Stjepan Šejić (born 27 November 1981) is a Croatian comic-book writer and artist whose mainstream résumé includes long runs on Witchblade, Aphrodite IX, The Darkness, and related Top Cow books—and whose creator-owned work made him essential reading for lesbian BDSM comics. He is best known in kink-literate fandom as the maker of Sunstone, the webcomic-turned-graphic-novel saga of women negotiating D/s, friendship, and love with humor and explicit honesty. Born in Vinkovci and based in Crikvenica, Croatia, he once planned a law career before art took over. He is married to fellow Croatian artist Linda Lukšić Šejić. In 2020 he announced a departure from mainstream work to focus on creator-owned projects—a pivot that only raised the profile of Sunstone, Death Vigil, and Fine Print for readers who already treated his kink fiction as core shelf material.
Career Path: Colorist to Witchblade Marathon
Šejić began as a colorist, painting covers over Tyler Kirkham pencils. Early inspiration came from Italian comics; a copy of Top Cow’s Witchblade redirected his style. He also cites Marc Silvestri and Michael Turner as influences. In 2007 he signed to pencil Witchblade from issue #116 through #150—the longest single-artist run on the series once completed. He illustrated the Witchblade miniseries First Born and Broken Trinity, contributed covers to The Darkness, and freelanced for smaller houses including Arcana Studio and Dynamite Entertainment. That industrial training—superhero bodies, glossy covers, long-issue stamina—later fed the polished character acting that makes Sunstone’s rope-and-relationship scenes readable as both pornographic and emotionally specific.
Creator-Owned Core: Sunstone, Death Vigil, Fine Print
As writer-artist he steers three ongoing pillars: Sunstone (from 2011), Death Vigil (from 2014), and Fine Print (from 2021). Sunstone is the title that puts him on BDSM media maps: lesbian partners and friends exploring dominance, submission, toys, negotiation, jealousy, and community with a tone that can be filthy and tender in the same page turn. Where many mainstream comics only costume-play leather, Sunstone treats kink as relationship technology. Death Vigil and Fine Print show the same creator muscle in supernatural and fae-contract registers; kink readers who arrived for Sunstone often stay for the rest of the Shiniez-era catalog.
Selected Interior Credits
Beyond the long Witchblade stretch (#105–107, #116–138, #140–141, #144–145 in various clusters across 2007–2011), interior highlights include Angelus #1–6, Aphrodite IX (2013), Artifacts #0–25, Broken Trinity #1–3, First Born #1–3, Rat Queens #9–10, Ravine (2013–2014), Arcana’s Kade: Sun of Perdition #1–4, and Radical’s Aladdin: Legacy Of The Lost #2–3. He has also contributed high-polygon character model art and artbook work for the video game Serious Sam 3: BFE (2011). The list matters for context: Sunstone did not come from a pure underground amateur; it came from a hired gun who already knew how to draw bodies under pressure and deadlines.
Cover Work Across Publishers
Šejić’s cover career spans Arcana, DC, Dynamite, Image/Top Cow, Marvel, Radical, and Zenescope. Samples include Dynamite runs on Army of Darkness, Battlestar Galactica, Red Sonja-adjacent titles, and Xena; DC work on Batman: Arkham Knight—Genesis, Aquaman, Nightwing, Suicide Squad, Teen Titans, Green Arrow, and Justice League Odyssey; Marvel covers for Secret Invasion: Inhumans, Realm Of Kings: Inhumans, and related one-shots; plus numerous Top Cow crossover and event covers. That commercial surface is how many superhero readers first saw his name before following him into explicit queer BDSM fiction.
Sunstone’s Place in Kink Comics
Before Sunstone, mainstream North American comics offered leather aesthetics more often than negotiated lesbian D/s as ongoing character work. Šejić’s series—born as webcomic under the Shiniez banner and collected in print—follows women who talk about limits, laugh about toys, fail at communication, and try again. That mix of explicit sex and relationship comedy is why BDSM readers recommend it to newcomers tired of pure porn without character or pure romance without kink literacy. It is not a textbook; it is fiction that assumes readers can handle both floggers and feelings. The art’s Top Cow-honed anatomy and lighting make scene pages readable as desire rather than clinical diagram.
His marriage to artist Linda Lukšić Šejić and his base in Crikvenica underline a creator life outside U.S. corporate offices—useful context for why walking away from mainstream deadlines in 2020 was feasible and deliberate. The law-school path not taken also fits a recurring theme in his interviews and bios: craft chosen over safer prestige tracks, twice—first comics over law, then creator-owned over work-for-hire.
Why He Matters on a BDSM Shelf
For leather and rope readers, Šejić is not “the Witchblade guy who also drew some kink.” He is one of the most visible mainstream-trained artists to commit long-form, character-driven lesbian BDSM storytelling in comics and to walk away from work-for-hire to protect that focus. Sunstone became a gateway text for people who wanted SM romance without billionaire red rooms—friends-to-partners dynamics, toy humor, Domme insecurity, submissive longing, and community gossip drawn with superhero-level craft. His 2020 mainstream exit reads, in that light, as a values statement: creator-owned kink and fantasy over forever chasing issue counts on corporate books. Follow Sunstone, Death Vigil, and Fine Print for the work; keep the Witchblade marathon and the dense coverography (Dynamite through DC) as proof he earned the right to draw desire with professional muscle. Official and fan portals under names such as Nebezial / Shiniez have hosted or pointed to the webcomic era that made O’s letter optional—sometimes the important story is two women, a harness, and a conversation about what they actually want.
