Korean New Comic

Main Editor: KIM Dae Joong

Authors: KIM Eun Sung, LEE Kyung Seok, JUNG Song Hee, PARK Gun Woong, KO Young Il, BAEK Jong Min, CHOI Kyung Jin

Publishier： Joint Publishing HK

ISBN：978-962-04-2718-3

Picture Copyright Joint Publishing HK

Korean New Comic is a selection of 7 authors' work from Korea New Comic Publishing, Joint Publishing HK publish those short pieces in mandarin to introduce the Korean contemporary comic.

“The main authors of New Comic are all about 30 years old, they have walked trough the anti- dictatorship democratic movement in 80s', and had a childhood where the comic was very popular.” 

“The Korean comic has grown up with a dynamical politic ambiance and also with all the social reform movements. With the comic, the artists express naturally their concern about the society.

We can see the contradiction of the contemporary development of  Korea in their works, but they success to avoid to show their political position or their faction, and only describe the reality with their own point of view. Their mission is creating a style with their own character and

shaping the subjectivity in the same time.”

by editor Kim Dae Joong

KIM Eun Sung “The story of my mother”

An ordinary family history was told from an old mother over 80 years old in this comic. Beginning from the grandmother generation, than the mother's one and ending at daughter’s (author's) generation.

With this family story, author shows all the evolutions of Korea society in this hundred years. For the moment, Kim Eun Sung has finished the first part about her mother's young life in a village of north Korean, the second will be her life after marriage and how the family took refuge during the Korean war; the third one will be how the whole family begin their life in the south Korea.

LEE Kyung Seok “The people in the village of coal mine”

LEE Kyung Seok began his creation about the bottom of society from the 90s' and became a representative author in this domain. From the influence of rock music, crosstalk culture and the gong-fu movie, we could see a lot of movement like the quick montage in his drawing, and also, a kind of black humor in his sadness theme.

In “The people in the village of coal mine”, every worker know that they will leave the world by the cancer very soon, the main character don't want to know the result of his medical analyze, so he ask the doctor to write on his back. Since that, he carries on back his life.

This story use a fiction way to present the fact of the bottom life of miner. It's not easy to accept their fate even they have no choice, all this fate is hard to transfer in words ( when the main character decide to know what medicine wrote on this back, no one want to tell him the truth ).

JUNG Song Hee “The landscape from the roof” – a bagger or a robber

“if the country is a program or a structure, how people coded this program? And how people form this structure? I really want to understand the human feeling and thinking about living inside this country structure. What effect them? They change with which kind of condition? And what did they became after? “ This is the intention of this documentary work of JUNG Song Hee.

The first part “The landscape from the roof” is about her life during elementary school, this piece “a bagger or a robber” talk about a neighbor in her class who has always a lot of candy, JUNG want to get some candy from him, in the beginning she bags, and at the end she robs and she kicks the boy. And which is important is more about her struggles, her wondering and how she defend herself.

The author face on her darkness from the childhood honestly, and describe her inner transformation smoothly. At the end of this story, the little girl decide to never be a bagger or robber anymore, not because of a blame, but from her inner understanding, compassion and her shame.

JUNG Song Hee present a sharped and naked vision only with a simple storyboard and a tender drawing-style.

PARK Gun Woong “Hong's story”

The theme of PARK Gun Woong's comic is around the miserable contemporary history of Korea. Since 1980, he put some traditional technics of Korean painting into his comic. Hong's story describe the process of Jeju Uprising in 1984 by a little boy's eyes.

Jeju Uprising is also know as Jeju Massacre, Between 14,000 and 60,000 individuals were killed in fighting between various factions on the island or were executed. The brutal suppression of this rebellion by the South Korean army resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of many villages on the island, and sparking rebellions on the Korean mainland.

In 1947, United Nation controlled the election, re-found the South Korean regime and used the scorched earth strategy, the people of Jeju were specially resentful about the Military dictatorship, so mainly all of the 220,000 population participated this uprising.

This work is painted with a engraving style, in the gray tone, we could only see the yellow from the rapeseed field and the red from the blood of people, Jeju island was scorched like this....

KO Young Il ”You have to talk, Young Il!”

KO Young Il, who was born in Seoul, is an activist and an artist. In this chapter, he describe how he participate the student's social movement with his friends in the early 90s, and also their live in nowadays. 

Young Il was in the prison for a moment because of these anti-government movement. This comic present the anguish or the frustration of life and politic for the young people today in Korea.

BAEK Jong Min "DEN DEN DEN DEN !!!!"

This is my favorite one in this collection. The main characters don't want to shake this world, they look like don't do anything and don't care about anything. Just like“Waiting for the Godot”--nothing really happens, only two bored people said some stupid things. 

BAEK Jong Min try to use an ordinary conversation from his friend and him to show a relaxing ambiance inside a stressful society.

CHOI Kyung Jin "19 Years Old"

CHOI Kyung Jin grown up at the south border of Seoul, she is an outsider in the school and in this city. This short story show her high school life : be drunk all the day, stole in the store and get beat by her father. 

She draw well since she was a child, as the queen of troubles, she also draw a porno-comic about her teacher. All her friend envy that she could draw, because the young at this age worried so much about their future and already began to looking for a job. 

At the end of story, Kyung Jin sat by the river with her mother, just after beaten by her father, she said 
“It's so hurt and so terrible, but if I don't feel it , it mean i'm numbness.... the world is so ridiculous.”
"When would father stop to beat me?.........When would me stop to make trouble....?" 

*Please apology of my english, i don't use english in my everyday life, so there must be a lot of error, but i still want to show people all kind of documentary work, specially about Asia. If there is any error, and you want to correct them, please feel free to leave a message. 

I also have a publishing house which produce Asia documentary graphic work, if you are interested in it, you can check out the website of SLOWORK PUBLISHING