History Webcomic / KatushaGirlSoldierOfTheGreatPatrioticWar

%%* AnyoneCanDie: it is the Russian Front in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, after all

%%* AFatherToHisMen:

* TankGoodness: The whole series rides itself on the tanks, mainly the Soviet's T-34.

** "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyusha_%28song%29 Katusha]]" (sometimes spelled "Katyusha") was a popular song in the Soviet Union during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. As Wiki/TheOtherWiki relates, "It gained fame during World War II as an inspiration to defend one's land from the enemy."

%%* TheNarrator: Katusha

* AnyoneCanDie: it is the Russian Front in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, after all

*** ...and so are the Soviets--even if it's their own civilians
** InfantImmortality: also averted.

* TheCharmer: Uncle Taras
* ChildrenAreInnocent: true of the main characters at the beginning of the war, but very quickly subverted

* AFatherToHisMen[=/=]ReasonableAuthorityFigure:

* UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust:
** During a brief stint in the ''Sicha'' (the Ukranian "Auxiliary Police" established by the occupying Germans), Vadim witnesses (and rescues Zhenya from) the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar Babi Yar massacre]].
** After a battle in the Korsun Pocket, Katusha's brigade captures a German soldier's photo album containing pictures of Babi Yar.
** The brigade also liberates a concentration camp.

* TheNarrator: Katusha
* UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons[=/=]ThoseWackyNazis

* [[RedsWithRockets Reds with T-34s (and Rockets)]]

* TruthInTelevision[=/=]ShownTheirWork[=/=]DoingItForTheArt: The whole book is meticulously researched and accurately drawn. The battles and atrocities shown are (or are based upon) real events.

* WarIsHell: It's a UsefulNotes/WorldWarII story after all.

* ZergRush: How the T-34s take on the Tigers at the battle of Prokhorovka. This is TruthInTelevision.

* ButtMonkey: Older sister Natasha. Her JerkAss husband the Party ''apparatchik'' looks down on her family, is [[YourCHeatingHeart carrying on an affair]], and [[DomesticAbuse beats her up now and then]]. As the Germans are approaching Kiev, he [[DirtyCoward abandons her and their son]]. Then [[spoiler: her son is lost and believed dead after the Germans destroy her grandmother's village]] and she [[spoiler: loses an eye]], and then [[spoiler: is executed as a hostage in reprisal for the murder of a German soldier]].

* CompleteMonster: Prikip Honshar and the "partisans" he ends up running with by mid-war.
** PayEvilUntoEvil: what Zhenya does to him after [[spoiler: Honshar tortures and murders an old rabbi and his pregnant daughter]].

** PayEvilUntoEvil: what Zhenya does to him after [{[spoiler: Honshar tortures and murders an old rabbi and his pregnant daughter]].

** PayEvilUntoEvil: what Zhenya does to him after [{spoiler: Honshar tortures and murders an old rabbi and his pregnant daughter]].

Written and drawn by Wayne Vansant, a veteran of ''The 'Nam'' and other realistic military comics, ''Katusha'' tells the story of a young Ukranian girl and her family living in Kiev when Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union. After the Germans occupy Ukraine, she joins [[LaResistance a band of partisans]] led by her Uncle Taras, an escaped political prisoner, and eventually ends up as a tank commander in the [[RedsWithRockets Red Army]].

->No one was safe. Innocence counted for nothing. The very young and the very old suffered as much, if not more, than the soldiers in the field. In this conflict, Soviet '''women''' fought--and sometimes died--beside their men. They served as fighter pilots and scouts. Some were machine gunners and communications experts. Others were medics and snipers......and some, like me, rode the weapon that, more than any other, won the war on the Eastern Front-- the '''tank.''' My name is Ekaterina Andreaevna Tymoshenko, and this is my story.