Mitar Milošević

Mitar Milošević (1924–1995), also known by his pseudonym Frederik Ešton (Frederick Ashton), was a Serbian and Yugoslav writer from Montenegro.

Professional career

Milošević wrote a dozen of historical novels, but is best known for his work on Lun, kralj ponoći (Lun, the King of Midnight), a series of pulp novels featuring Donald Sikert, a fictional character inspired by James Bond.^[1] Pulps and comic books were very popular in former Yugoslavia; from 1971 to 1981, 11,611 issues were printed, a total of 717 million copies in the country of 22 million people.^[2] Lun, kralj ponoći reached the circulation of 100,000 copies and sold a total of 10 million copies, including numerous reprints. From 1959 to the mid-1990s, Milošević wrote more than 70 novels featuring Lun.

Influence

The character became a popular icon in Yugoslavia, but it was not until a 1970s interview that his audience learned Milošević was a domestic author.^[3]

From 1984 to 1987, a team of Serbian writers and artists produced 30 issues of Lun comics for Dnevnik. Only the first episode was based on the source material whereas the rest featured original stories.^[4]

An unrelated comic book series, Lunov magnus strip, was named after Milošević's character. The first issue did have a Lun story but the feature was dropped with #2 because it was decided Lun readers were older, whereas the young preferred comics to novels.

Personal life

Milošević was born in Uvač, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (presently in Montenegro). As a high schooler he joined the Yugoslav Partisans in 1941 and fought in WW2. Milošević was a decorated officer who rose to the rank of a captain when he left the Yugoslav Army in 1953, due to a fight with a superior officer.^[5] Milošević lived in Novi Sad (presently Serbia), where he worked as a reporter, editor and writer.

See also

• Ninja (comic book)

Sources

This page was last edited on 24 July 2023, at 09:50