Grand Design Publishing has just published KATUSHA BOOK TWO, now available in digital format through ComicsPlus and Google Play, and in digital format to libraries around the world through Overdrive. The follow-up to KATUSHA BOOK ONE (available since 2012 through ComicsPlus and now available through Google Play and Overdrive), KATUSHA BOOK TWO sees our Ukrainian heroine joining the Red Army and undergoing tank training, getting her first taste of combat as a soldier in uniform.
KATUSHA, GIRL SOLDIER OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR is a coming-of-age story told against the backdrop of the bloodiest conflict in human history: the 1941-1945 Eastern Front between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Created by writer/artist Wayne Vansant (Marvel’s THE NAM, Zenith’s BOMBING NAZI GERMANY), KATUSHA is an historical-fiction graphic novel series inspired by the experiences of thousands of women who served in the Red Army as pilots, snipers, tank drivers, and other roles. It tells the story of a farm girl from Ukraine who becomes a Red Army tank commander during World War II. Print editions are now available from Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other online retailers. Ebook editions are available through ComicsPlus and Google Play and will soon be available to libraries and online retailers though Overdrive. The third book will be released in Spring of 2015. Interest in tank warfare of World War II is on the rise due to the enormous success of the video game World of Tanks, with over 75 million registered users.
KATUSHA BOOK ONE opens with young Katusha’s graduation from her tenth and final year of school. The next morning, Sunday June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union. The young woman and her family escape to the forests to begin a partisan war against the German occupiers. In KATUSHA BOOK TWO, Katusha and her sister Milla join the Red Army and are sent to tank school. Trained to operate the mighty T-34, Katusha fights from countryside to cities and learns the steep price to pay for victory.
Vansant has chronicled history in comics format since 1986. He was the primary artist for Marvel’s acclaimed Vietnam War title, THE ‘NAM, and he has recently returned to historical fiction with his three-volume series KATUSHA, an epic of the eastern front of World War II. He has researched, written, and illustrated many non-fiction graphic novels on subjects including the Korean War, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, and the Battle of Antietam. Since 2013 Vansant has released four non-fiction graphic novels through Zenith Publishing, GRANT VS LEE, GETTSYBURG, NORMANDY, and BOMBING NAZI GERMANY with two more to be published in 2014, THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE and THE RED BARON. Vansant is a native of Georgia and served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.
