The Lightning Thief: The Graphic Novel

Percy Jackson is twelve and has been expelled from one boarding school after another. A school trip ends in a monster attack, and that explains why: Percy is a demigod, born to the Greek sea god Poseidon. The monsters of myth never died out.

Camp Half-Blood on Long Island shelters the children of the gods, and Percy is brought there. He arrives in the middle of a crisis. Zeus's master lightning bolt is missing, and Percy takes the blame.

The Olympians will go to war unless the true thief turns up within ten days. Percy crosses the country with two companions: Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and Grover, a satyr assigned to guard him. Their route ends in a reckoning in the Underworld.

This graphic novel adapts Rick Riordan's 2005 novel and came out from Disney-Hyperion in 2010. Robert Venditti wrote the script, Attila Futaki did the art and José Villarrubia the colour. The full-colour panels compress the novel, keep Percy's dry narration, and turn the road-trip set pieces into visual sequences.

At 128 pages it suits reluctant readers and anyone who wants to revisit the story in another form. Five graphic novels adapt the original Percy Jackson series, and this one opens the run.