From July 19th to the 21st, Barnes & Noble’s across the United States held a Warriors meetup to celebrate the release of the Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1. As someone who greatly anticipated this meetup, I had a blast meeting with fellow fans participating in the activities and winning prizes.
On Saturday the 20th, I went to the Barnes & Noble in East Brunswick, New Jersey. After talking with other participants online, I discovered that each store handled the event differently. As such, I’ll mostly be talking about my specific store experience.
Advertised as an all-age event, the Warriors meetup was a great mix of ages, from young kids to adults. It was nice to see how many people the series appeals to, considering it’s now over twenty years since the first book was released. I’ll say I was relieved to not be the only older super fan attending.
At this location, the two event hosts were handing out a stapled activity sheet, with a maze, crossword challenge, trivia answer spots, and a word unscramble. Everything but the trivia was something to do on your own and fairly easy.
Freebies
Along with the free activity sheet and trivia participation, a couple of freebies were handed out to people who came. The first was a sheet of eleven temporary tattoos of art from the graphic novel. This included tattoos of Rusty, the main trio (Firepaw, Graypaw, and Ravenpaw), Spottedleaf, and the moon phase border. I think this was a cute idea and something I was not expecting. While I’ll be saving these instead of using them, I’m excited to add them to my Warriors collection. I overheard other fans saying the same.
The second freebie was a short sneak peek into Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #2, sporting the Yellowfang cover that was revealed some time back. Having it in hand made me even more excited for the release, and a look inside answered some questions I posed in my review of the first graphic novel. Since the beginning shows the greencough sickness from Fire and Ice, it appears that important events not covered in #1 will be drawn for #2. This still begs the question of what they will cut from Forest of Secrets and Rising Storm for it all to fit, but I’m relieved that important plot points aren’t being removed entirely.
Pictures of this preview are floating around on social media, and it’s only a matter of time before they show us more sneak peeks on official Erin Hunter or Warrior Cats’ socials. The back of the booklet also revealed the release date: April 15, 2025.
Prizes
According to online accounts (mostly from a Facebook group I’m a part of), different locations had different prizes. While some gave out copies of the graphic novel and full boxes of minis, my store had a pretty simple prize system. It would’ve been nice to have more varied prizes at my location, but I’m not sure what constituted the choices per store.
For first place in trivia, the winner got two tote bags and one of the minis from the Brightheart and Yellowfang box of The Prophecies Begin re-released figures. For second place, they got one tote bag and the leftover mini. Finally, third place got one tote bag.
As someone who really wanted a tote bag, practically the only reason I went to the event, I was pleasantly surprised to win first place in trivia and get two. I was also the first to pick from the mini set, so I decided to go with Yellowfang since she’s the cover of the second graphic novel coming out next year.
Not only did I get two tote bags from trivia, but I also won the costume contest, which was a tote bag prize too. It was an automatic win since I was the only person who dressed up at the event, but it made walking into a Barnes & Noble on a casual Saturday dressed as a cat worth it.
Since I already own the Yellowfang mini and received two extra totes, I’ll be able to give them away to friends who weren’t able to go to one of the events. I also noticed the hosts gave out any extra totes they had received to other fans who came.
Trivia
The trivia was the most involved part of the event. While I didn’t write down any of the questions verbatim (I was too busy writing down my answers), I do remember the general context of each question based on my answers. Some of the questions were longer with more detail, while others were worded a little differently.
- What was the name of the first Warriors book?
- What was the prophecy that dominated the first series, The Prophecies Begin?
- What are the names of the four Clans?
- Who was Firepaw’s mentor?
- What Clan does Rusty join/What Clan does Firepaw belong to?
- Who was the medicine cat who primarily took care of ThunderClan?
- Who was the first leader of ThunderClan?
- Who was the cat Firepaw befriended in the first series?
- Who was Firepaw’s mentor?
- What is the name of the book Fireheart became deputy in?
- What is the name of the Clan known for their swift hunting in bodies of water?
- Who is the leader of ShadowClan?
- What is the name of Graystripe’s mate?
- Who are the hostile group of cats living outside the Clans?
- What is the StarClan connection that medicine cats and leaders go to?
Despite these not all being the exact wording, it shows why everyone at the meeting had a consensus on the vagueness of the questions. For question 14, most people at the event wrote “rogues,” when the answer was BloodClan. We also noted that some of the “correct” answers were confusing or wrong. For the two repeated questions, 4 and 9, instead of Bluestar being the correct answer, it was Tigerclaw and then Lionheart. Technically, Bluestar was his permanent mentor, while Tigerclaw and Lionheart were temporary mentors when he first joined. This was particularly annoying considering the answer to the crossword for “Firepaw’s mentor” was Bluestar.
Similarly, for question 8, the correct answer was Ravenpaw and not Graystripe. Ravenpaw doesn’t go through the whole series with Firepaw/heart/star, and Graystripe is well-known as his best friend, so we all exclaimed distaste at this correct answer. That was the only question I got wrong.
It was also somewhat confusing because we didn’t know what part of the series the trivia referenced: only The Prophecies Begin, only the new graphic novel, or the series as a whole. When the hosts told us it was more referencing the graphic novel, I realized that was only partially true. Questions like 10, asking when Fireheart becomes deputy, were not covered in the graphic novel. It made sense to consider the entirety of the first arc, except then questions like 12, the leader of ShadowClan, could’ve had three correct answers, Brokenstar, Nightstar, or Tigerstar, so which should have been written (it was Brokenstar)?
The only way I was able to get the “trick questions,” like 4, 6, 9, 12, and 14 right was because I wrote down multiple answers. For number 14, I put down “Rogues? BloodClan?” and for both 4 and 9, I put down Bluestar, Lionheart, and Tigerclaw. It was my over-explanation that garnered me a 14/15 score and first place in the trivia contest. The only benefit to these questions was the camaraderie between fans. One particular fan even exclaimed, “Read your own books” while we were all joking about the answers being incorrect. It’s an easy trend to follow that the Erin Hunter team often messes up their own canon or has errors throughout the books.
This Warriors event was a huge success. Over the weekend, I paid attention to the Erin Hunter Instagram page to see them share to their story many posts that participating Barnes & Noble accounts put up. From the costumes/cosplays to the various prizes, I think everyone had fun. I’m hopeful that this means we might get more events in the future. Some people are also hopeful they’ll do events outside of the United States.
One huge bonus of going to this event was meeting someone who knew my articles (after I mentioned I wrote for Fandom Spotlite). Shout out to them for making my day!
Check out my review of the graphic novel here.
Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1 is available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major retailers.
Wow awesome