Yoan Komnin Asen

John Komnenos Asen was a son of Despot Sratsimir and Keratsa Petritsa and a brother of Tsar Ivan Alexander. He also bore the family name Komnenos, after the prestigious Byzantine tradition to which the house belonged through its Asen line.

Taking advantage of the collapse of Byzantine power in the Greek lands, around 1346 John established himself as an independent ruler in Epiros and Thessaly, centred on Ioannina, acknowledging the suzerainty of the Serbian tsar Stefan Dušan, who granted him the title of despot. He was married to the "basilissa" Anna Palaiologina. Thus one branch of the Shishman house founded its own domain far to the south, in the Greek lands, whose descendants (such as his son Alexander Komnenos Asen) continued the Epirote-Thessalian line.