Warriors Graphic Novel Adaption: Does it Work?

The Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1 came out this week on Tuesday, July 16th! This adaption covers events from the first two novels of The Prophecies Begin arc of WarriorsInto the Wild and Fire and Ice. It’s split into three parts, “Part One: Into the Wild,” “Part Two: Yellowfang,” and “Part Three: Graystripe’s Secret.” Adapted and illustrated by Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter, what the graphic novel excels in is the art and formatting. I was immediately taken in by the storytelling and kicking my feet with glee at seeing my favorite story retold in pictures. However, no adaption is perfect and often has problems, which I’ll get into later.

I want to caution that I am a Warriors fanatic who knows the books extremely well. Though this graphic novel is done well, I pick it apart. Before beginning, I sincerely applaud Riess and Goetter for putting two books (over 600 pages of descriptions and interactions) into a graphic novel with only 264 pages. The Warriors fandom also tends to be touchy, so braving us takes courage.

This review contains major spoilers for The Prophecies Begin books and the graphic novel adaption!

The Good
Character Designs and Art

I dare say this is the best part of the entire graphic novel. The early teasers of the art and character designs drew me into the excitement of the graphic novel in the first place. The characters are designed almost exactly how they are described in the books, which is practically unheard of in other official art of the series, like in the cover designs or Ultimate Guides. Bluestar is blue, Graypaw/stripe is solid gray with a darker stripe on his back, and Firepaw/heart is so brightly russet/orange that he stands out in a crowd like he’s supposed to. The illustrators did not shy away from making these cats look “unnatural” in their colors, which is a big win for me. They aren’t only distinguishable because of their coats, too, as Riess and Goetter also used different shapes, sizes, and attributes like scars to make each character unique. Tigerclaw’s massive size, even bigger than Lionheart, is book accurate, whereas Silverstream has a rounder, smoother shape like a RiverClan cat.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1, pgs. 54-55.

The only complaint I have about character design is the one particular human-like head shape characteristic of Bluestar, Ravenpaw, Tallstar, and possibly others. While their overall design is near perfection, their faces and sleek head designs give an uncanny valley vibe. I appreciate trying to make all of them unique, but a rounder and less elongated head shape would’ve been better for most cats. Lionheart is also shaped strangely because of how flat his head and face are. A bushier head would’ve given more “lion,” which they were going for as evidenced by his thick neck fur and large body.

The art itself is also phenomenal. The coloring of the entire graphic novel is both matte and vibrant, the shading is done extremely well, and so many different backgrounds are used. Even when a background is “plain,” it has a gradient or effects in the panel to give it personality. I loved all the little sparkly and star effects used throughout the graphic novel, too. Even specific scenes were fully ramped up extra good for the art, like the many beautiful StarClan scenes (whether dreams or omens), the eerie rat fight, and the two pages that show banners of moon phases for the passing of time. Plus, the moments when Firepaw/heart is shown with little flames around him make me happy.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1, pgs. 44-45.

The panel organization itself is genius and flows well, like how lineless panels and pages put more emphasis on certain aspects of the story. The ThunderClan map pages include original Clan symbol-shaped panels that are a quick, fun call to those traditional symbols.

Plot Changes

While I’ll get into the negatives of plot changes later, I want to praise some of the changes they’ve made that make the story better and/or more cohesive and more believable. The biggest one for me is the inclusion of Princess early on. In the original books, Princess, Fireheart’s sister, first appears in the second book. There’s no mention of him having siblings until he randomly finds her, already full-grown, in a Twoleg garden. By showing her from the start, Princess’s character isn’t just a convenient way for Fireheart to later get his nephew into the Clan, but she’s her own character. She’s not a surprise. While I do miss Smudge, since Princess replaces him in the scene where Firepaw runs into a “kittypet” during his hunting assessment, her bouncy character was a welcome addition to show the difference between a house pet and a wild cat.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1. Two panel excerpts: pg. 63 and pg. 57.

Another small change that I am personally excited about is the interactions between Spottedleaf and Firepaw. In the original books, the first time we see them interact is when Firepaw first joins ThunderClan. It’s obvious from the beginning that he thinks she is pretty and begins developing a crush. That scene is instead replaced by one in the graphic novel where Firepaw brings her herbs and Spottedleaf calls him a “little flame.” She does nuzzle him a little, making Firepaw blush proudly. I think it’s still possible that he has a crush on her, especially given his devastation at her death (absolutely stellar expression there), but this gives me hope that they won’t write in Spottedleaf’s reciprocation of his feelings. I hate how much they pushed the relationship in the very brief time they knew each other, while Firepaw was still an apprentice, they fell in love. It isn’t just the age gap, but the timing when they met that bothers me. I’d love to see their relationship stay platonic in the graphic novel, and for her to legitimately see him as the kid he is when they first met.

