I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Interesting book about a young girl who is forced into acting by her mother.

3 Stars

TW: Physical, mental and emotional abuse, murder, prostitution, grooming

I found that I still had the e-book randomly in my files, which came out almost a year ago and wasn’t quite what I expecting. I went into this graphic novel thinking it was about the possibility of Anastasia Romanov escaping to the United States and would be a a more happier novel. Nope! In 1926 Stacey and her mother flee to California where the mother will do whatever it takes to get her daughter into show business. Even trying to pass off her daughter as the princess who escaped her death and making deals/favours with various men in the industry in order to have Stacey get seen by an infamous film director. We go through her career in show business, which I think/wonder if the author used inspiration from Natalie Wood’s experience in the industry. And near the end there is a a scandalous murder and we have an older Stacey in her twenties. This volume ends with a bit of a cliffhanger.

Content warnings for: Physical & emotional abuse, rape, murder

This graphic novel is basically about a young girl who, after a tragic incident, was forced by her mother into becoming a Hollywood star. This even included them faking that they're part of the Russian aristocracy and fled due to the Bolshevik Revolution. Her mother would also do anything necessary in order for Anastasia to become a star and this has an enormous toll on the young girl.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The art has a painted, old-timey feel to it which I felt like really enhanced the story. It was a great fit for the story which was pretty dark and essentially took on Old Hollywood.

This book is about a young girl-Anastasia-losing her innocence. You might root for her to break out of the mold created for her but that doesn't happen. This is a dark story about Hollywood and what people are willing to do in order to get to the top. I really enjoyed it, despite the dark themes and the way it's all handled is realistic and very good overall.

I can recommend it if you can handle the dark themes and the content warnings mentioned. The story does get graphic in some places.

We are realizing, increasingly, how harmful fame and Hollywood culture can be and have been for young stars. This book lays it all out there with the titular character, a clear parallel for Shirley Temple. Anastasia is used by her mother, victimized repeatedly. She's essentially sold, sexually and physically abused, and emotionally manipulated. We see how this destruction of her innocence and her treatment as a tool rather than a person warp her development.

Anastasia is a compelling graphic novel. I particularly loved the art style, it is moody, generally very dark and neutral toned with vivid busts of colour and it has a kind of canvas effect. The story follows Anastasia a 1020's Hollywood child star, who is pushed into fame by her mother and consequently 10 years later is not having a good experience with Hollywood. The story is gritty, violent and graphic. It would be really interesting to see how the story evolves in part 2.

This one definitely needs a content warning if you are someone who is squeamish. It doesn't pull punches in highlighting the abuse and sexual exploitation of silent era Hollywood and the situations young starlets of the day were put into in order to "make it."
A horrible stage mother, pedophile directors, and a brutally sexual murder are all shown in graphic detail here, so be prepared for some difficult to look at imagery and a very tough to get through story. Even though it's super short and ends on a "hopeful" note (except if you really pay attention, it's actually a pretty bleak note) it's a difficult read.

Anastasia, Part One
Written by Magdalena Lankosz
Illustrated by Joanna Karpowicz
Europe Comics

This seedy drama of old Hollywood borrows some circumstances from actual incidents and mixes them in with completely original depravity to concoct something that is less a throwback to the era it depicts and more an artsy evocation of trashy novels and exploitation cinema of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. In the hands of long-time Polish journalist, feminist author, film critic and maker Lankosz, it becomes a textural wallop of emotions.
Anastasia is brought to Hollywood by her mother in 1926 and obviously not happy about it.

Her mother has one obvious purpose to the visit — make quick connections to turn Anastasia into a child star by pushing tall-tales about their Russian background at movie industry cocktail parties in order to charm producers into casting opportunities. But Anastasia isn’t rising to the occasion, and it’s with a mix of anger and coercion that the road to Hollywood success opens up to her.

But the old trope of celluloid dreams actually being nightmares covered in glitter comes at the mother and daughter full force, and as the sleaze overtakes the narrative, it’s with the purpose of examining the casual degradation of women within our entertainment system. It thrives on it and always has, and in Anastasia, it’s the currency by which the powerful men of Hollywood create triumphs and measure success, as well as the demon that diminishes self-esteem and causes the women to willingly descend into self-inflicted abusive nightmares.

