In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones

2025 Ringo Award Winner, Best Non-fiction Comic Work

"A rousing yet haunting portrait of journalistic idealism." —Publishers Weekly

Can the unrelenting power of truth expose one of Stalin’s greatest crimes to a world that refuses to bear witness? From journalist and screenwriter Andrea Chalupa (host of the hit podcast Gaslit Nation and writer of Orwell and the Refugees: The Untold Story of Animal Farm) and artist Ivan Rodrigues, this powerful new historical graphic novel reexamines the bravery and tragedy that first thrust Ukraine in the international spotlight in the years before World War II.

In the early 1930s, Gareth Jones is a young journalist with powerful connections after a groundbreaking interview with Adolf Hitler and his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. This notoriety gains him permission to travel to the Soviet Union for a potential interview with Joseph Stalin.

Jones hopes to learn more about the Soviets mass economic gains but finds himself stonewalled and trapped in Moscow. While looking for a way out, he meets new allies that alert him to the growing man-made famine, or Holodomor, happening in Ukraine under the government's guidance. Jones, seeking the truth in all its ugliness, embarks on a journey of discovery, strife, and a cover-up of the deaths of millions of people.