Molly Knox Ostertag & Xanthe Bouma Creates D&D Graphic Novels

Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Club: Roll Call by Molly Knox Ostertag and Xanthe Bouma is the first in a new licensed Dungeons & Dragons graphic novels series, Dungeon Club, not set in the world of the games, but in the world of the gamers, with the first volume, Roll Call from HarperCollins Publishers on the 6th of December, 2022.

Middle school is a dungeon… At least, that’s how Jess sees it. Luckily, she and her best friend Olivia know how to escape into the sprawling worlds of their own imaginations. The two friends have always loved making up stories, first with little kid games of make-believe, and more recently with the fantasy roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons. When they play, Olivia runs the game as Dungeon Master and Jess is the solo party member, playing a take-no-prisoners, lone-wolf fighter of her own design named Sir Corius. But when Olivia wants to add new players to their group, Jess finds herself struggling to share their game—and her best friend. Will their epic campaign withstand all this change, or has their adventure—and their friendship—finally come to an end?

Molly Knox Ostertag is a cartoonist best known for her webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, her graphic novels The Witch Boy, The Hidden Witch, and The Midwinter Witch, and for The Girl From The Sea and writing for the TV series The Owl House. She was named one of Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 in 2021. Xanthe is a freelance illustrator, comics artist, and colourist, they are known for 5 Worlds, Little Sid and The Amazing World of Gumball.

Molly writes in her Substack newsletter;

It’s been a joy to make – I started LARPing and playing D&D in high school, and those forms of roleplaying became a way for me to make friends and explore parts of myself. The first time I said “I’m a lesbian” was as Sir Aurelia the paladin. This book is about the friendships that form when you tell stories together, the way a fantasy campaign can mimic real life, and the excruciating agony of the dungeon crawl that is middle school. It’s written by me and drawn by Xanthe, which is truly the honor of a lifetime.