Tag: justin mcelroy

The Sawbones Book: The Horrifying, Hilarious Road to Modern Medicine (expanded edition) by Justin and Dr. Syndee McElroy

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A picture of the front cover "The Sawbones Book" expanded edition The snapchat caption reads: Bones!!!!

“The Sawbones Book” has been revised and expanded for 2020 and we all know what that means. No, not a lot of COVID-19 talk, but an expanded infectious disease section that includes historical pandemics, epidemics and global panics feat. some notes about how we’re totally handling this pandemic so much better than we did in the past, (spoiler alert, we’re uh, kinda not).

An excerpt from the book, the main text reads "This led, of course, to panic and a complete lack of coordination on a global level. Some thought it wasn't working because cholera was not communicable and that quarantine was ridiculous. Others just thought we weren't quarantining quickly or strictly enough. No one knew where cholera was coming from yet, so blaming whatever race of humans you didn't like was also very trendy." An interjection blurb from Justin follows, "Isn't this all so weird and different from today? I'm looking at all this stuff about panic and confusion and blaming different cultures than your own, and it's just so foreign to how we're reacting to coronavirus in good old, super-smart 2020." The snapchat caption reads "So strange."

The New:

An interjection blurb from Justin reads, "Oh, hachi machi does this next part ever get grody. I wish I hadn't read it, and I helped write it. Ugh. Also, if you notice any really obvious typos, it's because I was only half peeking from between my fingers while I was blasting some really soothing Sarah McLachlan."

The book is largely the same “Sawbones Book” as the previous hardback edition, but with additions, some rearranging, and the corrections of a bunch of typos. (Honestly, there were so many typos in the hardback that I’d assumed they were part of Justin’s “sorry if there were typos, I was trying to avoid looking at what I’m writing cause it’s gross” goof, apparently not.) 

The opening limerick to the section "The Contagious," it reads: "Come read of the times / When germs ran amuck / And ships quarantined in the bay. / Then strap on your mask, / The parade's almost here, / For the past is our present today." The snapchat caption reads: "I only want to be presented with covid news in limmerick form from now on."

The biggest change is the addition of a “The Contagious” section that replaces “The Unnerving” as the first section of the book, which was bumped back to be section two, and has my absolute favorite opening bit. This new section includes new chapters, such as “Quarantine” and “The Deadly Parade,” and old chapters moved from other sections like “The Black Plague” and “Parrot Fever.”

The Old:

“The Sawbones Book” is a wildly entertaining look at a huge swath medical history. For fans of the podcast, it recaps some of the greatest hits and is written very much the way Justin and Sydnee speak. If you’ve got a brain like mine, you can basically hear them reading the book (and they did actually do the audio book too.) For newcomers, it’s an easy to read look at medical history with a humorous twist that is just missing from your average history book.

My absolute favorite story in the book is the story of Henry Bessemer’s (of Bessemer steel fame) seasick-proof saloon, a free swinging room within a ship designed to prevent seasickness. It went just about as well as you might expect. 

An excerpt from the main text, "Remember how the saloon was swiveling independently of the ship itself? Well, it didn't get the memo that it should cut it out when the ship tried to stop moving. The swinging of the cabin as the ship slowed down made it incredibly difficult to pilot the ship. An lo, did the SS Bessemer end its maiden voyage by crashing in to the pier." The snapchat caption reads: "Ah yes, physics."

Most importantly, I think, is that this new edition of “The Sawbones Book”  has retained the same ending line, which I love so so much. It is the latter part of Justin’s response to a question from a “The Doctor is In” section, where Sydnee answers general medical questions, and it is simply, “This is, literally, the worst day of my life.” And I feel like that’s just the perfect way to close out having just spent 200 pages learning about hilarious, terribad ‘cures.’

The Verdict:

Go buy this book right now. It’s so much fun and it’s highly accessible to people without a scientific background. There are even handy dandy notes throughout to help you avoid the extra gross stuff, and although some of the page numbers weren’t updated to reflect the new edition, it hardly impacts the reading experience. 