There are ways in which this speaks to the idea of the American Dream itself. Hollywood is not the only glistening prize with a rotting core here — the promise of America as experienced by ordinary immigrants is also there. Anastasia’s mother escaped the terror of their homeland to face more darkness in an ordinary American life. Is it the Dream that’s a lie, or is this just the lot of women in the world? Is desperation to survive passed along from mother to daughter? And is Hollywood’s role one of a predator that lures desperate people, especially women, into a trap that finishes the job of the rest of the world?


The real star here is the art by Polish painter Karpowicz, who alternates elaborate depictions bursting with period detail with more sparse scenes that make it seem like Anastasia is wandering through various levels of Hell at times or held prisoner in some Lynchian holding pen. Her brushwork provides texture and emotion to the story, with an almost oppressive darkness that transforms a pulp melodrama into something resembling psychological horror.

If Sunset Boulevard is the gold standard for this type of story, Anastasia wraps in arthouse and exploitation elements that drive home the inherent melodrama and add a lurid quality to it, making it feel close to a David Lynch film (as Karpowicz’s Twin Peaks painting formalizes) not just in surrealist touches but philosophically as well, making jarring use of the very exploitation it criticizes to make the viewer (or reader in this case) question their own involvement with this process. It becomes a jarring and disturbing feminist statement.

Phenomenal artwork and storytelling. I loved everything about this graphic novel, and I have no complaints at all.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and Europe Comics for this free copy.
Oh my god.

I honestly didn't know what I was getting into when I requested this, and even less when I was approved of this novel, but wow. I definitely wasn't expecting THAT.

Let me say it clearly that this is not for children at all. Young adults, maybe. Be warned that there are graphic images throughout this novel, which deal with the warnings that I included in the beginning (murder, rape, sexual abuse, drug abuse, etc.). This is not a fun story. Nothing about this story is "good" and when you realize what happened to the little girl named Anastasia, and everything that her mother did for her to get to where she is today just really broke my heart. It physically hurt to read this, to only glimpse at how this world was back in the 1920s, and how women and girls were taken advantage of by Hollywood and those execs in that world.

Part of me wanted to hope that Anastasia's mother (I don't remember seeing her name, but I think they did that on purpose. Even in one of the pages, it referenced her as "Anastasia's Mother", not even a name) was doing it for the best intentions, but when Anastasia grows up, we find out that wasn't the case. I absolutely hate it when adults - most especially parents - make their children feel guilty for something that they did, and say stuff like "if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have [insert whatever here]" and that's exactly what happened here.

This novel just really blew me away. I don't even know if I can say anymore without spoiling what happened. It's a short one - only 92 pages - but you'll get through it fairly quickly. I know that whenever I see this cover, I will be haunted by what happened in this graphic novel. I don't think I can ever forget.

A graphic novel set in the 1920s showing the darkest sides of Hollywood in a very explicit way.

Content Warnings: murder, rape, drug abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse + explicit graphics/drawings

We follow the story of a young girl and her mother running away from their dark past and trying to make it big in the film industry. They discover this industry is way darker than they expected and you can not run away from your past and who you are.

The graphics were really good and I absolutely loved the style becuase it perfectly reflects the old Hollywood times.

Absolutely beautiful! I was enthralled by both the story and the art, the illustrations, the characters. What a lovely experience! I was able to read this easily in ebook format which is always a pleasant discovery. This is one I would buy for the bookshelf and as Christmas presents for non-avidly reading friends.

A very strong read, that's both grubby and beautiful at the same time. We see a real Ms Svengali, determined to disobey the advice given to Mrs Worthington, and get her daughter on the stage, screen and director's casting couch. Well, it saves her the job of sucking off the chauffeurs to the stars while her daughter (hopefully) sleeps. They stumble on the shtick of pretending to be Russian exiles, then the daughter – now Anastasia – stumbles into a job in Hollywood. Cue decades of degradation, whether it be in the material she had to film or the drugs and sex she had to endure, and more. With scenes of oral sex, drug references, blood and murder by Coke bottle, this is definitely adult only. It's also gorgeous to look at, with the artworks given a real canvas effect to make them all look like oil paintings – and when the girl's reticence is matched by the full silent splash page, as often happens here, the effect really is masterly. You have to point out, however, that it's a book about how Hollywood would have sexualised a lovely young girl like 'Anastasia', old men dandling her on their knee, her posing in ways that show off her bloomers, etc, that both complains about that and complies with that, doing much the same itself. Still, while some of the execution is therefore iffy, the moral of the piece is perfectly in tune with the Me Too movement, happening 90 years and more after this was set. It's a book that demands us to think of what's behind the picture whenever we see a beautiful female, whether that's just out of sight or in her mind. A strong four stars.

