Soviet Comic Books

[Kerby Kolpack]

TheUSSR didn't have its own comics industry, so it couldn't produce stories about itself. And though a few of its allies had some comics being published while being part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, with the possible exception of occasional World War II stories, even they didn't have any major series set in the USSR.

While US superhero comics had many stories involving Soviet characters, such as Marvel's Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), very few were set in the USSR. And when they were, similarly to James Bond films, they didn't really touch upon the life there outside limited settings, such as military installations, Moscow's Red Square and the Kremlin, or KGB offices.

Comics aficionados mostly consider this episode as a reference in discussions contrasting Herg's later works. A comment about the 2011 Croatian edition on Stripovi.com, a forum/encyclopedia for comics publishing across the region of former Yugoslavia, sums up the general impression of the fan community:

Unlike their preceding compatriot Tintin, this pair of hero reporters help the authorities fight the infiltration of the mafia, run by Fantasio's evil cousin Zantafio, who uses a Slavicized acronym Tanaziof as a moniker.

For instance, the episode Corto Maltese in Siberia, published in 1974, involves the immoral Russian adventurer Rasputin, а recurring character based on the self-proclaimed holy man and imperial advisor Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916). In Pratt's fictional universe, Rasputin first appears as a pirate sailor in a story set in 1913, while the episode set in Siberia takes place in 1918 during the Russian Civil War.

The Golden House of Samarkand, published in 1967, is another graphic novel that takes Corto Maltese to Soviet territory. He visits Turkey, Iran and several Central Asian countries, including then-Soviet Uzbekistan and Tajikistan during a treasure hunt set in 1922.

According to Vladimir Bitoljanu, comics book publisher and co-founder of Bunker comics bookstore in Skopje, North Macedonia, the way the Soviet Union is depicted in Hugo Pratt's graphic novels doesn't differ from romantic depictions of dozens of other locations around the world. In a statement to Global Voices he explained:

Comics stories set outside of the familiar locations can either feed on existing mainstream biases and animosities or enrich the understanding of media consumers about faraway lands and cultures. The comics industry is under existential pressure due to the decline of print worldwide, and one way to adapt to the new age is to offer engaging stories reflecting the globalization and cross-fertilization between communities.

The Bridge features personal essays, commentary, and creative non-fiction that illuminate differences in perception between local and international coverage of news events, from the unique perspective of members of the Global Voices community. Views expressed do not necessarily represent the opinion of the community as a whole. All Posts

Global Voices stands out as one of the earliest and strongest examples of how media committed to building community and defending human rights can positively influence how people experience events happening beyond their own communities and national borders.

Very very good piece. Does China have a comics industry? URSS was not strong on softpower such as music, films or animations, they invested on ideology and got lot of fans/followers in the West and beyond

It seems that before the 1990s Chinese comics industry was based mainly on domestic production, and avoided importing comics due to ideological reasons. I am not sure how it progressed in the last three decades.

AFAIK indeed there were occasional comics publications in the USSR, but there was no comics industry with continuous production, with regular weekly or monthly publications, such as in the USA, France or Yugoslavia, where both domestic and imported-translated comics were regularly published in large quantities, becoming an indispensable part of the popular culture.

Octobriana is the name of a Soviet-era comic superheroine, who originated from a major literary hoax spread by Czech artist Petr Sadeck. Sadeck, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s, claimed it was the work of Soviet dissidents. In fact, he commissioned the work from two Czech artists Bohumil Konečn and Zdeněk Burian, who never got full credit for their work. The superheroine, sporting a red star on her forehead, gained unexpected popularity, appearing in various comic adaptations all over the world.

A new comic book has now come out in Czechia, paying tribute to the famous superheroine. I met with its authors, screenwriter Ondřej Kavalr and artist Marek Berger, to talk about the fascinating story behind Octobriana and about their own take on the story. I started by asking them about the man behind Octobriana, Petr Sadeck:

O.K.: It was very closely connected to a young student of the Prague Film School, Petr Sadeck, and this young student, who was a very keen fan of adventure stories, or adventure in general, was the mind behind this character of Octobriana or its first version, Amazona.