Even if you already bought the previous hardback edition, treat yourself and get yourself the new edition too. It’s definitely worth it.

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The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal, by Clint, Griffin, Justin and Travis McElroy and illustrated by Carey Pietsch

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Cover for The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal. From left to right, Merle, Taako and Magnus are leaning against the front of a battlewagon. Merle is holding the adamant spanner, Taako has the umbra staff and is twirling a ring of keys and Magnus is tossing a D20. In the top left corner, Griffin McElroy in a gaming headset waves a checkered starting flag. The snapchat caption reads: "Hell yeah, here we go."

I really adore the Adventure Zone graphic novels. They’re a really fun supplement to the Balance Arc of the podcast. Though it’s hardly required to listen to the podcast to read the graphic novels. There’s no additional information to be found in the graphic novels save for changes made due to the adaptation process. 

For example, Wizards of the Coast LLC, the company behind the game Dungeons & Dragons, has copyright on things like place and spell names in the game. So in the graphic novels the town of Neverwinter has become Eversummer, and other things like that. For me the biggest tragedy was losing the name Klarg. However, some of the other changes, in my opinion, improve the story.

If you aren’t familiar with the Balance Arc of The Adventure Zone, the three main chucklefucks, Merle, Taako and Magnus, are recruited by the Bureau of Balance to retrieve seven dangerous artifacts to save the world, but there are other secret goings on too. “Petals to the Metal” is the third act of the story, and our heroes converge on the town of Goldcliff looking to retrieve the Gaia Sash. 

I really love the art for these books, it’s expressive and stylized in a way that is really fitting for each character. Since The Adventure Zone started out in an audio only medium, the fandom surrounding his has an absolutely huge range of ways that each character is drawn, so cementing one look for the graphic novel had to have been a challenge, and I really appreciate that they’ve included other art in the back of the book that shows different takes on the characters. 

In the panel Magnus slams open the door to the Director's office declaring "I want to report that one of your vendors is selling tainted unicorn dick!" The Director has a rather shocked and exasperated expression the introduction card for her reads: "The Director; Race: Human; Class: Director; Proficiencies: managing clandestine organizations, keeping secrets, being patient with pains-in-the-ass (pain-in-the-asses?)" The snapchat caption reads: "I have a lot of feelings about how expressive the art is for both comedic and serious scenarios."

In this book, I was particularly struck by how Captain Captain Bane was drawn. I don’t think I’d ever imagined him particularly clearly, but it was definitely nowhere near the tender eyed beefy o’ burley we got. I’m definitely not complaining though, I really love what was done with Captain Bane in the graphic novel. Because podcast as a medium doesn’t really allow for concurrent storytelling and interactions between NPCs in D&D can get weird, because it’s just the DM talking to themself, we didn’t initially get a huge amount of relationship development between Captain Bane and Lieutenant Hurley, and it was really nice to see more of Captain Bane throughout, especially considering how his character ends the book/act.

Two comic panels. The first is a shot of an empty finish line, there are some vaguely drawn characters in the bleachers. The second panel is a close of up three figures in the bleachers, the two characters in the background are leaning forward eyes wide in anticipation. The character in the foreground in Captain Captain Bane, a man with a large square jaw and chin, bushy brown mustache and swept back collar length brown hair. He is looking through binoculars and appears very concerned. His speech bubble reads: "C'mon Hurley..." The snapchat caption reads: "I love how much more we get of the Hurley and Bane friendship in this."

Lastly, I do want to talk about Hurley and Sloane, our tragic antagonist. They were a lesbian couple from the moment they were introduced, however, in the podcast it was predominantly subtext. In the timeline of things I think this was where Griffin, the DM, was beginning to sort through adding queer characters into the show. The book makes it explicit, they were girlfriends before Sloane was corrupted by the Gaia Sash. 

