The Witcher Comic Will Explore Geralt’s Lost Monster-hunting Moments

Polygon’s Brian Crecente had the chance to chat with CD Projekt RED’s business development manager Rafal Jaki at New York Comic-Con about the Wither comic book published by Dark Horse Comics. Here’s a snip:

The run’s story, written by Eisner Award-winner Paul Tobin, will be treated more like the tales found in The Last Wish, a collection of short stories written by franchise creator Andrzej Sapkowski, that details the one-off, everyday adventures of Geralt, rather than the main storylines of either the novels or the games.

“In the books there are several times when Geralt’s whereabouts are not accounted for anywhere,” said Rafal Jaki, business development manager at CD Projekt Red, during an interview at New York Comic Con. “There are actually several years even where we don’t know what’s happening with him. In our heads he was just doing his job so we thought this is a cool place to pick up and try to tell stories. What happened with him in that specific timeline.

“The short stores (from The Last Wish and The Sword of Destiny books) are the essence of what’s really cool about The Witcher world and Geralt himself. We think we really captured the essence of the short stories in the comic book. This is about the witcher, Geralt, just being a witcher. He’s trying to make a living killing monsters and in the process he’s encountering people and dealing with the human condition as we call it. That’s the same for the comic book as well.”

Jaki said the team at CD Projekt Red decided to work with Dark Horse on the comic, both because they appreciate their ability to turn other video games into meaningful comics but also because they love their take on fantasy as seen in Conan, Elfquest and, in particular, Hell Boy.