Animorphs is a Comic-Book Adaptation of the book series of the same name as part of Scholastic's Graphix line. It is illustrated by Chris Grine. The series has so far adapted the first four novels, The Invasion, The Visitor,The Encounter, and The Message.
Tropes specific to the graphic novels:
- Adaptational Curves: Andalites in the books are described as delicate, almost dainty-looking, and somewhere between cute and scary. Elfangor and Visser Three are rendered as very chunky with broad, tanklike lower bodies and heavy thighs. Ax is more lightly built.
- Adaptation Deviation: In the books, Marco's hair was originally longer and he gets a haircut in book 10, The Android, because his cover model has short hair. Here, he has short hair from the start, though in each book, it gets longer.
- Adaptation Dye-Job:
- Jake and Tom's hair is ginger instead of very dark brown.
- Jordan's hair is blonde instead of brown.
- In the second book, one of the guys shooting at them in bird morph has a blond ponytail. Here his hair is reddish-brown.
- In an odd version, the Taxxon's Alien Blood is switched from yellow to blue (possibly because their bodies are already yellowish, so the blood wouldn't be as noticeable).
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: In The Invasion, Elfangor sends the Animorphs his courage while saying <Courage, my friends.> He still says that line in the graphic novel, but it's not explained why.
- Alien Blood: Taxxon blood looks like blue foam. In general, aliens can spill plenty of blood but red Earthling blood is used more sparingly. There's some evident in Tobias's first kill, sticking to his beak. When Marco's hurt as a dolphin though, it's stylized as black.
- Beard of Evil: Chapman has a full beard, something that was never mentioned in the books (and was absent in the TV series).
- Bowdlerise:
- While most of the Family-Unfriendly Violence is intact, The Invasion doesn't depict the Taxxons eating Elfangor's remains.
- The hillbillies in The Visitor are drinking soda instead of beer, and they're played more comically. One of them returns to follow Rachel into an alley, which is portrayed as inept and goofy and a chance for her to scare him rather than as threatening.
- Bait-and-Switch: Marco says no when asked about going on a mission to look for a cloaked Yeerk ship. Then has to clarify he's not sitting out the mission, he's talking about it being a school day and they can't all cut class at the same time.
- Brick Joke: In the first comic, as in the novel, Jake morphs lizard and drops his tail when it's stepped on. In the third comic, while killing time Marco asks Jake if the lizard tail turned into a butt when he morphed back, and if he did, if someone found it and took it to the lost and found.
- Color-Coded Speech: Every character has differently-colored speech bubbles when using thought-speak. Jake is orange, Marco is grey, Tobias is yellow, Cassie is green, Rachel is pink, Elfangor and Ax are blue, and Visser Three is red. In the adaptation of The Encounter, Tobias' hawk instincts influencing him from within is depicted as black thought bubbles with yellow text.
- Composite Character: In the second book, the guy who bothers Rachel after her gymnastics class is Chester, one of the bumbling hillbillies who was shooting at them when they were in bird morph.
- Curse Cut Short: In The Invasion, Rachel calls the Hork-Bajir-Controllers "stupid sacks of lizard...", but gets interrupted by one of them shouting.
- Cut Himself Shaving: In The Invasion, Temrash 114 explains away the injuries his host received from being slapped down a flight of stairs by a fire-breathing hydra alien as being scratched by cats.
- Easter Egg:
- One of the video games at the arcade in the first chapter has a picture of a monster on the side that looks like a Hork-Bajir.
- One panel of The Visitor has a building named "Applegrant Bookshop" in the background, a reference to K. A. Applegate and Michael Grant, the original authors.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In The Invasion Rachel and Cassie are drawn with slightly exaggerated eyelashes compared to the boys, which are absent in the next and subsequent books. Rachel also has earrings in the first graphic novel but not the ones following it, though that could be the result of morphing healing her pierced ears - the book series never says if that happens.
- Fun T-Shirt:
- In The Invasion, Marco wears a T-shirt with the phrase "I heart naps" on it during their first raid on the Yeerk Pool. He says that he doesn't want to ruin any of his good shirts.
- One of the rednecks in The Visitor complains about the Animorphs making him spill soda on his "good shirt". It's a shirt with the word "GOOD" on it.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: In The Invasion, Tobias puts on headphones while walking through the construction site, highlighting how he is hanging at the back of the group and in his own little world.
