With the release of Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #3, new Barnes & Noble events sprung up. Luckily for the East Coasters, illustrators Natalie and Sara Riess-Goetter recently moved back to Pennsylvania, meaning they appeared at two stores this week: Easton on Saturday and Exton on Sunday.
From 1:00 to 3:00 PM, fans were able to play trivia, interact with each other, watch a drawing demonstration, and get their books signed.
All other release parties were held in participating Barnes & Noble locations anywhere from Tuesday, September 30th to Sunday, October 5th. I went to a regular meetup on Tuesday and wrote about my experience. Since nobody showed to that event, I was thrilled to see how many fans joined me to meet Riess-Goetter’s at Exton on Sunday, the 5th.
I was honored to be apart of the group of about fifteen people, two of which were children and the rest either teenagers or adults, who attended the event. The Exton Barnes & Noble had a lovely space for it in their children’s section in their sprawling two-story store. The two children were cutely dressed up with ears and tails, and another person was even in a handmade fursuit head, tail, and paws. I was grinning ear to ear to see them.
The same freebies were available as with the other meetups, so I grabbed another pen to write on the activity sheets and was handed temporary tattoos. While Natalie and Sara Riess-Goetter sat behind the table, the B&N host did trivia. Since I’d see the questions and answers already, I simply tested my memory. I didn’t take any of the prizes offered either, making sure they would go to the other participants.
After this, I was ecstatic to see Riess and Goetter move on to doing large drawing demonstrations. They took character suggestions from the group, with Smudge and Bluestar chosen for the first drawing and Spottedleaf with a tiny Mousefur for the second.
As they begun to work on the drawings, they explained how Natalie Riess does the initial pencil sketch, which goes to Sara Goetter to get inked, and back to Natalie for color. Throughout a Q&A during the demonstration, they went into more depth of their process. When it came to illustrating the Warriors graphic novels, they sent an outline to the Hunter team, which resulted in back and forth feedback editing (they always had a middleman). Then they launched into the digital sketch, traditional inking, and coloring in Photoshop.
Although I couldn’t get the questions or answers verbatim, I summarize most of them below. I also organized them for flow.
Q: Did they read the series when they were younger or when they got the job? Similarly, what have they read of the series or do they want to read more?
A: Sara didn’t grow up reading the books and only interacted with them for the job. Natalie did read them in her tweens and has read up to the first book of Dawn of the Clans in the main arcs and many Super Editions, but finds herself struggling to get into DotC (secretly, I was relieved to hear this since I disliked that arc).
Q: How did they get into illustrating for the Warriors series?
A: The married couple began making comics together with their first publication in 2020. Since their agent had a relationship with the Warriors publisher, Natalie and Sara sent in their style test for the adaptation job. They were the ones picked!
Q: Do they have cats?
A: What was interesting about this answer was how it related to the series. The Riess-Goetter’s have a 16-year-old cat named Tilly that they use for artistic inspiration at times. Funnily enough, Tilly has always been a runt who never grew very big and has huge eyes like a baby. Their art for the series was originally inspired by her, so the editors told them to make the characters’ eyes smaller.
Q: How did they meet?
A: This was one of my questions. As a married lesbian, I was so happy to see how Natalie lit up in telling their story. Sara and Natalie were both in the webcomic community, and in 2015, Sara was looking for a video game case of Zelda that Natalie offered to mail. When they realized their addresses weren’t far they decided to meet up at a Maryland comic festival. This transformed into con buddies to drawing together to falling in love! They’ve known each other for ten years and been together for eight (if I understood correctly).
Q: Who are your favorite Warrior Cats?
A: Natalie answered Cloudtail, Yellowfang, and Spottedleaf. While Sara agreed with those as well, she also added in Longtail.
Q: Favorite villain?
A: Natalie enjoyed doing Tigerclaw’s expression and Leopardstar (even if she isn’t a true villain). Sara immediately said Brokenstar.
Q: Any cats that died early on in the graphic novels they would’ve loved to keep living?
A: Natalie easily said Spottedleaf and Silverstream, adding on Redtail to the end because his dynamic and motivations would’ve been interesting to explore. Sara answered sweet, grumpy Yellowfang.
Q: Who are the hardest Warrior Cats to draw?
