Review: Watership Down: The Graphic Novel adapted by James Sturm, illustrated by Joe Sutphin, based on the novel by Richard Adams

Review: Watership Down: The Graphic Novel adapted by James Sturm, illustrated by Joe Sutphin, based on the novel by Richard Adams 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first read Richard Adams’ Watership Down when I was fifteen years old, and I fell in love with it. I have said this before, but the story truly does mean the world to me. Because I love the original narrative so much, I am usually open to experiencing new adaptations of the story. So, when I heard about this graphic novel adaptation, I was both excited and a little nervous, hopeful it would be a faithful telling of Adams’ story in this new medium. 

This graphic novel is absolutely beautiful! While I would not call it perfect, I believe James Sturm and Joe Sutphin understand and appreciate the material they are adapting and have done a really great job with the project! The main essence of the original work is in this adaptation, and it shows that Sturm and Sutphin have a clear love for the story. 

Because I have talked about Watership Down before and there is a lot to get to in this review, I won’t give a summary this time around. Instead, I’m going to jump right into the review itself. Let’s take a look at this!

Thoughts

I need to talk about the art first! The illustrations in this adaptation are on another level! I was surprised by how much I liked Joe Sutphin’s style. The beautiful scenery, the vibrant colors used, the charming designs of the main protagonists, all work to convey this gorgeous but brutal world of the story. Personally, it is one of the biggest highlights of this adaptation for me. However, there were some drawbacks to some of the character designs, despite how charming the illustrations are overall. I’ll discuss that in more detail in the Artwork section.

Besides that, this adaptation included some scenes that I wasn’t expecting. One of my favorite moments from the climax of the original story was adapted here. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it, because it is small enough that it has been kept out of other adaptations until now. It is a brief scene but, in my opinion, it holds just as much impact here as it did in Adams’ work. 

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I want to change things up a bit and talk about how Adams’ text is adapted for this version of the story. 

Adapting Adams’ Writing 

Perhaps one of the most important things to discuss here is how the source material is adapted. Sturm and Sutphin include many aspects from the novel in this version, but some things did end up being left out. That said, I appreciate that they were able to include some rabbit folklore and adapt those stories into visual scenes, as it allows for breathing room from the main action while expanding upon the rabbit mythos, much like the stories did in the original novel. In the main story, the depiction of Efrafa ended up being a similar strong point. The situation is conveyed through haunting illustrations and jarring speech patterns. This created an air of oppression that made the scenes stand out. 

However, a decision that I felt was a bit odd was the use of Hazel as a narrator at one point in the main narrative. While it is true that the Watership rabbits greatly value oral storytelling, the narration felt like it came out of nowhere, to the point where I didn’t know who was speaking at first. Usually, when a rabbit is telling a story, we see them right away or have context that lets the reader know whom we are hearing from. When this same technique is later used with Dandelion, it works better because we have the context of knowing where he was during the situation he recounts, so it’s easy to tell he is speaking, and he is speaking to a group of kittens during this scene. With Hazel’s narration, he is breaking the fourth wall, which doesn’t work because that technique is used nowhere else in the story. I think, if this technique must be used, having Bigwig narrate instead would work better since the reader has just spent a lot of time following the plot from his point of view. It would tie in better with the flow of events before the rabbits get back to Watership Down.

Artwork

Like I said earlier, the artwork of this graphic novel is gorgeous! There is a charming aspect to the illustrations that work wonders to present all the different scenarios from the novel. However, I do see a problem with some of the character designs. While Sutphin tries to design each set of rabbits depending on which warren they come from (much like the film did), some rabbits are difficult to tell apart from each other. Here, we lose a lot of Adams’ text, so there are no tags denoting who is speaking. It requires more careful study of their designs to distinguish who is who. 

I want to turn away from the main narrative for a second and discuss the illustrations in the El-ahrairah stories that are adapted. Sturm and Sutphin adapt these scenes in such a way that there is this sort of otherworldly distance from the El-ahrairah story being told, separating it from the main narrative, but also keeping the stories close enough that they tie in seamlessly. This close but still separate identity works the same way it did in the original novel, somewhat blurring the lines between Hazel’s group and El-ahrairah’s adventures. 

Depictions of Action 

I think I should briefly touch on the way action sequences are adapted in this edition. This was honestly one of my biggest concerns going in, because Adams pulled no punches in the original novel. If there was violence in a sequence, his prose would depict it openly and honestly. Sturm and Sutphin decided to adapt the violent situations as they are depicted in the novel, so the illustrations are graphic during these scenes. They are not easy to view, but the depiction of the scenes works to show just how dangerous life is for the characters in this story. 

I want to talk about some of the word art used to accentuate events in an action sequence. What I mean is when there is a word used in a panel that denotes a sound. These words are used to convey what has occurred in as succinct a manner as possible. This technique (to the best of my knowledge) is exclusive to the graphic novel/comic book format, and Sturm and Sutphin do use it when it is applicable. One of the most memorable panels for me with this technique is in Part II. I won’t spoil the circumstances of the scene, but the way the sound is illustrated on the page when it occurs shows how it impacts everybody involved, even those not actually near the source of it. The art illustrates the impact of the situation perfectly. 

Adapting Epigraphs 

One of the most memorable things from the original novel is the epigraphs that open each chapter. These epigraphs often worked to help set the mood for the chapter because they matched up with something that was about to happen. Sturm and Sutphin try to adapt at least some of Adams’ original sources. An epigraph introduces each individual part of the story, rather than each chapter like in the novel. 

This technique ended up working really well. In Adams’ text, there is room for all those quotes because the original story is not a visual medium. However, due to the medium being used in this adaptation, including all the quotes could potentially bog down the pacing of the story. So, the graphic novel instead opts to frame the four parts of the narrative with some of the novel’s epigraphs, cutting it down to the concise form needed while still staying true to the original. The epigraphs selected work within the context of the narrative to give the reader a taste of what is to come in that particular part. 

Use of Lapine and the Lapine Glossary 

I see issues with how the rabbit language Lapine was used in this graphic novel. While I love that the language is sprinkled throughout the story, there needs to be something to signal when a character is using a Lapine phrase for the first time. If someone were to be introduced to Watership Down solely through this graphic novel, there is nothing telling them when they need to go to the Lapine glossary in the back of the book to learn a word and understand how it is being used. Helping the reader learn Lapine and how it is used is especially important to do before the closing chapters of the book, because toward the end of the story there is a full phrase that is completely untranslated.

In the novel, Adams put a small marker whenever there was a new phrase being used, which then guided the reader to where the word could be translated before continuing. So, when this untranslated phrase appeared in the novel, the reader was expected and equipped to understand what Adams had written without it needing to be spelled out. The graphic novel does not have this formatting. Simply putting a little asterisk next to a new Lapine term or name in the speech bubbles would help with making the use of the language flow better. It would signal to the reader when to go to the glossary to learn the word being used. 

Conclusion

Out of all the Watership Down adaptations, I think this one is my personal favorite. While there are problems with it, they mostly come down to small details and I think the main story shines through despite these flaws. While I would still recommend the original novel before even touching this graphic novel, I think Sturm and Sutphin have done a wonderful job bringing Adams’ narrative to this new medium. It is a beautiful, faithful adaptation that I am sure will delight both old and new fans of Watership Down alike! 

Update November 20, 2023: Upon further study of the graphic novel, I’ve noticed that I made a mistake in the Adapting of Adams’ Writing section. Sturm and Sutphin actually do frame Hazel’s narration with him telling the story to the rabbits on Watership Down, so the narration does make sense in context. My apologies for missing that.