The nominees for this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards – the comic book industry's version of the Oscars – were announced this week, with plenty of nods for mainstream hits like Marvel's Hawkeye, Brian K. Vaughan's sci-fi favorite Saga ... and Adventure Time? Most modern comic book readers are grownups, after all, so it's a bit of a surprise to see an adaptation of a kids' cartoon getting so much attention. Then again, Adventure Time isn't just any kids' cartoon – or, for that matter, just any comic book.
See for yourself: We've got the complete 16-page lead story from Adventure Time #1 available below for your reading pleasure, courtesy of publisher Boom! Studios. Written by by Dinosaur Comics webcomic creator and Kickstarter hero Ryan North with art by Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline, the comic introduces Jake, Finn and Princess Bubblegum to readers and faithfully translates the dream logic (and occasionally nightmarish glee) of the animated series onto the page.
Adventure Time originally launched from Boom! in February 2012, followed by Marceline and The Scream Queens, a spin-off written another much-loved webcomic creator, Octopus Pie's Meredith Gran. Adventure Time: Playing with Fire, an original graphic novel written by Girls with Slingshots webcomic creator Danielle Corsetto, will be released later this month. The primary title's three Eisner nominations for Best New Series, Best Publication for Kids and Best Humor Publication (plus a Best Publication for Teens nod for Adventure Time: Marceline and The Scream Queens) cap off a particularly successful first year for the comics based on Pendleton Ward's popular Cartoon Network show.
"What's phenomenal about Adventure Time," Boom!'s Vice President of Publishing Filip Sablik told WIRED, "is that not only has the amazing creative team of Ryan North, Braden Lamb, and Shelli Paroline managed to create something that has been critically-acclaimed as an example of how to do all-ages comics right, but it's also been incredibly commercially successful. Not only in the comic book specialty store direct market, but now in the book market, in the digital comic market, and even book clubs."
The Adventure Time comic is currently on its fifteenth issue, and available in comic stores and online right now, with the third collected print edition due this summer. But if you're a fan of the show and curious about the comics, you can also just read the lead story of Adventure Time #1 for free right now.
