Clint McElroy

Clinton Emil "Clint" McElroy, Jr. (born August 10, 1955) is an American podcaster, comic book writer and former radio personality. He is known for his work on the podcast The Adventure Zone, as well as for hosting several FM radio shows in West Virginia. Additionally, McElroy is an adjunct professor in the Department of Theatre at Marshall University.

Radio

Clint McElroy is an alumnus of Marshall University, at which he worked with campus radio station WMUL. He then worked as news director at WKEE-FM in 1975, followed by roles at WRVC and WEMM-FM, as well as a sports director role at WWBA in Florida. Beginning in 1994, he co-hosted the morning show at WTCR-FM, along with co-host Judy Eaton. In 2009, McElroy was inducted into the Greater Huntington Wall of Fame, in recognition of his contributions to local radio as well as local theater. In 2017, he retired from radio.

Podcasting

In 2014, McElroy and his sons – Justin, Travis, and Griffin – launched a tabletop role-playing game podcast entitled The Adventure Zone. Initially playing Dungeons & Dragons, the show moved into other game systems in later arcs. McElroy acted as Game Master during the 'experimental' campaign Commitment, which made use of the Fate system.

In 2018, McElroy appeared as a guest star on Adventure Impractical as part of the Stream of Many Eyes, a Dungeons & Dragons event promoting the new Waterdeep storyline. He also appeared at the following year's event, The Descent.

Amid the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, McElroy began the daily YouTube series Stories from Your Gaffer, in which he reads chapters from books, in lieu of bedtime stories for his grandchildren. He began with The Hobbit, though had to switch to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for copyright reasons. Neil Gaiman granted permission for his books, and so McElroy then moved on to Coraline.

Comics

McElroy wrote several comic books for NOW Comics in the early 1990s, such as Green Hornet: Dark Tomorrow and adaptations of the movies Freejack and Universal Soldier. He also wrote for Eclipse Comics with Blood is the Harvest in 1992. This was among the final comics printed by the group, which ceased operation in 1994.

The first sub-arc of The Adventure Zone: Balance, named Here There Be Gerblins, was adapted into a graphic novel, co-written by the McElroy family and published by First Second Books in 2018. A follow-up, Murder on the Rockport Limited!, was published in 2019.

Along with his sons, McElroy co-wrote Journey into Mystery, a five-part limited series as part of Marvel's War of the Realms storyline. Alongside this, McElroy would work on Marvel Team-up #4 that year.

McElroy spent his early years in Ironton, Ohio, where he attended Ironton High School and eventually Ohio University Southern Campus and then Marshall University, located in Huntington, West Virginia.

He married Leslie Gail McElroy (née Kitchen) in 1977. They had three children: Justin, Travis, and Griffin. Leslie passed away in 2005. McElroy remarried in 2010. He has one stepdaughter.