Humor

One of the reasons this graphic novel is so lighthearted and fun is because of the humor. It’s brimming with silliness between characters, especially given all of the expressions that Reiss and Goetter drew. Firepaw/heart’s original sassy attitude, at times shown through his thoughts or actions in the books, is shown through the faces he pulls at other characters. I think one of my favorite funny moments is the time when Firepaw gets caught eating the scraps of the prey he caught for the stranger, Yellowfang. His huge eyes and jutting muzzle give a perfect meme moment, coupled with the shocked, ears flat face that Yellowfang makes beside him.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1. Two panel excerpts: pg. 84 and pg. 138.

I was also happy to see how Graypaw/stripe remained this comedic relief character. From their first interaction with Rusty to training sessions as apprentices, his cheekiness translated well into the art style and scene adaptions.

It’s not only straightforward humor that got me laughing either. Any time Frostfur’s litter was shown as kits, I was giggling with how cute both their faces and their kitten babble were. I never thought to see Warriors kits trying and failing to say character names. With “fiah-paw” to mean Firepaw and “yewwo-fang” to mean Yellowfang, it’s one human characteristic that I don’t mind being added.

Though I think the graphic novel loses some of the seriousness of the original books, I like these goofy new renditions.

The Bad
Changes and Cuts

I could probably spend an entire article on this itself, but I’m hoping to condense it a little here. While some changes, like Princess or Ravenpaw’s confession, were small and didn’t change the plot (in some cases, made it better), others were confusing.

By the time the graphic novel got to “Part Three: Graystripe’s Secret,” I realized something was very wrong. Starting on page 195 of 264 was the beginning of Fire and Ice coverage. Way over half of the book solely focused on Into the Wild, and only this last part covered events from the second TBP novel. The WindClan rescue, which took up a decent bulk of the beginning of Fire and Ice, was cut down to ten or so pages, missing all of the characterizations with Tallstar, Onewhisker, and Morningflower. They also made a very poor choice to cut out the death of Whiteclaw by essentially skipping the battle on RiverClan’s territory by the Gorge. Instead, they replace it with an overly goofy version of the tale that RiverClan merely chased ThunderClan and WindClan off their territory. Since Graystripe is the one to accidentally kill Whiteclaw, this creates good character development and tension between Graystripe versus Leopardfur and RiverClan. This was the turning point of the graphic novel for me, from overjoyed to annoyed.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1. A panel excerpt from pg. 218.

From there, the entire middle section of Fire and Ice is skipped and the chronological order of things is changed. While the first scene Silverstream and Graystripe meet is executed perfectly, the story almost immediately jumps to get to the battle where ThunderClan has to save WindClan from being driven out by RiverClan and ShadowClan. Originally, this scene happens at the end of the book and a bunch of scenes that drive the reason behind it happen first. Cinderpaw’s injury, Cloudkit/paw’s appearance, the almost battle against RiverClan, Brokenstar’s attack on ThunderClan, and Yellowfang’s confession to Fireheart are all cut. I’m anxious to see whether these have been shifted into the second graphic novel, but if that’s the case, then how are they supposed to fit all the events from the next two books, Forest of Secrets and Rising Storm, in addition to the missing events of Fire and Ice?

By changing all of that, they also shifted when Graystripe confesses his love for Silverstream. Instead of Fireheart catching them, Graystripe has to tearfully tell Fireheart during the battle to help WindClan that he’s in love with her. Except, it doesn’t fall as believable as it should. We haven’t gone through pages of the struggle between Graystripe and Fireheart’s friendship or the torn feelings between Graystripe’s love for her and his love for ThunderClan.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1, pg. 248.

Also, this might be small, but I noticed earlier that Frostfur’s kits were edited. Instead of being Cinderkit, Brackenkit, Thornkit, and Brightkit, they seem to have replaced Thornkit or Brightkit with Swiftkit. Based on the images, I wager that Brightkit was the one replaced. That means Swiftpaw became an apprentice at the same time as Brackenpaw and Cinderpaw too. In fact, we have no confirmation that Brightkit even exists at this point. Since Cloudkit also wasn’t included yet, I’m curious how the dog attack plot will happen.

