The rising star creator behind such breakout hits as Something Epic and Blood Commandment—Szymon Kudrański—invites fans to the frigid Diomede Islands in his upcoming thriller No Man’s Land. This four issue miniseries is set to launch this September from Image Comics.
This is Kudrański’s third solo title out of his creative house, One Man Art.
For three months each year, you can walk from the USA to Russia across an ice bridge—a frozen path known as the Ice Curtain. In 1963, when the body of a young woman is discovered on this icy no-man’s land, the already fragile relationship between the superpowers threatens to collapse. With nuclear tensions rising, an FBI agent and a KGB operative must solve the murder—before the ice melts… and war ignites.
The Diomede Islands represent one of the most fascinating and geopolitically fraught locations on Earth. For three months each year, a natural ice bridge forms between the United States and Russia—raising a compelling question: who holds jurisdiction over this frozen passage, in part or in full?
“I contacted multiple Russian and American governmental institutions. None responded. That led to deep research. I read more than a century’s worth of archival newspapers. The Cold War era stood out as the most active period—marked by disappearances, murders, and unsolved cases concentrated around the Diomede Islands and their villages. These events became partly an inspiration for the story.
“What makes this place truly unique is not just its geopolitical significance, but its geographic singularity. It is the only place on Earth where a 21-hour time difference runs directly across an ice bridge—earning the islands the names ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Tomorrow.’
“The ice bridge between the Diomedes is one of those rare zones where legal jurisdiction remains undefined—a real-world Catch-22. This location was screaming for a story. And what could be more mysterious than the discovery of a body lying between the world’s two superpowers and rivals, on an ice bridge that no nation can definitively claim?” said Kudrański.
