o c t o b r i a n a


Octobriana, "the Russian Barbarella", has inspired various artists from Trina Robbins to Bryan Talbot (appearing as a side character in his legendary Luther Arkwright comics) to Finland's Reima Mäkinen, since the publication of the book Octobriana And The Russian Underground in 1971. My first encounter with Octobriana unpredictably took place as a kid when I browsed copies of old "Seura" magazines in -- of all places -- my grandma's garage in Muhos, Finland, and found an article about the underground art of Russian dissidents, Octobriana comics among them. Years later I managed to learn more about this character, which had intrigued me since my early discovery, and I found out it was later revealed that the whole thing was a clever hoax perpetrated by a Czech artist called Petr Sadecky. It didn't diminish the charm and mystique of this gorgeous Amazon-like heroine, though -- far from it. These days, Octobriana seems to pop out in most unpredictable places: for example, you can spot an Octobriana tattoo on Billy Idol's arm in one of his videos. You can find more Octobriana information and art from the links below.


Octobriana Links:

Octobriana page @ Demon Star Press

Octobriana page @ Tiger Mountain

Octobriana Online

Octobriana page by Reima Mäkinen

Octobriana 30th Anniversary Special

Octobriana & Finger of Lenin

Octobriana [search results @ Google]

[Comics @ pHinnWeb]