Furthermore, as I mentioned before this was written at the beginning of the gay character learning curve for the boys. So in the podcast Hurley and Sloane fall pray to the Bury Your Gays trope. Hurley is mortally wounded and Sloane turns them both into a tree. Learning from his mistakes, Griffin brought back Hurley and Sloane as dryads in the Balance arc finale “The Day of Story and Song.” The graphic novel takes that one step further and makes explicit that it is Sloane’s intent to turn them into a dryads in order to save Hurley’s life. By the end of the book, while Tres Horny Boys don’t know that Hurley and Sloane are alive, we the audience get to see Hurley and Sloane as the dryad protectors of Goldcliff. All in all I think it’s a really beautiful fix to what was initially the ignorant usage of a bad trope. 

Full page, Hurley and Sloane standing next to each other, smiling and blushing in the first panel, and looking determined in the second. Hurley is the halfling on the left with short light pink hair (with tufts on the tops of her feet) and Sloane is a half elf with long black hair. Their skin is brown and lined to look like wood, they both have flowers in their hair. The snapchat caption is in rainbow bubble letters and reads: "Resurrect your gays."

One, uh, “warning.” There are three pages of Merle (played by the McElroy father, Clint) seducing some vines. It’s not NSFW or anything, but it’s an experience I think one might want to be prepared for is all, especially if  you’re coming in having not listened to the podcast. In conclusion:

Merle, a dwarf with brown skin and white hair and beard, stands in a pool of water while yelling at the Gaia Sash, a grey sash that appears to be woven together from vines. His speech bubble reads: "I don't need your help to fuck an onion!" In the background, Taako, Magnus, Captain Bane, and other members of the Goldcliff militia stand around watching the scene in confusion.

“Petals to the Metal” as well as the previous two books, can be found here.

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Journey Into Mystery written by Clint, Justin, Travis and Griffin McElroy

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Journey Into Mystery issues 1 and 2

So, full disclosure, aside from Miles Morales (Spider-man) and Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) I had no mcfucking clue who anyone else on this cast was. I mean I knew who Balder was, but only because I really, really liked the Norse story about Baldur’s death as a kid. 

That said, if you’re like me and only coming to this story because of the McElroys, issue one gives enough of an introduction to the characters that you don’t feel lost reading a story about them. 

The team is as follows:

Balder: Norse god, brother of Thor.

Miles Morales: Spider-man, the main protagonist of Into the Spider-verse (the spider-verse is actually referenced in issue one)

Kate Bishop: Hawkeye, not girl Hawkeye, just Hawkeye. She did spend time training with Clint Barton though. 

Rebecca Ryker: Death Locket, teen girl Deathlock (who I also know nothing about)

Sebastian Druid: part monster, has magic powers, a coat of holding and a nanny license

Simon Williams: Wonder Man, retired superhero and pacifist

Thori: Thor’s dog, really likes to fight NOT a babysitter

Now, the baby. The baby is Thor and Baldur’s babiest sister and the plot is basically: Baldur recruits a team to keep the baby safe from the big bad which leads to chase/roadtrip, which is a good and entertaining plot.

Baldur, like any child of any parent, is horrified by the idea of Odin and Frigga boning. It’s very Griffin McElroy “I’m in Hell!” every time Clint makes a dirty joke in the Adventure Zone. 

On that note, if you enjoyed the writing of the Adventure Zone graphic novel you’re definitely going to enjoy the writing in Journey to Mystery. 

Other moments, I found highly enjoyable:

  • The background gays. Like any good McElroy content, it’s flush with background gays. You’ve got the cosplayer boyfriends in issue one and the very obviously butch lesbian trucker in issue two. 
  • The cosplayer goof is actually good. It’s not comic book writer mocks the fans, which happens an unfortunate amount. 
  • Thor’s dog is named Thori and also everything about Thori.
  • The baby just effortlessly charms a bunch of Skrulls

I’m frankly super pumped for the next issue and…… cowboy ghosts? 

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