Summer 2018, Comics & Prose:

Given I read both versions of this story last night, back-to-back, within an hour, I'm going to rate them together and double up their reviews. I stopped reading the Banished of Muirwood when it became clear you really did need to read the prequel first, and so I was about two chapters into the first book of this series when I stopped.

The comics version of this prequel involves far less novel terminology (used in the trilogy before this whole sequel trilogy collections), but it has far more art. Such as that it forsakes naming things the way we're used to them being (such as the creature being a Fear Liath, but never narrated or called one on the comic page) and yet it, also, made a better use of art in emotional moments (such as Maia giving up her life).

The prose part had so many more sweeping descriptions that did more justice to the surroundings -- the bones of the abbey where the ocean, the cavern in completion. The prose part was, thought, also, lacking a number of the conversations that took place in the comics and the entire lead-in section wtih Maia's father, the city scene with the boy, etc, are all missing entirely from the prose. ( )