Aleksey Khromogin is a Tula-based artist and one of the most prolific contemporary comic book creators. He has previously brought you "Lights in the Forest"—a grim detective story steeped in the mysticism of the Russian hinterland—and a fictional, melancholic biography of Gagarin in the study "The First Man on Earth." Together with Vitaliy Terletsky, he reflected on self-censorship in "50 Years of Love" and poked fun at Alexander Pushkin in the comic-anecdote "The Author." Besides these major works, there were smaller but no less fascinating ones—created for contests, anthologies, or just for himself. It is exactly these pieces that Aleksey has gathered in this collection, accompanying them with his own commentaries and short tall tales from his creative life over the past 5 years.

In this collection, you will find 14 stories spanning completely different genres and themes. Here you have parodies of Hellboy and Batman, simple real-life dramas, chilling horror stories, and classic arthouse chthonic weirdness. Many of the stories were specially redrawn for this edition, and some are being published for the very first time.