The world we loved and continue to love, though the author has passed to the great Abbey in the sky came to life in Redwall: The Graphic Novel. Stuart Moore adapted Brian Jacques beloved book.
I would recommend this for those who are already fans as there are some things that would turn a novice reader away. They could enjoy, but the lack of any color to the illustrations could turn some readers off. This would probably be the main issue a fresh to the world would have, but there are others as well. One of those is things are terrible crowded. And because of the black and white imagery, sometimes it is hard to tell who is who unless it is the badger, the old mouse Methuselah, or the Father Abbot himself. I even had trouble with who was Mathias and who was Cornflower (one is a male mouse who will try and become a warrior, the other a maiden mouse who likes Mathias).
Another bump I had was while there are chapter breaks, multiple story arcs happen at once, with little to say “Hey! Switching gears for a few minutes!” Bret Blevins must have been terribly busy creating illustrations for all the battles, magic, and mischief, but it would have nice to make the switches easier.
If you know the story there are few surprises, however a newbie will be able to see the wonderful world of Redwall unfold and how these mice, badgers, squirrels, and other friends able to take on evil pirate rats, an owl (who likes mice for dinner, lunch, breakfast, and a snack), a cat (who does not like the taste of mouse), and wonderfully crazy sparrows.
Some sensitive readers might not be the best for this as there is death (to name some, you see several characters run over by wagons, falling from walls, and a battle with a really BFS) and while there is no real language, there are more mature themes.
And finally, a shout out to Richard Starkings, the one dealing with the lettering. I mentioned them as I believe they might be the reason you can sometimes tell the narrator from the character speech with different fonts. Yet, due to the crowding of the panel and page, sometimes the actual who is a little funky.
