Review by Ian Keogh
A frequent drawback of the Witcher’s trade is people scared of monsters appear willing to pay to have them killed, but once dead those people become reluctant to pay up. Natalalia Rererkina’s sample art shows Geralt in just such a situation, a ship’s crew discovering their courage once the monster slaughtering is over. His escape from the boat leads him to the British Isles, well away from of his usual wanderings. There he meets Ekerot, leader of all around him, who revels in slaughter. Before then, though, there’s a conversation with an unconventional alternative leader, one who prizes the lives of the local monsters and wouldn’t see them slaughtered.
The system of switching the artist with every new Witcher graphic novel hardly seems to harm the series. Every artist brings something different, and none of them have yet disappointed, yet even on that scale Rerekina shines. Her art is delicately cinematic, and very, very good. Her layouts maximise the possibilities, there are no shortcuts, and the people display their personalities, while her third chapter monster is jaw-dropping.
Bartok Sztybor favours plots where Geralt is confronted with differing points of view and has to figure things out. In The Ballad of Two Wolves it involved determining who was telling the truth, but here the truth is largely in the open, but it concerns ideologically opposing points of view. Besides which, the main parties disagreeing are very capable of sorting things out themselves, but Geralt’s arrival supplies a distancing pawn. This is also another case of bringing modern ideas to the past, so we see a group whose respect for animals extends to a vegetarian diet and aggressive action along the lines of animal rights activists.
Sometimes it’s not worth putting yourself in the middle of local conflicts, and that’s the choice Geralt is heading towards, but Sztybor has other secrets still to be revealed.
If you want to sample one Witcher graphic novel, this is the one to go for. It delivers the mood of the series amid some excellent art and decisions not easy to take, while as it’s horror unpleasant surprises await.
