This review contains spoilers.
I have a confession. Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun: Ianto’s Tomb is my first D&D experience other than Dungeons & Dragon Daggerdale on Xbox Live Arcade. As a gamer who enjoys role-playing games I’ve played plenty of games based of the same core mechanics, but I’ve never actually played D&D or read any of the other comics. Because of this I was a little worries I would not be able to easily follow Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun: Ianto’s Tomb, but my concerns were unfounded as I had no trouble jumping in and enjoying this graphic novel.
The art work in Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun: Ianto’s Tomb is really fun. It has a slight cartoon style to it that keeps it from getting too dark but still has enough detail that thins like facial expressions come through clearly. This style really fits the tone of the book well as it mixes a lot of fighting and action with some humor.
This 132 page story is split into 5 chapters, but I was enjoying it enough to read the whole thing in one sitting so they probably could have just left out the chapter breaks. I really like the story as it fits the traditional RPG structure. We start off with a fighter named Grudvik who is wrongfully accused of some crimes. He escapes his captors and it tracked down by Aki. Aki is a bard and trader who joins Grudvik after finding out he has a key that should lead to a lot of treasure. These two are a constant source of humor as are regularly threatening to kill each other while relying on the other to watch their back. While I would not really call them friends they seem like they could be some day. In their quest to clear Grudvik’s name and get Aki some loot they are joined by a couple of magic wielding allies. So, their party is formed and they then go on their main quest.
I love that it follows this traditional RPG story arc and has so many of the classic enemies and traps in it. Since this officially is titled Dungeons & Dragons Dark Sun TPB Vol. 01 I’m looking forward to Volume 2 coming out at some point down the line. Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun: Ianto’s Tomb wraps up this story/quest really nicely while leaving it open for our party to have more adventures together down the line. Even if you are not a Dungeons & Dragons fan this is still a lot of fun to read and is well worth checking out.
You can purchase the comic HERE!!!
