We’re sorry to report Bosnian comic book publisher, distributor, and rights agent Ervin Rustemagic, founder and head of the international art agency Strip Art Features, passed away in July.
Ervin will, possibly, be most familiar to downthetubes readers thanks to artist Joe Kubert, who recorded Rustemagic’s horrifying first-person account of a family’s attempts to escape from war-torn Sarajevo on the pages of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel Fax From Sarajevo.
He was also instrumental in bringing some of Italian publisher Sergio Bonelli Editore’s titles – Martin Mystery, Dylan Dog and Nathan Never to the attention of English speaking audiences, after securing a publishing deal with Dark Horse in the 1990s.
Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1952, based in Slovenia, he founded the magazine, Strip Art as a teenager, in 1971, and Strip Art Features the following year. In the following decades, he represented artists such as Hermann Huppen, Bane Kerac, and Joe Kubert, winning the Yellow Kid Prize of Lucca Comics & Games as Best Foreign Comics Publisher in 1984.
Among his many credits, he commissioned John M. Burns and Martin Lodewijk to create the fantasy adventure Zetari, in 1983.
Zetari was John M. Burns and Martin Lodewijk’s first major international project, initiated by the Yugoslav agency Strip Art Features. “I was approached in 1983 by the Yugoslavian agent, Ervin Rustemagić, and I agreed to do Zetari,” Burns explained in one interview with author Paul Duncan. “She’s a female mercenary who plies her trade on no particular world, set in no particular time. I can use whatever monsters I want but, technically, nothing goes beyond the steam engine.”
Sadly, when the Bosnian War began in early 1992, both his home and the SAF offices in Sarajevo were destroyed, and more than 14,000 pieces of original art were lost, including work by the likes of Sergio Aragonés, Alberto Breccia, John M. Burns, Hal Foster, Joe Kubert, Alex Raymond, Warren Tufts, Charles M. Schulz, Ferdinando Tacconi, Mort Walker, Al Williamson and Doug Wildey.
Trapped in the war-torn city with his family for one-and-a-half years, his mother was killed when the hospital she was in was captured by Serbian troops.
Fortunately, thanks to help from European publishers and artists, Ervin gained journalist accreditation in late 1993, enabling him to escape Bosnia and Herzegovina. Eventually given Slovenian citizenship, his family was reunited in Split, Croatia in 1993.
This harrowing story was recounted by Joe Kubert in tge award-winning Fax from Sarajevo, first published in 1996 by Dark Horse Comics, and re-released in 2020 by Dark Horse Comics.
As the title suggests, the book originated as a series of faxes from Ervin sent during the Serbian siege, communicating with the outside world via this pre-internet communication system when they could.
In a 2013 interview, Ervin recalled how Joe and his wife Muriel had visited him in early spring 1994, only a few months after they came out from Sarajevo and settled in Slovenia.
“It was only then that Joe told me about his plan to do Fax from Sarajevo, Ervin recalled. “I was very much against it, because I didn’t want to go again through everything that my family and myself went through in the war in Sarajevo, but my long and friendly argument with Joe was interrupted by my daughter Maja (she was 11 then), who told me: “Dad, this will be Joe’s book, not yours!” Joe laughed, kissed Maja and very soon he started to work on the book.”
After Dark Horse published the first edition of Fax from Sarajevo in the United States in October 1996, it was translated in many languages, including France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Brazil.
At Ervin’s encouragement, Kubert agreed to create Tex, the Lonesome Rider, written by Claudio Nizzi, which took him seven years to complete.
Ervin went on to co-founded Platinum Studios in January 1997 with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, the company that acquired the film and television rights to Dylan Dog, leading to the 2010 film, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, and Jeremiah, which was adapted into a science-fiction TV series for Showtime, first broadcast between 2002 and 2004.
After leaving Platinum Studios, he returned to full-time work at Strip Art Features, which is still very much active today.
A collection of Zetari is currently in the works after a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Our sympathies to Ervin’s family and friends.
Ervin Rustemagić (1952 – 26th July 2025)
Ervin is survived by his wife, Edina, and two children, a daughter, Maja and a son, Edvin
Head downthetubes for…
• Fax From Sarajevo by Joe Kubert (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)
The astonishing true story of a family in Sarajevo, Bosnia, trapped in a city under siege as war and genocide rage around them, with only a fax machine to communicate. On the receiving end of these faxes from his trapped friend, Kubert brilliantly illustrates their struggle toward freedom against the worst kind of odds. It’s the tale of a very real war, told from the perspective of innocent victims, but it’s also full of strength, survival, and love.
• Strip Art Features – Official Site
• Ervin Rustemagic remembers Joe Kubert (PDF)
• John M. Burns Art – Facebook Group
• 1999 Interview: American Bonelli: – intervista a Ervin Rustemagic By Shawna Ervin-Gore
With thanks to Colin Brown and Meerten Welleman
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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