Adventure Time: Original Title Cards review - A special kind of madness

Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time is an animated show that demonstrates its attention to detail at every turn. From the character-packed credits scene that flashes at top speed past your eyes onwards, each episode is packed full of references and Easter eggs that no-one can hope to take in in a single view. This new release from Titan Books is another demonstration of that truth.

Adventure Time: The Original Title Cards collects the artwork from the first two seasons of the show that introduces each episode's title. This is another aspect of the series that is gone before you know it is there.

This slowing down allows us to truly appreciate the effort that goes into these brief but beautiful images, like a tiny fractal revealing deeper and deeper levels of detail. They manage to capture a huge range of tones from the hilarious and whimsical to the haunting, melancholic and downright terrifying.

Each card features its own unique typeface and homages classic media including vintage comics, pulps, children's cartoons, Dungeons & Dragons manuals and many more. The more you look, the more you are struck by the special kind of madness that puts such effort into so briefly seen images.

There is plenty to absorb just by looking, but each title card is also accompanied by annotations by Ward and artists Andy Ristaino, Nick Jennings, Phil Rynda and Paul Linsley. The creatives reveal surprising inspirations including Repo Man, Conan, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the art of Frank Frazetta.

If it wasn't clear already, the annotations reveal the quality of planning that goes into the cards, as well as taking the reader through the process by which the art comes into being, with thumbnail sketches that expose changes both small and huge to the original ideas.

This is an art book and not necessarily suitable for the show's youngest fans (in these cases we can't recommend the Adventure Time comics enough), although budding young artists might have some valuable lessons to learn here.

Older fans - and we aren't talking very old here - will find a lot to love in this book. It is almost painful how quickly you will find yourself turning the last page, although we would anticipate more volumes covering the later seasons in time.

Adventure Time: The Original Title Cards is a must-have for fans of the show, and is a perfect showcase of the quality and depth that the series has to offer.

Adventure Time: The Original Title Cards will be released by Titan Books on September 26.

Hugh Armitage

Hugh Armitage is Movies Editor at Digital Spy.