This book is José Alaniz's second monograph treating the difficult emergence of comics in Russia. His Komiks: Comic Art in Russia (2010) was the first full-length English-language work treating Russian comics as a genre worthy of serious artistic and academic attention. The Soviet and post-Soviet states as well as the mainstream reading public, Alaniz argues in Resurrection, treat(ed) comics as a marginal and virtually sub-literate genre until about half way through the 2010s, when Maus, Art Spiegelman's critically-acclaimed graphic novel about the Holocaust (published 1980–91 serially, first published in Russian in 2013), paradoxically fell afoul of a state ban on displaying the swastika. At this point, as Alaniz narrates, “Russians of the twenty-first century, on a wide scale, once more considered [comics] dangerous objects that had earned the right to be banned” (xvi), and a native industry came into its own.
Whereas Komiks is largely dedicated to establishing Russian comics’ link to earlier graphic narrative forms such as lubok (popular prints made from woodcut engraving) or Soviet serialized poster art (like the civil-war era ROSTA windows), Resurrection focuses on Russian comic art from about 2010 onwards. The work has seven chapters, plus a Prologue and Conclusion, and it includes twenty-five illustrations that showcase post-Soviet comics. Chapter 1, “A Time of Troubles, The First Post-Soviet Decade (1990–1999)” explores the origination of the comics industry and its post-socialist works and studios. The second chapter, “Russian Comics under Putin (2000–?)” introduces the first Russian comics festivals: KomMissia, held in Moscow beginning in 2002, and Boomfest, held in St. Petersburg since 2007. Resurrection is extremely up-to-date and includes information about the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the comics industry and its artists.
Chapter 3, “The Publishers: Why Now? And What Comes Next?” is dedicated to the transition of comics publishing from a subculture to a true industry. Chapter 4, “The Mighty Bubble Marching Society and Its Discontents,” examines the success of Bubble, Russia's first mass-appeal comics and super-heroes. While modeled on the Marvel and DC universes, Bubble is the originator of four natively-Russian superhero series: Besoboi (Demonslayer), Inok (Friar), Krasnaia Furiia (Red Fury) and Maior Grom (Major Grom). Here, as in other chapters, Alaniz details the principal conflict within the Russian comics industry, which is the divide between “auteur” comics, with their artistic gravitas but minimal market-share, and mass-appeal comics like those produced by Bubble. Chapter 5, “Post-Soviet Graphic Narrative in the Mirror, or Komiks that Matter,” investigates the non-fiction turn to autobiographic and memoir-based comics. It includes a useful summary of the Russian comics industry from the 1990s to the end of the 2010s (115). In Chapters 6 and 7, Alaniz analyzes depictions of (hyper-)masculinity in such series as the “spectacularly coarse” (122) Novyi komiks series of the 2000s; and explores disability in graphic novels like I am an Elephant! (2017) by animator and comics artists Lena Uzhinova and film-maker, musician, playwright, and wheelchair user Vladimir Rudak.
Alaniz has been attending comics events since he worked as a journalist in Russia in the 1990s and is personally acquainted with many of the key publishers and festival organizers. The reader undoubtedly benefits from this detailed first-hand knowledge of the genre and its modern creators. Alaniz provides a wealth of excerpts from interviews with figures like Pavel Sukhikh (known as “Khikhus,” the recently-deceased comics artist and originator of KomMissia, or Artem Gabrelianov, the founder of Bubble. A number of devices native to journalistic writing appear in the book, including one-sentence paragraphs, first-person narrative, block-quotes, and the above-mentioned extensive use of interview transcripts. Perhaps it should be no surprise that just as comics break the conventions of more traditional literary forms, this book departs from the conventions of academic writing and analysis. For those working in the field of graphic narrative or those curious about Russian comics 2010–22, Resurrection is your field guide.