I'm not sure how to feel for this one right after reading it. This book shows the dark side of Hollywood especially when it comes to sex. There's too many sex related stuff in the comic and a hint of pedophilia and I wished the book put some trigger warnings because I didn't expect any of that from the description. Moreover, it was barely censored. The murders wasn't that focused so I didn't mind it too much.

Regardless of the dark story, the art coloring is amazing despite the faces of some characters looking weirdly terrifying.

I don't think I'll be continuing this comic since it makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Thank you Netgalley regardless, for a digital copy of the comic for an honest review.

The dark reality of show business environment in 1926. A mother and her daughter after a devastating event that happened in their life, are moving to Hollywood to make their dreams come true. As the mother is eager to find a part in the movie for her daughter, young Anastasia doesn't want it at all. Although she pushes her every time to be more open and start to act as she expects. A woman has no boundaries and does everything to make Anastasia famous.

The story is intense and the way the author showed this story visual was drastically realistic. Magdalena Lankosz together with Joanna Karpowicz gave us a real view of what is happening in the Hollywood world. There is no happy ending. This world gives you money and fame but the cost of it is higher than that. Both characters, Anastasia and her mother are broken and there is no way back to repair what has been done. There always will be more to reach and even more lies.

Besides the story, I would like to point out how amazing and beautiful is the art in this book. It's very original and artistic. Even if the story wouldn't be as good I would still read it just for the art.

I was so excited to see polish names here in NetGalley. It was actually the main reason why I downloaded this book and read it right away. Honestly, in some points, it was hard to go through because the world showed in this book has no censorship. Sex, murders, violence have been shown in a way you would've never guess. However, I can't wait to read the next part of the book and see what will happen next with Anastasia.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Europe Comics for this ARC copy. This review is voluntary and opinions are fully my own.

This story is about a young girl named Anastasia and her mother who go to Hollywood in the 1920s to try and make it big. I didn't really like this book. There was a lot of violence and sexual situations that I didn't really care for. If you are a fan of old Hollywood type books then this might be for you. Unfortunately, I was not a fan.

"Anastasia" is an interesting graphic novel. The artwork is well done and compelling. The story itself is all over the board, but it's still very interesting.

A wonderful first look into a new story inspired by the glitz, glamour of old Hollywood and all that lurked behind it.

Trigger Warnings: murder, rape, drug abuse, physical and emotional abuse as well as explicit graphics/drawings

This book blew me away! I went into it without knowing anything at all about the plot or characters and I am still reeling from the story. It's definitely a cliched story of a young girl who is controlled by her domineering mother and discovers all of the horrors that old Hollywood had. A number of elements were straight out of biographies about Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood. Still, the take felt new because the artwork was so devastatingly beautiful and horrific. Each panel looked like a painting in style and structure. This is a must read for all graphic novel lovers and anyone who is interested in and enjoys stories about old Hollywood. You will not be disappointed! I can't want for the next installment.

A very dark story about a young girl whose mother pushes her into the world of Hollywood in the 1920's. The young woman called Anastasia is a great child star and later actress, but it comes at a price as she is exploited and abused by the film producer and her mother.

Thankfully the abuse is implied but we get to see the corruption and violence that is Hollywood. This is part 1 of the story and it is a very impactful told with little prose and great artwork which conveys the seedy nature of Hollywood. I dont think Hollywood has changed that much, probably just more sophisticated in its darkness.

Copy provided by Europe Comics via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Although this graphic novel held my attention until the end, and the artwork was adequate, I felt that the characters could have demonstrated more depth and the ending could have been less abrupt.
It appears that the story is based on The Hollywood of Fatty Arbuckle’s time, with its attendant scandals. The names of the characters are thinly disguised, and some of the drawings were too explicit for my comfort. Compared to graphic novels based on fact and autobiography, such as Persepolis and Maus, this one fell far short.