MISC. MANGA, *The Dragon Prince: Puzzle House

The second prequel graphic novel of The Dragon Prince is the third book to be released through Graphix. Peter Wartman returns from Through The Moon to write this book with art by Felia Hanakata who drew the previous prequel of Bloodmoon Huntress. Instead of focusing on some the more heroic characters, this story instead draws on the children of the TV series secondary antagonist, Viren. Puzzle House shows Claudia and Soren as they are first learning their place in The Dragon Prince storyline. This book came out a few weeks after Season 6 of the TV series premiered which goes over how Viren started down his dark path, so it would be helpful to read this sometime after watching that season.

A younger version of Claudia is training in dark magic being taught by her father, even though her experimenting causes a small explosion in the castle of Katolis. She is brought before King Atticus along with his son Harrow after he married Sarai and he convinces her to keep the spellcasting to a secluded area to stop any further accidents. Claudia listens in on a conversation between Atticus and Viren about how his mentor Kpp'Ar went missing. Claudia thinks that the old mage might have left some hinters on being a better magic user in his abode called the Puzzle House which is one huge puzzle like something out of an old Nintendo game. Our "heroine" convinces her brother Soren who is training to be a knight to go along with her to spec out the Puzzle House. Once there, they find that Kpp'Ar was keeping a stone giant imprisoned there. Claudia returns on her own later on and frees the giant named Kruha who seems like a kind character out of The Neverending Story. She returns to Katolis with a blank scroll which is secretly an enchanted map.

Puzzle House is a fun peak into Soren and Claudia's earlier days that hopefully sets up some plot points for use in future books or the remaining Season 7. The art is up to the same level it did in Bloodmoon Huntress, even though the author's work syncs good enough with a different artist. For followers of The Dragon Prince, they will find the graphic novel beneficial, although it isn't totally essential.