Zuzanka a jeji svet (1947) by Bohumil Konecny and Jaroslav Pribik
Bohumil Konečný was an accomplished Czech painter and illustrator. Born in Pilsen, he did his first illustration work in the 1930s. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, but couldn't complete his education because of the German occupation. After the War, he illustrated hundreds of magazine stories and books. He used the nickname Bimba for his illustrations for Mladý hlasatel, Vpředu or Rozruch, illustrating stories of Otakar Batlička and novels of Jaroslav Foglar.
In the late 1960s he illustrated an adventure comic starring the heroine 'Amazona', from a script by Film Academy student Petr Sadecky. The writer emigrated to the West in 1967 and took the comic artwork with him. He turned the heroine into a warrior fighting communism under the name of 'Octobriana'.
Although it was the only Czech comic character that gained a certain reputation in the West, both Konecny and cover illustrator Zdenek Burian had to explain themselves in their home country for having created such "disgusting pornography" for money. Konecny was even forbidden to illustrate books anymore and it is an unfortunate coincidence that Bohumil Konecny died only a year after the collapse of communism.
Dutch graphic novelist Milan Hulsing loosely based his book 'De Smokkelaar' ("The Smuggler", 2019) on the 'Octobriana' scam.
Octobriana