<< BACK

CONTACT

SEARCH

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
Washington University
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis
Teaching Gallery
Korean Comics:
A Society through Small Frames
August 31-December 17, 2007

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in Japanese manga, or comic books, in the United States, yet Korean comics remain relatively unknown. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis presents Korean Comics: A Society through Small Frames, a rare U.S. exhibition of work from both North and South Korea.

Organized and curated by The Korea Society, Korean Comics features more than 80 works by 21 cartoonists, drawn from the 1950s to the 1990s. The exhibition provides a decade-by-decade glimpse of the evolving social realities in contemporary Korea, as depicted in comics ranging from popular children's entertainment to aggressive forms of political commentary.

South Korean artists such as Park Jae Dong, who produced serials for the liberal newspaper Hankyoreh, have illuminated social ills as well as the changing political landscape — territory often overshadowed by the nation's overwhelming economic success. Park Ki Jeong, whose disparagement of the government in works such as Tojonja (Challenger) (1964) garnered much attention throughout the 1960s, explained that, "metaphor and satire are the essence of news criticism." In the 1980s, Lee Hyun Se's series A Daunting Team condemned the affairs of the weakening military dictatorship while simultaneously masquerading as a sports drama centered on a rebellious, unkempt baseball player.

North Korean comics also captured their country's economic hardships and strict ideological controls. The Great General Mighty Wing (1994), by Lim Wal Yong and Cho Pyong Kwon, was published shortly after the death of Kim Il Sung, the nation's ruler of 46 years, and portrays devout socialists as fruitful, loyal honeybees, thus reinforcing the reader's attachment to North Korea's leadership during a period of political change. Other North Korean comics exalt the prestige of the motherland through major figures in the international wrestling circuit. One such series, World Professional Wrestling King Ryok To San (1995), by Kim Tae Kwon, is a biographical comic of a famous North Korean wrestler who is glorified as a figure capable of defeating foreigners and defending the country's honor.

Taken together, these works present a portrait of Korean civil society as both vigorous and engaged, continuously challenging and energizing the status quo in whimsical and provocative ways. In so doing, they play an important role in characterizing and distinguishing the culture and sentiment of contemporary Korea.

Artists
Kil Chang Deok (b. 1929, Korea) is a living master of Korean children’s comics. Publishing his first work in 1955, Kil initially created comics for adult readers, but after 1966 focused his efforts entirely on young people.

He is the father of many of Korea’s best known comic strip characters: Kkobongi (Mischievous Boy, 1970); Sunakjil Yosa (Madam Vicious, 1970); Sondali (1977); Tolle (Independent Girl, 1978); and Kojipse (Stubborn Boy, 1982).
Through these characters, Kil’s work offers a nostalgic look at urban life in Korea during the 1970s and 1980s. Kil’s creations were influenced by social changes that took place during the Park Chung-Hee era (1961-1979). Park oversaw South Korea’s transformation from an agricultural society into a modern industrial state. In the early 1970s, President Park launched the Saemaul (New Village) movement which aimed to modernize agricultural practices and raise the standard of living in rural areas. Government bulldozers leveled entire communities, replacing them with high-density row houses. In these new neighborhoods, kids played on the cement streets. Kil’s illustrations show a generation just starting to come to terms with the new landscape, and provide a peek at the roots of contemporary Korea.

Kim Seong Hwan's (b. 1932, Korea in what is now North Korea) first serial cartoon appeared in Union Daily in 1949. Throughout the Korean War, Kim cartooned for various publications. His hallmark work, Kobau, which featured the misadventures of an elderly man, first appeared in 1950 in Dong-A Ilbo. The adventures of Kim’s old man appeared in 14,139 episodes over a span of 50 years, making the strip one of the longest running Korean comics. Kobau has been translated and published in Japan under the title Kobau Ojisan.

During the Park Chung Hee era (1961-1979), Kim’s provocative commentary on contemporary events often got him into trouble.

During the 1970s, President Park Chung-Hee ordered the government to crackdown on Korean civil society and popular culture. New forms of residential identification were instituted to prevent draft dodging. A daily curfew from midnight to 4 AM was enforced to forestall opposition to military rule. In a move against “social decadence,” women were forbidden from wearing mini-skirts. Men’s long, unkempt hair also became a target as a sign of resistance to military rule.

