The Silver Eyes (Five Nights at Freddy's Graphic Novel #1)
Published December 26th 2019 by Scholastic Inc. (first published September 27th 2016), Paperback 192 pages
Don't miss the first-ever graphic novel for Five Nights at Freddy's, an adaptation of the #1 New York Times bestselling novel The Silver Eyes illustrated by fan-favorite game artist Claudia Schröder!
Ten years after the horrific murders at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza that ripped their town apart, Charlie -- whose father owned the restaurant -- and her childhood friends reunite on the anniversary of the tragedy and find themselves at the old pizza place which had been locked up and abandoned for years. After they discover a way inside, they realize that things are not as they used to be. The four adult-sized animatronic mascots that once entertained patrons have changed. They now have a dark secret... and a murderous agenda.
Complete with new information and tense, terrifying illustrations, fans won't want to miss this graphic novel adaptation by Scott Cawthon, Kira Breed-Wrisley, and Claudia Schröder, whose stunning artwork has been featured in the games.
User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This is how NOT to do a graphic novel adaptation.
The Silver Eyes story is a complex one, and if you’re going to turn it into a graphic novel, you need to be prepared to handle the complexities of the story, and do a lot of explaining through art and visual exposition. Nothing of the sort happens here. Instead, we get a watered-down, bite-size version of the original story. It’s “The Silver Eyes”, diluted Saturday-morning-cartoon edition.
Character information is next to nonexistent. We know that they’re childhood friends and Charlie’s dad owned the restaurant. That’s about it. There is no additional information given on any of the other characters and why they’re important, so most of them just feel shoehorned in for no reason other than to fill out the cast. Characters either read like caricatures (Carlton is a wise guy! Jessica is a pretty blonde!) or flat extras (Lamar is black. John is a guy).
The art is abysmal. The anatomy is terrible, the colour palette is far too bright and saturated, and the character designs look like something out of a bad webcomic. Something about it, I don’t know exactly what, put me in mind of “CTRL+ALT+DEL”, which is absolutely never a good sign.
Jessica looks like the villain in a “not like other girls” meme, with lots of pink lipstick, huge earrings, and outfits that use the same bright pink no matter what lighting she’s standing in. John has no defining features whatsoever—he’s just a brown-haired guy with a brown jacket. The only character whose design feels like an actual design is William/Dave, whose design I admittedly really liked, even if there are some points where his design is inconsistent or just a bit much (Why is he so thin everywhere else but his silhouette is built like a linebacker in the police car? Why does he still look insane in the peaceful photograph of him and Henry?). The problem is that this makes the other characters seem even more flat and uninspired in comparison.
There is no emotion conveyed in most of the art whatsoever. No emotional lighting, no memorable facial expressions, and lots of clunky attempts at showing emotion, such as large, bright blue tears and sweat droplets. The technical aspect of the art is awful, too—character’s colours don’t change to match lighting, shadows move orientation from one panel to the next. There’s even some places where important transitional panels are just cut altogether, making the reader guess what went on between these panels (Charlie hears a loud thud and is then hugging Marla, who I’m guessing had knocked on a door and Charlie opened it; Charlie slams a door in a room she’s never shown approaching or entering; etc.).
A story like FNaF could have fantastic graphic novel art, with lots of mood lighting and clever perspective changes. It’s a horror story with haunted robots. Do something creative with the fantastic world you’ve been given! Glitching words, creepy effects making use of the metal in the animatronics...I’ve seen so many clever things done by artists in the fandom, and it’s an absolute shame that in a professionally illustrated, official graphic novel, not a single creative opportunity was taken. Panels move along with no sense of creativity or artistry. When it comes to art, it’s one of the laziest graphic novels I’ve ever read.
It also seems that there was an attempt to tone the story down in order to market it to a younger audience, and this attempt didn’t go well at all.
Unfortunately, it’s a problem FNaF fans are all too familiar with, with ten-year olds on YouTube watching playthroughs and then becoming obsessed with a franchise they don’t understand and aren’t ready for. This has been much to the detriment of the older fans (and original audience), who now have to sit through things like this.
This was published under Scholastic’s Graphix label, and unlike the original Silver Eyes trilogy, there is no content warning, meaning that things had to be toned down, since it was being marketed to younger fans. This is a real problem, because it means we’ve lost out on what could have been a great graphic novel that makes use of the horror genre in a new and creative way for the original audience of FNaF.
Instead, we get bright red, sparsely used, Monty Python-esque blood and awkward attempts to lighten the tone of a horror story about murdered children. For example, unlike the original novel, it isn’t made clear that the animatronics are haunted by the spirits of the kids who died in them, so you’re just left confused as to why they’re haunted. Michael/Golden Freddy is the only one that’s explained, and even then it’s very softly. These attempts at making the story kid-friendly are made even more awkward by the points in the story that were kept from the original book, such as William/Dave’s graphic explanation of death-by-springlocks, and Clay’s mentioning how he saw the blood streaks left by Michael’s body. It feels like they couldn’t quite decide whether to keep the original tone or make it a kiddie comic, so they just did both.
