Dark Horse has been publishing a variety of Witcher comics, some direct adaptations of the original stories, some based on the videogame canon, one reimagining Geralt as a yokai-hunting manga hero. Right now there’s a five-issue miniseries coming out about Geralt’s retirement adventures as a vineyard magnate following The Witcher 3’s final expansion, Blood & Wine.
What English-speaking Witcher enjoyers haven’t had the chance to read, however, are the first run of Witcher comics first published in Poland from 1993 to 1995. These six comics included retellings of the classic short stories like The Lesser Evil and The Last Wish, as well as more oddball cuts, like a story about Geralt’s mother and a flashback to his training that depicts the betrayal of the Cat School of witchers, which was based on an outline provided by author Andrzej Sapkowski rather than one of his completed works.
Illustrated by Bogusław Polch, who also provided cover art for some of the novels and illustrations that accompanied the short stories when they first appeared in Fantastyka magazine, these comics provide a pre-videogame idea of what Geralt and his supporting cast looked like. While Yennefer is immediately recognizable, the elves have eyelashes halfway to Zerrikania and Geralt is rocking a topknot and bangs that look like a post-breakup hairstyle he’s already regretting.
Dark Horse’s English-language translation will be available in a single 296-page volume called The Witcher: Classic Collection, and will be released on March 18, 2025. That’s a fair way out, but there’s already a preorder up on Amazon.
