STEPAN.COOL
comic book agency
comic book agency
Best stories with pictures from Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
Masha Protas
Masha is a very young but super-promising and already successful artist. She started from a very popular webtune «Cheap and Angry» that was recently reorganized into 3 fat paper books, 200+ pages each. The whole story tells about a young guy who ran away from his abusive family in deep countryside to a big city. He meets a lot of kind people, makes new friends, but still the only thing he wants is to be a wanderer. Together with his new friend he will continue his endless trip, but it will be hard to run from himself... Beside a really nice and personal story (based on the author’s early life), this book is deeply impregnated with post-Soviet vibes, an athmosphere of social housing, residential areas and carefree youth. This book got several reprints and the summary print run is more than 30 000 copies.
Eugene Kiyamau
Eugene is an extremely talented comic book artist from Belarus. He started from small funny fanzines in Belarusian language, and his first big book fantasy «Irving, the Evil Wizard» became a huge success. With the humor of the current interests (King gave an order to Irving to rescue Third Reich authorities from Hell to make the Kingdom great again), it got 3 reprints and thousands of positive reviews. Irving became the most remarkable character at the Post-USSR comic book scene. A few years after «Irving and Varvara the Barbarian» was published — an iconic acid fantasy adventure with rude and topical humor that you love in Adult Swim classic cartoons. You even can find a small animation with Irving on YouTube.
After the protests in Minsk of 2020 and the events of 2022 Zhenya was forced to run from Belarus and now lives in exile in the EU.
Right now available:
After the protests in Minsk of 2020 and the events of 2022 Zhenya was forced to run from Belarus and now lives in exile in the EU.
Right now available:
- Irving the Evil Wizard, 96 pages;
- Irving and Varvara the Barbarian, 196 pages;
- Irving and Varvara VS Vampires, 10 pages special;
- Jan Višnia — small strips about mysterious special agent inspired by Spirou and James Bond.
Alexey Gorbut
Aleksey has always been very inspired by classic comics art by Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. In his stories you can feel the vibe of mysteries of Lovecraft and Poe, or trash horrors of the 80s. During his long carrier as an artist he has worked in mainstream publishing companies such as Bubble Comics, and with big book projects such as Tolkien-inspired tales «The Ring of Darkness».
Right now we could manage licenses for:
Right now we could manage licenses for:
- Merrikh, a short black and white story inspired by the art of Sergio Topi and ancient Egypt. 20 pages;
- The Isle of Maniacs, an 80s trash chase horror, 86 pages;
- Yellow Beatle, noir-styled story about a mummy-antihero, 80 pages,
- Necromancers of Zothique, beautiful black and white story based on the World of Clark Ashton Smith, 86 pages;
- Ereshkigal, a short story about a Mesopotamian goddess with the vibes of classical fantasy, black and white, 22 pages;
- The Mistress of the Copper Mountain, a grim fairytale based on the Slavic myths, full of colors and beauty, 14 pages.
Masha MINAVA Bogatova
Masha is a popular author who has been drawing comic books for many years already. Masha was a winner of BOOMFEST 2015. She also had a publication in the US, and an exhibition in Finland.
It's easy to recognise her very sensual art style — pastel and crayons. Her stories are mostly about self-acceptance and friendship.
At this point she has 6 published books:
It's easy to recognise her very sensual art style — pastel and crayons. Her stories are mostly about self-acceptance and friendship.
At this point she has 6 published books:
- Mishka Alcoholic — a fanzine about love for wine, 28 pages;
- Gabitus — a touching story about a girl who feels like a dog, and nobody could see her real identity, 80 pages;
- Search — short stories from the early years in art, 68 pages;
- October 2018 — everyday drawing challenge, mostly about trips and friends, 44 pages;
- Mishka's Chronicles — about self-acceptance in big companies, and bad habits, 120 pages;
- Stress — short stories about surviving 2020, COVID, and more, 164 pages.
