Graphic novel based on wartime correspondence presented at International Book Arsenal Festival

An excerpt from an upcoming graphic novel by Olga Birzul and Zhenya Oliinyk was presented at the Book Arsenal during the opening of the exhibition “When You Say, “Let’s Go to a Rave,” I’ll Never Say No Again.”

The book is to be published by UA Comix and is based on the personal correspondence between Birzul, a film curator, cultural manager, and author, and her husband, Viktor Onysko, a soldier and film editor who died on 30 December 2022 while performing a combat mission near Soledar. The exhibition features a selection of illustrations from the graphic novel.

Onysko, known by the call sign “Tarantino,” was posthumously awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, III Class, in 2024 and the Order For Merit, III Class, in 2023.

Onysko edited more than 20 feature and documentary films and worked on music videos and trailers, including projects for the Docudays UA International Documentary Film Festival.

“Birzul suggested we make a book. She wanted it to be a graphic novel, but we couldn’t decide on the format for quite a while,” said Zhenya Oliinyk, a Ukrainian illustrator, journalist, and cultural studies scholar. “Birzul wanted it to be a book not only about the time when her husband was at the front, but also about their entire life together. She wanted him to be remembered not just as a soldier, and she didn’t want to be known only as the widow of a fallen hero.”

The creative team initially considered combining excerpts from the couple’s correspondence with comic-style flashbacks from their life before the war. The concept was later abandoned during the production process.

Instead, Birzul offered building the visual narrative around a continuous line running beneath the text and connecting different temporal and spatial dimensions: the reality of war in Ukraine and life in Vienna, where she and her daughter, Zakharia, were staying at the time.

“I liked this idea, particularly because I’m not a big fan of narrative comics that tell a story sequentially with specific characters frame by frame, and I rarely work with this format. Instead, Birzul’s idea allowed us to convey more abstract things and feelings visually: the layering of time, the rhythm and mood of a conversation. There was also a sense of continuity, because when your partner is at war, you never relax, you never forget about the phone, and your thoughts are always elsewhere. I know this from my own experience,” said Oliinyk.

The technique is intended to show the intersection of two worlds and experiences that coexisted in parallel.

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Images: Olga Birzul