The Witcher Volume 1

by Paul Tobin

[inlibrisveritas]

I picked this book up for two reasons, despite one very big issue. The issue is that I have yet to find an instance of The Witcher that doesn’t make me roll my eyes and sigh, I have tried to read the books but never made it very far and the games have been very middle ground in terms of enjoyment. So why pick it up? Well one, I was getting some books ready to be shelved and it was right there, it literally required no effort to check it out, and two because of the artist. I really like Hellboy’s style, and since this has the same style I figured I’d at least enjoy that portion.

So did House of Glass do anything to change my overall opinion of the franchise? In short, no. However, it also didn’t do anything to bring it down farther, so that in itself is a win! House of Glass sets us directly in the middle of the overall Witcher world and story, which unfortunately means that there is almost no backstory on what a Witcher s or who Geralt is. I do have some of that info thanks to other the other media, but I don’t think this would not be a good introduction to the world at large for someone unfamiliar. That aside the story itself is fairly contained and easy to follow, and you can suss out the basics of what a Witcher does. I will say I really love dark fantasy and I love that the Witcher franchise takes ideas that are not typically grimdark and makes them something that would haunt you. So in that aspect, it is pretty good, I love the weird creatures that are in this one and am all for more fantasy like this. I think where this sort of fails is the lack of characterization for Geralt. This is a running issue for the Witcher franchise with me. I just want him to have a personality, but he just doesn’t. All throughout this he just relies on the fact that he is a Witcher and therefore different than most humans, which is fair since Witcher’s apparently are lacking in the emotional range department but damn that doesn’t mean he has to be a cardboard cutout either. It’s just hard to get into a story when the main character is one that you don’t feel anything for and already know will be fine, because he’s just the basic outline of a man’s man hero.

The artwork, however, is a solid win for me. I love Joe Querio’s work on the Hellboy books and think it works well for this one. It has really hard outlines and lots of condensed shadow work that just makes the details pop and really hones in on that creepiness that the heart of the story.

Overall, I don’t really feel too much one way or the other for this one. It’s perfectly fine, but it definitely could have been better. I’ll definitely be moving on to the next volume with the hopes of some added character depth.