May 17, 2012

The Rise of Scourge

by Erin Hunter and Dan Jolley

What a relief to find that this book has a different illustrator, Bettina Kurkoski, and with that the comic series has suddenly much improved. Instead of being blocky and nearly featureless, the cats in these pages look much more realistic. They're lively, expressive and have the most wonderful luminous eyes. Reading a book with good illustrations made me want to continue through the series (I checked out the entire Warriors comic book collection at once from the library, ha ha!) where I was doubtful before.

So. All I know of Scourge in the main Warriors series is that he's apparently the leader of one of the clans and an incredibly evil, bloodthirsty cat. This little book tells of his beginnings. As a kitten he was just called "Tiny" because he was the runt of the litter. His siblings picked on him and refused to play with him. Bitter and lonely, Tiny flees his home and runs into some forest cats, who beat him up. Then he ends up in the city where by a stroke of luck he intimidates some alley cats and thus procures food. Now calling himself "Scourge," the little black cat continues to bluff his way around until he's the leader of a gang of alley cats. But then one day some strange cats come asking for him to get rid of a large problem dog. Scourge isn't sure he can really face the dog: what will he do? In the end he also meets up with the forest cats again and has his chance for revenge.

It's a good little story and I'm already curious enough about the character of this mean little cat that I want to keep reading about his adventures.

Edit 5/23/12- I'm a bit disappointed to find that this is a stand-alone in the Warriors comics. There aren't any other books just about Scourge. And some things were never quite explained to me- like why all of a sudden in the later battles Scourge has astonishingly large claws (see the cover illustration). Probably there's an explanation for that in the novels, if I ever get around to reading them.

rating: 3/5 

more opinions:
The Curious Reader

1 comment:

  1. I think this was one of my daughter's favorites in the sereis. She loves Scourge even though he's a bad guy.

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