Character Development

Related to the above, most of the character development was stunted due to the many changes and cuts from the books. Instead of the many scenes between Firepaw and Yellowfang, when he was taking care of her in camp initially, we get a dialogue-less montage of panels in between Firepaw’s training with Bluestar. I wasn’t bothered by this at first, since the expressions were done well enough to convey what was happening. However, as the graphic novel went on, I realized how much intuition was needed to read “between the pictures” to understand the developing relationships between characters. The mothering relationship between Firepaw/heart and Yellowfang is essential to the heartbreaking conversation that happens when Yellowfang dies, so I’m hoping that doesn’t fall flat in the next graphic novel. It wasn’t just those two that were affected.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1, pgs. 90-91.

With Whiteclaw’s death scene and the Gorge battle between RiverClan, ThunderClan, and WindClan removed, we entirely skip over why Sandpaw begins to feel sorry for bullying Fireheart. Her feelings for him develop out of nowhere. In the original book, Fire and Ice, Fireheart saves Sandpaw from falling over the edge, a fate that befalls RiverClan warrior Whiteclaw when fighting Graystripe. She sees how she would have died, if not for Fireheart. Without that crucial, yet tiny, character development, the shift in Fireheart and Sandpaw’s relationship lacks context. In the graphic novel, she randomly distances herself from Dustpaw and blushes when she sees Fireheart.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1. Panel excerpt from pg. 233.

We even see very little of the development between the friendship of Firepaw, Graypaw, and Ravenpaw. They usually only get a few panels together before splitting off or have dialogue-less panels that show them being close and silly, but nothing super tangible. By turning such character-interaction-rich books into graphic novels, we’re not only losing interactions with background characters but with our main and major characters too.

The Worrisome

Overall, I’ve concluded that they should’ve done a separate graphic novel for each book. I thought because the first arc books are smaller than the later arcs it’d be fine, but too many scenes are being cut or changed to fit everything in. Frankly, I’m nervous about the other two graphic novels that will be coming out. I don’t really blame the writers and illustrators, Reiss and Goetter, because I doubt that they were the ones to decide to squish six novels into three graphic novels, but I am concerned. What else will be cut in later volumes? The rest of the books have so many important scenes jam-packed into them. What will have to be changed to keep up with the changes they made in #1?

As an adaption, I know things will be cut, but I didn’t expect so much to be changed, nevertheless the chronology of events. The first arc of Warriors is so good because it flows exceptionally well; making these changes has caused a choppiness to the story. It feels superficial, all of the story’s depth cut out to make it to the important plot points (and apparently, cut out those major plot points too).

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1, pg. 264.

I initially started off ecstatic when reading this graphic novel adaption, but I’m left feeling uneasy. The art is the best part, yet the shifts in the narrative alert me to potential problems down the line.

Does it work then? I think so, in the grand scheme of things. New fans won’t know anything different and longtime fans might not care as much as I do about the continuity if the story remains mostly the same (some people might even think I’m being nit-picky). It’s fun, colorful, dramatic, and really, just a good time. If you’re looking for a more surface-level overview of the Warriors: The Prophecies Begin arc, then the graphic novel is perfect.

Frankly, it’s worth it for the art alone.

Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin #1 is available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major retailers.


About Hailey Watkins

Hailey is a self-proclaimed bookworm and writer. While she loves to read fantasy or slice-of-life the most, their heart belongs truly to the Warrior cats book series. She has collected and read all of the books in the nearly 100-book-long (and counting) series. She's also a fan of reading Webtoons, graphic novels, and manga, as well as watching anime. When they're not writing about fandom, their day job is as a substitute teacher.

View all posts by Hailey Watkins

2 Comments on “Warriors Graphic Novel Adaption: Does it Work?”

  1. absolutely agree w ur assessments on this book, and i dont think ur being nit-picky at all!! it’s really important that they keep the development between these characters- they aren’t really them without it afterall, and this series is what made waca what it is today!! i love the art in this, and the character changes have been lovely, i just hope that the cut sequences for time don’t dampen our enjoyment of the series as a whole!! it’s genuinely probably my favorite out of the comics released in general for warriors so far (based on the art alone!) and im thrilled to see more!! šŸ˜€

    1. Thank you so much!! I always appreciate your support. I’m glad to hear you agree with everything, too. I’m cautiously hopeful for the second graphic novel and I hope we still get to see all the important bits represented with room for character development too.

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