Miracle Pictographs     Graphic Novel Reviews by Spencer Ellsworth Read more by Spencer Ellsworth

Read more by Spencer Ellsworth

Another Saturday Morning, and I Ain't Got Nobody. I Got Some Cartoons Cuz I Just Made Waffles. This is Actually Not Bad.

What is almost as much fun as reading comics? Watching cartoons. What is doubly fun? When a cartoon makes a great comic!

As a child of the Reagan years, I knew this, for the Transformers and GI Joe comics from Marvel surpassed their small-screen cousins in every way possible. Those cartoons were glorified toy commercials, though, using and reusing wiggly cells in basements in Korea.

Cartoons have grown up as much as comics. Avatar: The Last Airbender was something entirely different. Full of amazing characterization, seriously funny jokes, characters with all the charm and rogueishness of young Luke, Leia and Han, and genuine heart, it is up there with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Firefly and the Steven Moffat Doctor Who. All geeks agree.

In the series, the world is divided into cultures based on inherent elemental power. The Fire Nation drove the Water Nation into hiding at the poles, conquered the Earth Kingdom, and committed genocide against the Air Nation, of whom Aang is the sole surviving member. The series ended right where it should (spoilers!) when Aang and his compatriots Zuko, Kitara and Sokka overthrew the evil Fire Nation lord, and restored peace to the four nations. But they were left with an enormous task of bringing peace to a warring world.

The Promise, penned by the incredible Gene Yang, author of American Born Chinese, continues the cartoon. In fact, it complicates and transcends the cartoon, with a story about peacemaking by characters who have been previously carefree adventurers.

This could go so wrong. I think of all the Star Wars novels where Han, the scoundrel and former smuggler, sat around talking taxes and diplomacy.

But Yang is an incredibly competent writer. I mean, stunningly good. For instance, although the long-standing romantic tension between Aang and Kitara was resolved in the show, he makes their relationship an important driving force in the story. They're like an old married couple already -- calling each other "sweetie," with Kitara serving as a conscience for Aang, reminding him to slow down and think things through, while Aang brings fun to Kitara's serious sensibilities. It reminds me of the way Joss Whedon made Wash and Zoe's marriage work on Firefly as a driving force in characterization

The great character here, and the most tormented (as usual) is Zuko, (SPOILERS SPOILERS HUGE SPOILERS GO WATCH THE SHOW NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T) the former villain, reformed by the intervention of his uncle, having inherited a kingdom built on cruelty and slavery. And yet, colonialism sinks deep into the cultures it affects.

When the story starts, Aang and Zuko decide to forcibly relocate some Fire Nation colonies embedded in the Earth Kingdom. For recently established military outposts, it's easy. For longtime cities, where Fire and Earth have mixed, where old grudges mingle with interfaith and intercultural marriages, it's not black and white.

Forced relocation? By a new, supposedly benevolent government?

Heavy stuff!

But Avatar has never shied away from heavy stuff, so the story plunges right into the consequences and danger of this ill-named "harmony restoration movement." Aang supports it. Zuko, after an initial agreement, changes his mind. Aang even states, in a towering display of hubris-to-come, "I'm the Avatar! Making stuff go peacefully is kind of my thing!"

To make it more complicated, Zuko, still dealing with his own anger, makes Aang promise him that if Zuko crosses a line and becomes his old self, Aang will kill Zuko. So when Zuko decides that forced relocation of citizens is, y'know, bad, Aang is left facing a ruler who, as he sees it, is still enforcing Fire Nation policies.

We even get a racial slur for the Fire Nation -- "ash-makers."

GuriHiru's art is actually hard to really notice. I mean that as a compliment. It is so much like the kinetic, sharp-edged, clear and polished animation of the series that you will think you are looking at animation cells transferred to the page and animated. I had to keep reminding myself "this isn't the show!" The show's animation is legendary, so Hiru is truly doing the job here.

The recent sequel cartoon Legend of Korra shows us the world, one hundred years down the line, which Aang and Zuko, Kitara and Sokka helped create. The Promise is, with no disrespect to Legend of Korra, a far more interesting story to me -- how does one make peace out of a wrecked world? It's a far more difficult story to write, but Yang is more than up to the task.

As for Adventure Time: Volume One . . .

How does a writer describe Adventure Time the cartoon? I need more gestures and spittle. Shape-changing dog Jake, with best friend Finn, a human, lives in a tree and fights evil in a place that might be a post-apocalyptic world and might be a thirteen-year-old's weird fantasy. Numerous princesses abound and need saving, although they usually resemble giant talking pieces of candy. Except for Princess Bubblegum, who resembles a human girl. She and Finn are friends, and sometimes feelings can get complicated, y'know?

Um . . . There's a little robot computer named BMO, there's a thousand-year-old vampire queen who plays bass named Marceline, and there's the Ice King. Surrounded by his penguins in his fortress of ice, he writes fan fiction about Finn and Jake and kidnaps various princesses to try and talk them into marrying him. Also, there's Marceline's dad, Beelzebub himself, who is so evil that he finishes off all his daughter's fries when she's not looking.

There's also the Lich, an ancient gross skeleton guy who wanders around sucking the stuff of the Earth into his bag of evil.

The appeal of Adventure Time is its ability to channel undistilled nostalgia. It's full of little pieces of our childhood -- video games, movies, awkward crushes, and the clear knowledge of good and evil. Finn is the thirteen-year-old we all hoped we were, who has the moral compass of Optimus Prime and the muscles of Superman but takes delight in high-fives and treehouses. The Ice King is the creepy kid down the street who never seems to go away or improve.

The show's bizarre formula of the grotesque, weird and childishly fun would be very tough to replicate on the comics page -- if it weren't for the fact that Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics, is writing it. You all know qwantz.com, where T. Rex clip art has endless existential conversations, day after day. That Ryan North.

Thus the comic recalls the glory of the cartoon easily, helped by Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb's wonderful, expressive art, which gets the detailed, fluid, aesthetic of the show right.

Finn and Jake first learn about the art of battle burns from the surprisingly adept BMO, their little robot, and then they have to battle the Lich as he sucks the entire earth into his stuff-sucking bag. It all hinges on Desert Princess's convincing Finn and Jake sand replicas, and an awkward kiss . . .

Spittle! Gestures! Adventure Time! Come on, grab your friends! What more can I say?