I was at the comic book store earlier and noticed that The Witcher: The Bear and the Butterfly is now out in a paperback volume. It’s a short, four issue series that came out last year.

I enjoyed it. The artwork is good, but not groundbreaking. I loved the story, and the characters’ dialog is well written. The banter from the side characters draws you in to the world right away, too – something that’ll be familiar to fans of the games. It’s the only Witcher comic that I’ve read, so I can’t compare it to any others, but it captured the familiar elements of a quest from the games. And it does feel like some kind of quest that would be in the game. It doesn’t mention any kind of larger story taking place; just a self-contained adventure here.

Speaking of which, I don’t think you’ll need to have played the games (or seen the TV show, or read the novels, etc.) to enjoy this. If all you know about Geralt is that our hero is the protagonist of a fantasy RPG, you won’t be lost.

However, I did notice that it’s just 104 pages total, and $20. I don’t know how pricing usually goes with Dark Horse Comics, but that’s almost twice as much per page as the DC volumes I’ve read recently. So, that may affect your decision. It won’t take long to get through it.