to the question: is it good?

Adventure Time 2014 Annual #1 (Boom! Studios)

This horizontal issue contains one main feature running 29 pages with six shorts that run one page each. That’s a lot of content for this annual and you get a ton of stories. The first 29 pages follow Cake when she’s 5 years old with the follow-up shorts coming in when she was a toddler. If you know this series, or the Adventure Time show for that matter, you’ll know this is a safe for children story with some tongue-in-cheek moments and always a lot of attitude.

Like a classic fairy tale.

The issue opens with Fiona listening to a bedtime story about herself. It doesn’t end quite as she hoped, so she decides to go on an adventure instead of bed. Cake is in charge of keeping her safe, so she then ends up adventuring even if Cake isn’t so keen on it. The story has plenty of silly moments that should get you to crack a smile. It’s a light read to say the least, but has its moments, particularly when innocent looking penguins try to rip Fiona to shreds.

That can’t end well.

The art by Becky Dreistadt is quite sight as it has a nice dreamlike quality due to the watercolors. Or maybe they’re pastels, I’m not sure, but either way they are super dreamy. There’s one particular full page spread of the Ice Queen’s lair that should have people giddy in the cutesy department. The use of the horizontal page is quite nice too, and while each page has no more than six panels it works with the slower, children’s style pace of the story.

The six follow up shorts are written by Ian McGinty and are tasty morsels of stories. The art, by Fred Stresing is very curvaceous and pops with color. After reading them you’ll wonder why this isn’t a comic strip people are reading in newspapers across the country.

Seriously dude.

Is It Good?

This is a nice annual that contains everything you’d expect from the series. There aren’t a ton of laughs however and the read feels more like it’s for kids than usual.