We need a new FNaF graphic novel, one that’s actually marketed to people who can appreciate it. This watered-down, bland attempt was just laughable. But laughable in the way where you’re not really laughing, you’re cringing and wishing PewDiePie had never uploaded a playthrough.
Rating: really liked it
Update: After reading the actual novel that this book was based on I will change the rating from 3 stars to 2. Considering how much information was in the book, I feel like this graphic novel failed at delivering the story properly.
Rating: really liked it
The book was down right creepy BUT SUPER GOOD Dave/willam afton supoosedly the nightgaurd is the creepest character his facial expreesions will send shivers down you spine and when he shows you his scars from the suit witch wasent shown in the games but was a good feture same with the animatronics trying to keep the others safe from willam. super good book would highly reccamend
Rating: really liked it
*I have an ARC of this book*
I like to think I'm pretty familiar with the lore of FNAF (Thanks Game Theory!), but I'd never read the books. But when I got the chance to read an ARC of the graphic novel of Silver Eyes, I was curious. I do think it suffered a little bit from not being the completed version because 98% of the drawings are still rough drafts and not finished or colored so I had a little trouble figuring out which character was which sometimes. But it was fun to read. I think it's also a book that I'm glad I read in graphic novel form. I think I would have lost interest and given up if it hadn't been. I probably won't read the rest of the books, but since I got this one for free, I wasn't going to turn the opportunity down.
Rating: really liked it
A quick read, it only makes sense if you are familiar with FNAF. It gets a five because Charlie/Charlotte/The puppet/The marionette is my favorite character.
Rating: really liked it
Short graphic novel based on the full novel. Almost too short but good for a recap of what happened in a short read. Read the novel for the full story. Illustrations are great at showing potentially confusing characters/events
Rating: really liked it
After sleeping on it, going to 2 stars. Too violent, not enough answers and I just didn’t enjoy it. Original review down below.
Super creepy and I’m not sure I quite understand about the kids who were killed and how the missing twin ties into everything and who killed the father and I’m left with more questions then answers. 3, I’m confused, stars.
Rating: really liked it
I really think this story lends itself better to the graphic novel format. A lot of the problems I had with the novel were missing from this adaptation. While I wasn’t in love with the art style, this was still a quick, spooky read.
Rating: really liked it
I enjoyed this as an introduction to the Five Nights At Freddy's series (which until recently I thought was only a game!) Will definitely be picking up more of the graphic novels in the series in the future. Sufficiently creepy, spooky and twisty to keep the reader in suspense. My only criticism would be the language the teenagers use is very proper and formal, doesn't really feel right for the group of friends. But that wasn't enough to put me off.
Rating: really liked it
I debated on whether I should finish reading the novel trilogy before tackling the graphic novel interpretations or not...but I'm glad I didn't wait. The original story is still fresh in my mind and I'm thankful because SO MANY details were cut from this interpretation! That's fairly common when taking a text aqnd transferring it to comic form, but like...there was important things cut. Also, the very little characterization to be had in the source material is watered down even further here.
The artwork was so ugly too but it kind of worked to build up the creep factor. Looking at you, Dave. Unlike most FNAF material, especially given the visual media that this is...there was no extra hidden bits to be had here.
Skippable for sure.
Rating: really liked it
This book was ok, uh not my best choice but you know I needed something to read in this time
Rating: really liked it
I couldn’t find a competent review of this book online, and my 9 year old wanted to read it. The reading level is 4-8th grade, but I wanted an assessment of content as it was described as a young adult horror graphic novel. I was curious how the content compared to Goosebumps.
The writing is choppy. The book certainly contains the chase scenes I anticipated after reading a brief description of the video game.
I don’t know what age this book is for, but I think it is appropriate when the kid is ready for the following content/themes:
- children being murdered (depicted on drawings by children, described in text)
- parental suicide
- torture suit description(which deploy metal hooks into the person wearing them and which kill the person slowly) - including a depiction of this happening
- sex joke - “do you know what I put you inside?” “Your girlfriend”
- parents coping with the disappearance of their son
- abduction: depiction of a preschooler watching her brother be abducted, abduction of a teenager
- murder: depiction of murder of an adult, attempted murder of a teenager
The main characters are mostly teenagers -I think they are almost college age.
Lastly, even though the main characters solve the disappearances/murders, they do nothing to resolve the case/bring solace to the parents of the abducted. Highly unsatisfying storyline.
Rating: really liked it
[especially Dave. What got me was when they showed pictures of him with Henry, and he looked like a complete nutcase, even though it was supposed to be a nice, normal picture). (hide spoiler)]
Rating: really liked it
This is more of a complimentary graphic novel to the original book rather than a standalone. A lot of information is missing for anyone who picks up the graphic novel if they've never read the book. I had to read a summary of the original book to understand the backstory and all character relationships. I enjoyed the artwork, but this graphic novel was lacking in story development and was very confusing in understanding the plot.
Rating: really liked it
I love this book! I’m really into Five Nights at Freddys right now. I played the game and learned the lore in the game and made theories and this throws them all off, so I’m a bit confused but other than that amazing book and can’t wait to get the rest of the series!
