Jetzin Brothers Studios is proud to officially announce its second graphic novel series – The Moscow Mongrel – written and illustrated by the studio’s founder – Jade A. Jetzin.
The Moscow Mongrel follows the adventures of the wandering hobo mutt himself, Karl, and his alluring yet secretive love interest Natasha Barkanov.
The first beginnings of the idea that would become The Moscow Mongrel came to Jade when he first discovered the real life story of the famous Russian stray dog of Moscow named Malchik. Malchik lived in the underground metros of Moscow during the 1990s and became a beloved fixture of commuters’ daily lives as he would wonder about scavenging scraps of food.
This led to Jade learning more about the unknown and unstudied society of stray dogs and their secret worlds. He heard first and second hand accounts of how some strays had complex ways of traveling – as well as finding food. Some would board the metro in the morning and travel into the inner city to scavenge during the day before catching the same train in the evenings to return to the safety of the outskirts. There were even observed cases of packs sending the smallest and cutest dogs out to beg for food from humans, which it would then bring back to the others.
Jade decided that such a world would be the perfect setting for a cartoon style graphic novel series – he decided to call it Moscow Mongrels.
“I wanted to make a book that would be at home on the same shelf as my favorite childhood dog related animated movies. Such as Balto, Lady And The Tramp, 101 Dalmations, and All Dogs Go To Heaven. As always, I try to make stories that I would have loved as a kid.”
The name of “The Moscow Mongrel” came from the wordage used on a Russia Today documentary discussing strays where the hosts referred to the dogs as mongrels. This led to the first title for the series “Moscow Mongrels”, which later changed to THE Mascow Mongrel. This was chosen partially because of the fun word play and partially because of its classic sounding nature and rhyming convention.
At the beginning of writing Jade expected to be flooded with ideas for the series from watching documentaries on strays and characterizing them with heavy doses of cartoon dog sensibilities. After intensive research he found that there was basically no official documentation about the lifestyle of stray dogs. The handful of accounts and a random smattering of short videos on the internet were the only glimpse into stray society. Some of these videos showed such odd and fantastic behavior that Jade often wondered why there wasn’t a camera crew out trying to find out more about these animals.
It was this lack of real life inspiration that made Jade dig up a much older and a far more bare bones idea about some sort of story of street life – he referenced the mood of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album. The feeling of that youthful energy of “…you either win tonight, kid, or you die trying” or “…you can live the rest of your life as a good for nothin’ drunken bum.” Each one of these songs painted a picture of the epic struggles of the dreamers and the hustlers tinged with a sense of old school nostalgia. This kind of world paired perfectly with that of the stray dogs.
The setting for the story was originally based in a more contemporary Moscow, focusing on city dog street life. But, as he so often does, Jade soon found himself more intrigued by the countryside and far older history. Russia is a vast and unique country filled with cultures and peoples that many in the west would find completely alien, especially the further east you go.
Inspired visually by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky’s colored photos that captured the old Russian Empire in the early 1900s, and literarily by the works from Leo Tolstoy, “The Cossacks” and “War And Peace“, as well as the thrilling history of the early Siberian conquest by Yarmock Tenavich.
However, after months of reading, study, and research Jade was faced by a small dilemma.
“I became thrilled by all these great eras in Russian history so I couldn’t pick just one for the story to take place in. So I combined them all into a sort of fairy tale ‘time out of time’ setting and began drawing inspiration from all of them at once.”
Now all this has come together to create the world of The Moscow Mongrel – a story that promises much adventure for our stray dogs on the edge of the Russian Siberian frontier…
Stay tuned for further development updates and announcements by signing up to our mailing list here.
“J.P. Jetzin delivers a feast for the eyes in this visually stunning literary and stylistic graphic novel that introduces the Tales of Orlen Series. Power, war and strategy are the themes that carry this story of an island which faces a potential siege and even hostile take over in more than one way. 
5 Stars – Thank you to the author for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.”
The days are getting shorter with each beautiful sunset now as we approach the Autumn. To celebrate this very special time of year Jetzin Brothers Studios is doing a 7 Day only (9/16-9/23) 50% off the EBOOKS versions of the Tales Of Orlen Series Book I – Long Live the Emperor and Book II Mercenary and the Crystal Eye!
We added wonderful “Look Inside” features on both books so you can browse the first 13 pages of 
Jetzin Brothers Studios was featured in the #1 issue of the X exclusive magazine the Gargoyle Seal just 10 days after the studios official launch! 
Jetzin Brothers Studios deeply appreciates their work being featured and receiving the Gargoyle Seal during this epic launch of the studio. 
Through it all, work on 
Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are the brothers Jade and 
Growing up we were home-schooled and educated with a blend of Waldorf/Unschooling/Child-led learning. This alternate schooling system and our mother as well as our eldest brother’s, Element, support is the reason we were able to pursue the path that we are on.
From a young age we were both always enthralled by the works of Walt Disney and other such animated corner stones of art and story telling. When we were only 8yrs [Jade] and 5 years [Jaron] we decided that when we grew up we wanted to make animated movies. An ambitious dream but one that we had faith we could accomplish. As the years went on we studied film and writing vigorously. We listened deeply to every word spoken on special feature commentaries of our favorite films from the likes of Brad Bird and Walt Disney and other greats like them. During these young years we also developed a passion for drawing that we cultivated and developed with the supportive ‘follow your dreams’ motto that we were raised with.
Eventually we discovered the medium of graphic novels through such great works as TinTin, Asterix And Obelix, Bone, and Amulet. It was then when we realized that just the two of us could be our own studio. We both are proficient in writing, illustration, character design, concept art, and background painting. We wouldn’t have to struggle to procure the funding and giant team required for feature length animated films, we could begin with just the two of us being a two man army.
The next few years were turbulent ones as our family navigated the chaotic events that I’m sure most are very familiar with [2020-2023], during which we had to move our family ranch three times. But through it all our work continued. I worked on finalizing the script and illustrations for Book II of the Tales Of Orlen Series and even was able to hire a background painter named Alice to aid in it’s production.
Jade Jetzin had been busy with his own graphic novel project titled
As we approached the final phases of Book II of Tales Of Orlen Series,