As you said, Sadeck was the mastermind behind the story, but he actually commissioned two well-known Czech artists, Bohumil Konečn and Zdeněk Burian, to do the work. What kind of character did they create? And what did she have in common with her western counterparts, such as the Wonder Woman?

O.K.: I would say the most important thing was that this character, this so to say Barbarian queen, was very different from the Western canon of beauty. She had many Asian and African traits in her face, so she was a very unlikely female hero compared to the beauty standards of that time.

Not at all. I think that at this point, we should mention one very important thing, and that is the basic idea behind this whole project. Petr Sadeck, who came across some western comic books during the 1960s, realised that this could be a very nice way to monetise the skills of these two masters of Czechoslovak adventure illustration.

O.K.: Not at that point, although his emigration came by surprise to these two artists. But in the beginning, the two artists were not against it. They agreed that he would try to offer these bits and pieces of the bigger story to foreign publishers.

Exactly. It was, I would say, a very impressive work of imagination. He invented a secret underground movement, purely fictional as we know, called Progressive Political Pornography and based in Kyiv and Moscow and other big Soviet cities.

What Sadeck was claiming at that time was that they were in fact the anonymous authors of Octobriana, inventing her as a way of fighting the oppressive Soviet regime. He even provided some texts and photographs as a proof.

O.K.: Exactly. Today, we can clearly see that many people in the West fell for the trap of this kind of romantic perspective of what was happening in the Eastern bloc. It was a sort of exoticism that Sadeck himself applied when creating the character.

We should perhaps also mention that the two artists, Bohumil Konečn and Zdeněk Burian, were persecuted by the Communist regime for having their work published in the West and they never got credit for all their work. To what extent were they affected by this?

M.B.: Zdeněk Burian, the author of the covers, was the luckier one. He was really famous for making scientific illustrations of prehistoric life, and his dinosaurs were simply phenomenal. He was able to continue his career, but he was only allowed to do the prehistoric reconstructions.

O.K.: We were convinced that after 50 years since this character was born, it was the perfect time to pay all the debts we owe her. On one hand, she had this iconic status and she was really famous. But on the other hand, there were only short or medium length stories featuring Octobriana.

But what I would like to say is that the three men, Sadeck, Konečn, and Burian created the body, and Sadeck gave her a cool name. What we wanted to give her was a soul and a personality that I was somehow missing in the original concept. It was just the body as an object.

O.K.: Exactly. She looks like one of the sex symbols, but what she actually tries to do throughout the whole story is to fight with this status. She tries to revolt against it and to find her real self. She tries to find her true self and her true vocation in the world.

O.K.: For me personally, it is a superhero character, obviously, but in my point of view, her superpowers are more mythical and mythological than the superpowers we usually see in the mainstream, for instance in Marvel comic books.

This is a small but interesting collection of privately-published propaganda comics warning Americans about the menace of communism. Most of these date back to the 1950s. Now relegated to the dustbin of history,back in their heyday, the publications probably did more to shape the hearts and minds of a generation than anydusty political tome ever could.

It goes without saying that the inclusion of a comic book on this page doesn't constitute an endorsement ordenouncement of the views presented in the publication. The comics are just fascinating and forgotten bitsof historical curiosa that capture the spirit of the era.

A tale of factory workers led astray by entitlements and promises of job security. Culminates in a communist takeover of the industry, food rationing, executions, and all that. One of several attempts to drive a wedge between union labor and socialist movements in the US, presumably in recognition of the natural affinity of the two. The story starts off strong, but gets maybe a bit less coherent toward the end. Extremely rare and with a remarkable cover. The artwork is otherwise pretty simple; some of the panels are dialogue-heavy, but the narrative isn't difficult to follow.

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