A: Natalie jumped in, apologizing that her cat was one she couldn’t wait to die so she could stop drawing him… Lionheart. She also mentioned Scourge being a challenge, but since he was so fun, it was worth it. Sara agreed with Lionheart, but also said Darkstripe was difficult at first.
Q: Easiest cats to draw?
A: As for easiest, both Natalie and Sara agreed that any fluffy cats were easier. Cloudtail seemed to be their absolute favorite to draw, especially since he was simple and cute. They also mentioned any cats with repetition, like Fireheart/star and Graystripe became super easy to draw.
Q: Favorite prophecy to draw?
A: Natalie (a testament to what she drew second for the demonstration) said Spottedleaf’s “fire alone” prophecy was her favorite to draw. Sara, although always excited to do any StarClan scenes, said the forest fire was her favorite.
Q: Favorite panel or scene to draw overall?
A: In a sweet turn, Natalie said Cinderpelt’s scene where she decides to become a medicine cat was her favorite to draw. It included a tender moment, as well as Cloudkit. Sara mentioned the forest fire scene and StarClan here as well. Since those were scenes I remember feeling the most awed by, I couldn’t agree more.
Q: No official question here; this was an anecdote about Mousefur.
A: When Mousefur was brought up by a fan, Natalie launched into an interesting story about her character design. The Warriors team have no official lore bible and work off of the fan-made wiki, which means character designs vary. A Thief in ThunderClan by James Barry, the only other graphic novel version of Mousefur hadn’t been published yet when they designed her. Barry and the Riess-Goetters’ interpreted her eye color completely different. While Barry thought “sunlit ice” eyes meant blue, Sara and Natalie thought yellow.
Q: If they HAD to choose a Clan, which would they choose?
A: Both of them would actually be kittypets, but when Natalie mentioned being in SkyClan to be a daylight warrior, Sara agreed. If you know what happens in A Vision of Shadows arc, this is faintly amusing. I frankly love daylight warriors, so this answer is top-tier.
Q: Where did the change to have Princess in the main text more come from?
A: This was actually the first question I asked. The simple answer from them was they loved Princess. It’s clear they have an adorable bias towards kittypets, so they made sure her and Smudge were included. Natalie also included the relationship between Princess and Fireheart more because it made sense. In the original books, Fireheart forgets about Princess and then she is suddenly gifting him her firstborn. In the graphic novels, it’s more logical they would remember each other for her to give over Cloudkit.
Q: A fan asked whether Ravenpaw and Barley becoming the first in-text canon gay couple was Natalie and Sara’s doing or the Hunter team.
A: I wanted to end on this question because it is so important to me as a queer person. Firmly, Natalie and Sara confirmed they were the ones to push for it. When the original script with Ravenpaw calling Barley his mate was sent in, the editors wanted to have a discussion about it. Natalie and Sara insisted it was happening and the editors okay’ed it. I’ll always be grateful to the Riess-Goetter’s for this act of gay love. No matter how small it seems, it’s HUGE for me and the community.
Looking back, I would’ve asked at least three more questions. One, if Blackfoot being changed to Blackstep had to do with the Native American Tribe. Two, why they included Longtail more in the BloodClan battle? And, three, what plotlines or scenes they wished they didn’t have to cut?
Overall, I think the questions asked were perfect. Their responses kept us laughing and smiling the whole time. Huge thank you to all the participants!
And, of course, after the art demonstration the pieces were given away using the tie-breaker question from the earlier trivia. The two participants to get the question right got to take one drawing home each. After that, everybody lined up to get their books signed. Natalie and Sara were willing to sign more than just the third graphic novel, too. I was able to get my first and third signed since I purchased a signed copy of the second earlier this year.
Along with their signatures, they asked people their favorites characters to sketch. For mine, Riess and Goetter did their own renditions of Scourge and Firestar.
Thank you to Barnes & Noble, as well as Natalie and Sara Riess-Goetter for putting on a great event.
Check out my review for the third graphic novel: Warriors Graphic Novel #3 Ending with a Bang.
Follow the links below to purchase the graphic novels from Amazon:
Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1
Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #2
Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #3
Interested in the next graphic novel? Pre-order Warriors Graphic Novel: The New Prophecy #1, adapted by Gibson Twist and illustrated by Sammy Savos.
