ROCKETEER: PAVLICHENKO CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN SOARS TO NEW HEIGHTS!

BUT WHO EXACTLY WAS LYUDMILA PAVLICHENKO?

Born Lyudmila Mikhailovna on July 12, 1916, Lyudmila Pavlichenko wanted to be a teacher.  Instead, she became the most successful female sniper in history.  Born in in the Ukrainian city of Bila Tserkva, Lyudmila and her family moved to Kiev when she was fourteen.  A self-described tomboy who was fiercely competitive and enjoyed sports, she joined a shooting club and became an accomplished sharpshooter. In 1932, she married Alexei Pavlichenko, and gave birth to a son, Rostislav (1932–2007). However, the marriage was soon dissolved, and Lyudmila and her son returned to live with her parents. The single mother spent her days working in a factory while attending night school at Kiev University. At university Lyudmila studied history and was a member of the school’s track team. Extraordinarily talented with a rifle, the past Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge awardee also enrolled in a Red Army sniping school.

Lyudmila was in her fourth year of study when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.  She was among the first round of volunteers to enlist at her local recruiting office army. Initially pressured to be a nurse, she used her background as an amateur sharpshooter and her awards to join the infantry and become a sniper. 

The principal battles she fought in were the Siege of Odessa (August-October 1941) and the Siege of Sevastopol (October 1941-July 1942).  She quickly proved her skills under fire.  During the Siege of Odessa, she recorded an astonishing 187 kills.  In the Siege of Sevastopol, her tally had risen 257 fascist soldiers. At this point, her skills were renowned within her own army, as well as the German army. As a result, Lyudmila was assigned more and more dangerous missions, including counter sniping with one such duel lasted three days (she came out victorious).  The German army attempted to bribe her to defect and threatened to dismember her into amounts equal to each of her kills. Unfazed, Lyudmila relished the fact that the Nazis accurately knew her kill numbers.  After a year of constant fighting (and the death of her second husband, Alexei Kitsenko), she was badly wounded by a mortar shell in June 1942. By this time, Lyudmila boasted 309 confirmed enemy kills, making her the greatest and most dangerous sniper in history. The twenty-five-year-old was now deemed too critical to the Soviet propaganda effort. She was promoted from Senior Sergeant to lieutenant and in September of that year, Lyudmila became the first Soviet citizen invited to the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to drum up support to open a second front against Nazi Germany.  She became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a U.S. president when Franklin Roosevelt welcomed her to the White House.  Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to tour the U.S. and talk about her experiences, and during the tour, the two struck up a friendship. 

Unfortunately, the press did not take her seriously.  In a 1942 Time magazine interview she stated, “I am amazed at the kind of questions put to me by the women press correspondents in Washington. Don’t they know there is a war? They asked me silly questions such as do I use powder and rouge and nail polish, and do I curl my hair? One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat.”  In due time she would find her voice, famously admonishing sexist reporters in Chicago with: “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old, and I have killed 309 fascist invaders by now.  Don’t you think that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”  The crowds roared in support. 

She toured England as well before returning to the Soviet Union to train other snipers.  Eleanor Roosevelt would say of Lyudmila “There is something very charming to me about the young woman, Junior Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko. She has suffered… and is suffering something which is universal and binds all the world together regardless of language.”

Junior Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko would survive the war and finish her education at Kiev University and begin a career as a historian. He eventually rose to the rank of Senior Researcher in the Soviet Navy and play an active role championing the rights and benefits of her fellow veterans of the Great Patriotic War. She suffered a stroke and died on October 10, 1974, and was buried with full honors as Hero of the Soviet Union.

For more information on Lyudmila, please see this excellent article:

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/lady-death-red-army-lyudmila-pavlichenko

Rocketeer: Pavlichenko Special Art Edition

Momentum continues for Rocketeer: Pavlichenko on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunded platforms in its first full week.

Rocketeer: Pavlichenko Special Art Edition! features Tucci’s the original story that appeared the Eisner Award winning in Comic For Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds, plus pages of never-before published concept artwork, including rough layouts, pencils, inks, and script.

In Rocketeer: Pavlichenko, our hero, Cliff Secord, encounters the real-life, Ukrainian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko in the Crimean Mountains during World War II. Lyudmila was credited with over 300 kills during World War II, making her the most successful female sniper in recorded history and as you’ll find out, she is going to have to put all those skills to the test to save our hero.

The 32-page full-color art special also explores just who this extraordinary young Ukrainian woman was and pays tribute the Rocketeer’s legendary creator, Dave Stevens.

About Billy Tucci

Inkpot Award recipient Billy Tucci is a cartoonist best known for his modern-day samurai saga Shi. Through his company, Crusade Fine Arts, Shi has been printed in five languages and sold more than 3 million comic books. The graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology contributed to the Eisner Award Winning, Comics For Ukraine: Sun Flower Seeds and Love Is Love. Billy has also earned the prestigious Diamond Comics Gem Award and his DC Comics’ graphic novel, Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion, was awarded the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal. The Lost Battalion featured the real-life 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was comprised of Japanese American soldiers. His earnest retelling of the Christmas story in A Child Is Born has quietly turned into an international blockbuster, winning the Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year Award.  Billy’s critically acclaimed Miss Fury: Joy Division saw the return of the Golden Age Icon for Dynamite Comics. His Crusade Comics has recently released a series of new Shi graphic novels, Return of the Warrior, Haikyo, and Sakura. Crusade as also released the collected editions, Shi: Omnibus Vol. Senryaku Omnibus, Shi: Way of the Warrior Original Art Edition via Kickstarter and Indiegogo uniting backers from over fifty countries and bringing Crusade Comics’ crowdfunding campaign totals to over $1,500,000.00.