Wayne Vansant’s epic war story KATUSHA, GIRL SOLDIER OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR is being made available to read for free at www.katushagirlsoldier.com.  KATUSHA  (according to babynology.com, Katusha is a dimunitive form of Russian Ekaterina and Yekaterina, meaning “little pure one”. Katusha is also a famed Russian war song written shortly before World War II)  tells the story of a farm girl from Ukraine who becomes a Red Army tank commander during World War II.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, KATUSHA is created by writer/artist Wayne Vansant (Marvel’s THE NAM, Zenith’s Graphic Histories series).  Inspired by the experiences of thousands of women who served in the Red Army as pilots, snipers, tank drivers, and other roles, it forms a sprawling epic that will total three volumes and over five-hundred pages upon completion.

The first two graphic novels in the series, KATUSHA BOOK ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS and KATUSHA BOOK TWO: THE SHAKING OF THE EARTH are currently available in digital and print format from Grand Design Publishing.  The webcomic version of KATUSHA will serialize both, adding a new page every day, with BOOK ONE completing in June and BOOK TWO completing at the end of 2015.  The third and final volume, expected in print in mid-2015, will begin serialization in January 2016.

KATUSHA has received praise from critics and comics professionals. History magazine Armchair General Magazine included KATUSHA in its “Stuff We Like” column.  Pat Mills, writer of the legendary British war comics series CHARLIE’S WAR has praised Katusha for dealing with a chapter in history that’s been overlooked in the West.  Garth Ennis, writer of PREACHER and WAR STORIES (which includes THE NIGHT WITCHES, a story about Soviet women pilots) said of Katusha, “It’s great to see the story of the Soviet women tankers kept alive. Wayne Vansant has done a magnificent job with these first two volumes of Katusha; I look forward to reading more”. Print editions are now available from Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other online retailers. Ebook editions are available to consumers through ComicsPlus, Google Play, Kindle, and (soon) Comixology, and to libraries though Overdrive and iVerse.

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 six non-fiction graphic novels through Zenith Publishing.  Vansant is a native of Georgia and served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War era.