Interview with the writers and illustrators of The Prophecies Begin graphic novel!

BY Get the inside scoop!

Take a look at this exclusive Q&A from the writers and illustrators of the new graphic novels for The Prophecies Begin, Sara Goetter and Natalie Riess!

1. Tell us how you started your illustrating journey…

We met through drawing and posting webcomics online! We became friends and eventually joined a Dungeons & Dragons (Pathfinder, actually) game together, but wanted to skip to just drawing our characters and telling jokes. We started making comics together as a short zine about our characters, and that eventually grew into making entire books!

2. Were you fans/readers of the Warrior Cats books before you took on this project?

Natalie: I remember reading some of them as a kid! I was a big animal fantasy reader and obsessed with Redwall for a lot of my childhood.

Sara: I was a bit too old to get into Warrior Cats when they first started coming out, but like Natalie I also read a lot of Redwall growing up. I got to read the books for the first time while adapting them and had a good time!

3. What made you decide to take on Warrior Cats?

We’ve always wanted to try doing some adaptation work (all of our other books are original works) and Warriors is such a unique challenge. Plus… we love drawing cats.

4. Which character has been your favorite to depict and why?

Natalie: In this book, probably Brokenstar, since I love a dramatic villain! I’m very excited for readers to see Cloudkit in the next book as well.

Sara: I also really liked inking Brokenstar, but Yellowfang and Longtail are up there for me as well! Yellowfang is an obvious favorite, but for Longtail I really like the bully cat design Natalie gave him.

5. What was your favorite story from the original books, and how did you approach adapting it for the graphic novel?

Natalie: I think my favorite for this volume has to be Ravenpaw’s journey. I’m very emotional about him finding his own destiny. Fireheart and Yellowfang’s relationship was also very dear to me, and showing them gaining each other’s trust was a good emotional backbone to all the action and adventure.

6. How did you make decisions about what stories needed to be cut/condensed/moved around to fit into the shorter comic format?

There was a lot of balancing! Rearranging six books into three while keeping the story cohesive and satisfying for each volume was a little bit of a challenge, but it was the first step of the writing process. We did a careful readthrough and made a big outline of all three books, planning out where each event would go and about how many pages it would take. There was a back and forth with Ms. Hunter to make sure we got in the things that were important to her, too.

Basically, it came down to 1) is this important to the plot and moving the characters forward? 2) does it set a mood or tell us more about the characters? 3) will it look really cool to readers and be exciting to draw? and 4) does it fit Erin’s vision?

Volume One was planned to adapt Into the Wild and Fire and Ice, but it’s a little more accurate to say that it adapts Into the Wild and about half of Fire and Ice. There were some storylines we wanted to give a little more breathing room and detail to, so they’ll be picked up in Volume Two.

7. How would you describe your art style?

Hmm…lively! Dynamic! Silly! Scary! Meow!

8. What excited you the most about this project when you first heard about it, and what ended up being your favorite part of working on it?

Warriors has these huge, scary, melodramatic and emotional story beats expressed perfectly sincerely through talking cats. That really speaks to its readers! I was personally really excited to get to work with this type of storytelling.

It’s also an honor to get to make cool comics for a fan following that is so art/storytelling focused. The setup of the books really encourages you to imagine your own stories, and I really hope our adaptation continues that tradition.

I would have to say my favorite part of actually drawing the book is the trees. I love forest environments. It’s like going for a little hike at my desk!

9. What’s something you think Warriors fans would particularly like to know about your approach to this series or your art/writing process in general?

This is our cat Tilly! She “supervises” and helps remind us what a cat actually looks like when we’ve been drawing for hours…she is a major inspiration on this project.

Sara: When we first started sending in character designs for approval we were told that we made the eyes too big and kitten-like on the adult cats…and I realized it’s because Tilly’s eyes are like that.

Natalie: As for our process…when I was designing Fireheart, I decided to make him an orange tabby instead of solid orange because those are much more common, at least where I live (there is a trio living in our neighborhood that I see all the time). I remember reading about an interview with K.A. Applegate (Animorphs) where she mentions making a character a red-tailed hawk because it’s a common bird that readers would probably see fairly often…inspired by this, I wanted Fireheart to look like a cat you might see out in the world and think “oh…there goes Fireheart!”. I gave him his fiery cheek fluffs to give him a bit of “shonen anime” flair.

Another little fun design fact is that Graystripe’s big spiky eyebrows are an homage to James L. Barry’s incredible work on the series!

10. What are you most excited to work on for upcoming books in the graphic novel series?

Volume Two is already drawn and colored, so for Volume Three, I’m really excited to draw the leader ceremony. I love doing the glittery StarClan dream sequences…

11. Be honest, who is your favorite Warrior Cat of all time, and why?

Natalie: It’s hard to choose, but for me it’s between Yellowfang and Cloudtail. They both have very strong personalities and great expressions! Cinderpelt has also grown on me a lot over the course of this project. Outside of TPB, I like Leafpool and Jake!