North Carolina
An original artist who draws her inspiration from classic comics, American pop culture of the 80s and 90s, and contemporary underground art. Skate, punk rock, and childish naivete - that's what the artist's comics are about. In 2022, an exhibition of her portraits was held in New York, and even earlier both of her independent comics were translated into English.
At this moment there are three books available:
At this moment there are three books available:
- Bubble Gum Monster — imagine Venom meets Megg, Mogg and Owl, and together they do nothing illegal. 64 pages;
- Black Mike — crazy wolf-head and his friends are coming to hang out in town, as the gangs did in Hollywood movies. 120 pages;
- Welcome to North Carolina — compilation of all the works by the artist, starting from early stories for kids, and ending with an art gallery of portraits that were exhibited in the US.
Alexey Hromogin
Alexey is an award-wining artist of BOOMFEST 2017. He is also well-known because of his melancholic pieces of art about Russian's most important persons — Yuri Gagarin and Alexander Pushkin. Done mostly in black and white, his stories are inspired by the 90s Russian art house movies, folklore and modern life in small towns.
Right now available:
Right now available:
- Light in the Forest — horror at the edge of True Detective and Eastern European folklore, 96 pages.
- The First Man on Earth — philosophical etude about the first man in space — Yuri Gagarin. He once said that being in Space he didn't meet any God. But what if he did? 120 pages;
- Author — a short and funny story, an anecdote about Russian most famous poet Alexander Pushkin, 60 pages;
- Sunflower — a total deconstruction of superhero genre in a post-Soviet setting, Russian 'Watchmen', 496 pages;
- Trillogy «Time of Troubles» — 3 short stories about modern Russian atmosphere — horror, journalism slice of life and a sad story about a boy who is afraid of everything and lives in a bunker. 160 pages.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo lives and works in the suburbs of Porto, Portugal and has produced drawings, writing, comics and music under various pseudonyms for over a decade. Self-publishing and editing comics since 2008, Rudolfo has created over 40 independent publications and participated in various anthologies in Portugal and abroad, as well as collaborating with a variety of artists, musicians, and writers. Rudolfo is known for their work on the Teenage Mutant comic “Negative Dad” (written by Nathan Williams and Matt Barajas, 2013), the autobiographical surrealist ramblings on “Molly” (originally self-published by the artist in Portuguese in 2014, it was published in English by Palpable Press as “Memory Drain” in July 2022), and the misadventures of Musclechoo in “TRUMP CARD” (2017), “JUNGLE WARFARE” (2020) and “SPICY” (2021).
Oleg Tischenkov
One of the oldest Russian comic book artists alive! Back in 2000s, in LiveJournal age, he was super-popular with his philosophical strips about a bald man (Oleg himself) and his cat. Sometimes he still posts new strips with those characters on his Instagram page. Oleg also worked as a cover illustrator for different magazines (like Rolling Stone, etc). And once his original pages have been to space! Books available now:
- Best strips of good ol' CAT strips;
- Grey and a cat — surrealistic comic book based on a real event — when Russian officials sent an Olympic torch of Sochi Olympic Games 2014 to space to light it there;
- Magic Fairytales of Robots — QR-code-inspired children’s book.
Shadow Fight comics
A special unexpected guest at our festival of indie comics talents — a story based on a famous mobile game «Shadow Fight», made in the best traditions of mainstream video-games entertainment comic books! Colorful, full of action, familiar heroes, piles of fanservice. Millions of fans of the game all around the world:
- US — 33 MLN;
- China — 22 MLN;
- Turkey — 33 MLN;
- India — 76 MLN!
3 of 5 single issues available, those could be collected into 1 book.
- US — 33 MLN;
- China — 22 MLN;
- Turkey — 33 MLN;
- India — 76 MLN!
3 of 5 single issues available, those could be collected into 1 book.
Contact us to get the sample PDF's and additional info:
Email: agency@stepan.cool