- Lighter and Softer: While the comic is largely faithful to the books, more is Played for Laughs and dark implications are frequently skimmed over. For example, in book 2 The Visitor, Rachel is catcalled by a college-age man who follows her into an alley; she's afraid and morphs to defend herself and scare him away, then later blames herself (and is blamed by her teammates) for not keeping an eye out and avoiding people like him. In the comic, she says "Don't follow me into this dark alley!" and smiles as if about to pull a prank as she goes, and the character following her is comedic and bumbling and doesn't appear any older than she is.
- Limited Wardrobe: Often averted. The kids' civilian clothes vary, and while they usually use the same morphing outfits sometimes those change as well. By book 3, the boys have found shirts tight enough to morph even if they don't wear them every time.
- Mind-Control Eyes: Animals that have been acquired go into a trance, which is represented here by having swirly patterns in their eyes.
- Mythology Gag: Rachel's letter to Melissa at the end of The Visitor is signed with the "A" from the TV show's logo.
- Narration Echo: In The Invasion, when Jake's narrating to the others about his plan to morph into a lizard to spy on Chapman, he says that "Marco didn't like it." Right underneath, Marco says, "I don't like it."
- Non-Standard Character Design: Everyone has black eyebrows except Mr. Chapman, whose eyebrows are the same brown as his hair. There is also a security guard with gray hair in The Invasion whose eyebrows are also gray. In The Encounter, Dealin' Dan Hawk, who owns the car dealership, as well as one of the human Controllers supervising the truck ship, have eyebrows that are sometimes drawn as black and sometimes as gray, depending on the panel. Later averted when in The Message, Chapman is drawn with black eyebrows.
- Only Six Faces: All the human Animorphs, and most other humans for that matter, have identical facial features. Adults may have different face shapes but usually have the same eyes, mouths, and noses, and other kids all have the same faces. Ax's human morph, which is a combination of his four human teammates, does not in any way stand out.
- Race Lift: In initial previews of The Invasion, Marco had paler skin which was darkened for the final release due to fan feedback.
- Red Is Violent: The sadistic Big Bad Visser Three has red speech bubbles.
- Running Gag: During conversations that start while they're human, one Animorph will often turn to another and say "Gah!" as they hadn't realized the other had already started to morph and are met with a Nightmare Face. And whenever someone is halfway through a feline morph, they'll call Marco "Meowrco".
- Shirtless Scene: As of the second book, Jake and Marco's morphing outfits don't include shirts, though Marco puts on a shirt almost immediately after demorphing. (The books say that Jake wears bike shorts, but doesn't indicate whether that's all he wears.) This has changed by the third book, in which Jake and Marco's morphing outfits now include shirts. In the fourth book, Jake again doesn't wear a shirt while morphing, though Marco does.
- scienceMarchesOn: In the original story, Marco gets a female wolf so they wouldn't have to deal with two males fighting for dominance. This is specifically brought up and debunked in the comic, and instead changed to Marco not reading the wolf's cage.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: In this adaptation, the kids each got to choose which wolf they acquired. Marco complains about having to morph a female wolf and is told that he chose her. He protests, asking how he was supposed to know which was which, only to be told that it had said so on the cage door. Either he Failed a Spot Check that badly, or he'd actually wanted this specific morph.
- Transformation Horror: Fully portraying how horrific-looking morphing is written to be would take a lot of time and detail. Chris Grine's rendering is easier on the eyes but still quite a bit more grotesque and detailed than on the book covers, and comes with sound effects.
- Truer to the Text: Unlike the TV show, the graphic novels follow the books' plots note-for-note with only minor changes.
- The Un-Smile: When Temrash tells Jake about how great it is to be a full member of the Sharing in The Invasion, Tom briefly regains control of his facial muscles in an attempt to warn him. It's depicted here as a strained, forced smile with tears in his eyes.
- This Is Reality: In The Invasion.Marco: You guys are crazy! This isn't a comic book or...or whatever! It's for real!
- Verbal Tic: When Jake talks halfway between his human and tiger forms, he sometimes slips "meow" into his words.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Rachel's Stress Vomit in The Visitor after the shrew incident is shown from above with her head obscuring the toilet.
- Your Size May Vary: Taxxons in the books are described as cylindrical aliens ten to twelve feet long, which can raise the first third of their bodies upright to use their hands. Taxxons in the first graphic novel loom taller than Hork-Bajir. They're smaller in subsequent issues.
