About the Book
On Sunday, June 22, 1941, the morning after Katusha’s graduation, the Germans invade the Soviet Union. As enemy forces occupy Kiev, Ukraine, Katusha and her family learn the Nazis are not there to liberate them from harsh communist rule, but to conquer. They discover there is a special danger for the Jews, and in saving her friend Zhenya Gersteinfeld, Katusha finds her whole family in danger.
During the next four years, Katusha experiences the war on the Eastern Front with all its ferocity and hardship: first as a partisan, then as a Red Army tank driver and commander. From Barbarossa to Babi Yar, from Stalingrad to Kursk, from the Dnipro to Berlin, follow the footprints and tanks tracks of Katusha’s journey through a time of death, hopelessness, victory, glory, and even love.
Seen through the eyes of a Ukrainian teenage girl, Katusha is both a coming-of-age story and a carefully researched account of one of the most turbulent and important periods of the twentieth century, where women served in the hundreds of thousands, and Russians died by the millions.
About the Author :
For more than 30 years Wayne Vansant has been writing and illustrating comics and graphic novels on historic and military subjects, beginning with Marvel's Savage Tales and The 'Nam. Since then, he has produced Day of Darkness, Battron: The Trojan Woman, Blockade, The War in Korea, Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Normandy, Grant vs. Lee, Bombing Nazi Germany, The Battle of the Bulge, The Red Baron, and others.
Review :
“I’m in awe of this book. It’s got everything right. Impressive research, complex characters, passionate yet balanced storytelling, perfect pacing, and a strong female protagonist. We need more graphic novels like this about real heroes.” — Pat Mills, author of Charley’s War, creator of 2000AD featuring Judge Dredd
"Wayne Vansant combines thorough military and historical detail with unforgettable characters in his epic masterwork Katusha…. Vansant’s art is outstanding, demonstrating a great commitment to getting it right with uniforms, landscapes, and armaments, while also showing a knack for facial details that keeps every character in his large cast easily identifiable. Vansant captures the massive scale and significance of the war, but the strength of this book is that it is seen from a personal viewpoint. First, last, and always, this is Katusha’s story." — Foreword Reviews
“Katusha, written and drawn by Wayne Vansant, is quite an ambitious work and a truly immersive page-turner. This is the story of Katusha, a young Ukrainian girl who goes on to fight in the major battles between the Soviets and their Nazi invaders. Follow her story and you gain great insight into one of the greatest conflicts in military history. Vansant puts the reader in the driver’s seat for this riveting narrative.” — Comics Grinder
"Wayne has an amazing ability to tell a compelling story combining both words and images. While history books are full of facts and figures, Wayne is able to immerse you in the immense story of World War II through the eyes of a 17-year-old Girl; Katusha. If you are interested in learning about a different side of history, through a different set of eyes and through a different medium, Katusha should be your next history book." — DoDReads.com
"[W]ith the real and fictional aspects of the story combining flawlessly, you learn a lot but it just happens organically, and you really care about the characters. I love Wayne Vansant’s artwork as much as his text – it’s really original and sincere, a million miles away from plastic cookie cutter ‘super hero’ art. Indeed, Katusha reminds me a lot of Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun’s Charley’s War in its moving qualities and accurate research, but also the fact that both stories unfold from the point of view of a teenage protagonist. An extremely moving tale, one that would appeal to anyone who likes a good story." — Hellbound
