The Witcher’s new comic pits Geralt against militant vegans

Geralt of Rivia is back, but this time it’s the version from CD Projekt Red’s video games, not the one from the Netflix show — and he’s starring in a new comic from Dark Horse. The new comic is called The Witcher: Wild Animals, and it’s set for a four-issue run starting on Sept. 20.

In Wild Animals, Geralt meets a strange tribe of some very dangerous people with an interesting and unique way of life that might seem particularly complicated for a Witcher. In Polygon’s exclusive preview of a few pages from early in the comic, we can see how his new and dangerous journey begins:

Image: Bartosz Sztybor, Nataliia Rerekina/Dark Horse Comics

Image: Bartosz Sztybor, Nataliia Rerekina/Dark Horse Comics

Image: Bartosz Sztybor, Nataliia Rerekina/Dark Horse Comics

Image: Bartosz Sztybor, Nataliia Rerekina/Dark Horse Comics

Image: Bartosz Sztybor, Nataliia Rerekina/Dark Horse Comics

Perhaps the best pitch for the story comes from Wild Animals writer Bartosz Sztybor, who said in a statement to Polygon:

The Witcher: Wild Animals which — in short — I would call a postmodern take on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now as an appendix) and Kipling’s The Jungle Book telling a story about conflicted ideologies and — wait for it! — a special kind of veganism, the one that could happen only in the Witcher world.

Image: Nataliia Rerekina/Dark Horse

Sztybor goes on to explain more of what the story is about, saying: “What if there’s a tribe, a flock, a group of people that believe every creature deserves to live? Every creature. Even a monster. And suddenly Geralt, a monster hunter, betrayed and wounded by people comes across this intriguing group. What is going to happen?”

This, according to Sztybor, puts Geralt in a position to answer a lot of very complicated questions for himself throughout the comic.

The Witcher: Wild Animals is drawn by Ukrainian artist Nataliia Rerekina, who said in a statement to Polygon that the books hold a special place for her beyond just her love for the Witcher universe:

The Witcher books and games have always been very popular in Ukraine, so it became an honor for me to take part in such a project as Wild Animals. I experience the stories I draw very closely, and so now my life is divided into two parts — the night when I worry about war and fear missile attacks and the day when I forget myself in the story of Geralt, who faces an unusual enemy and difficult moral choices.

The first issue of the new Witcher comic series will go on sale at comic book stores starting on Sept. 20 and is available for pre-order now.