Lee, Hyun-Se (b. 1956, Korea) wrote and illustrated A Daunting Team in 1983. It is a scathing statement on Korean politics in the guise of a sports drama. The comic was set against the backdrop of President Chun Doo-Hwan’s military dictatorship (1980-1988). Chun continued the repressive policies of his predecessor, Park Chung-Hee, but during his rule civil society pushed back harder: large public protests were routine, especially on college campuses.

At the same time, baseball was becoming an increasingly important sphere of public discourse. During the 1980s, professional baseball teams were launched and watching televised games, in color for the first time, became a national pastime.

The protagonist of A Daunting Team is Kkachi, a headstrong player with unkempt hair and wild eyes. Kkachi resisted authority, but it didn’t diminish his talent. By continuing to play, Kkachi served as a hero for a society in the mood for rebellion.

Kim Won Bin (b.1935, China) spent his childhood in Harbin, China, where he had been born into the family of a Korean independence fighter. Kim was 11 when his family moved back to Seoul following liberation. In 1953 his first comic, The Secret of Mount Taebaek, debuted, followed shortly by another, Maktungi. After publishing several science-fiction and police comics, Kim created a new genre of children’s comic; the historical drama. His The Black Ribbon and The Baby Soldier were the first of their kind.

Kim is best known for Chumok Taejang (Fist Boss), which first appeared in 1958 and was subsequently reissued four times: in 1964; from 1975 to 1983; and from 1992 to 1994. The comic’s popularity took off during its second reissue in 1975 in the magazine Okkaedongmu (School Chums). The main character, Chumok Taejang, became one of the icons in Korean comics in the 1970s. The plotlines are a collection of famous Korean legends supplemented with mythical motifs. Taking his cue from one of Korea’s most famous legendary figures, Agi Jangsu (Super Baby), Kim gave Chumok Taejang supernatural strength, both physical and mental. Numerous other comics utilized Korean mythology, but since its creation, Kim’s work has stood out for its use of simple, common motifs to drive narratives and create episodes.

Park Jae Dong (b. 1952, Korea) began his career as a comic artist at Hankyoreh Sinmun, a start-up newspaper with a leftist editorial bent and a deep aversion to corporate influence, in 1988. When Park joined Hankyoreh, it was a low-budget, low-circulation daily. Its reporters, many of them activists and political dissidents, were paid half as much as their colleagues at established papers. From this platform, Park’s humorous, socially piercing cartoons were unleashed on South Korean readers until 1996.

Cho Pyong-Kwon (Story) and Im Wal-Yong (Art) created The Great General Mighty Wing (Published in 1994 by Gold Star Children’s Press), which encapsulates many of the realities of contemporary North Korean society. In a pattern common to much socialist art, it glorifies the state through images of workers, bountiful food resources and a beautiful homeland. The primary storyline follows a conflict between anthropomorphic honeybees and wasps over control of the Garden of a Thousand Flowers, which is the source of all the honeybees’ food. The Garden of a Thousand Flowers represents the socialist ideal of a workers’ paradise. The workers in this metaphor are represented by the honeybees, which (in another pattern common to socialist art) are always depicted in a state of activity that conveys visual motion.

The main character, Mighty Wing, is a highly symbolic and ideological figure.

He looks similar to Japan's Atom ?? (Astro Boy) and South Korea's Chumok Taejang (Fist Boss). He is a collectivist, social insect and is loyal to the queen bee. Interestingly, in The Great General Mighty Wing, North Korea’s traditional patriarchy has been recast as a matriarchy: the queen bee represents North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

Mighty Wing’s loyalty to the hive leadership has a transparently political purpose. The Great General Mighty Wing was published in 1994, shortly after North Korea’s leader of 46 years, Kim Il Sung, died of heart attack and his son, Kim Jong-Il had ascended to complete power. In stressing the loyalty of the honeybees, the comic was aiming to reinforce its readers’ attachment to North Korea’s leadership during a period of political change.

Throughout its dramatically drawn frames, The Great General Mighty Wing expresses the underlying values of North Korean society. Every page includes a socialist axiom, such as:

“To win happiness one must first endure suffering and overcome hardship,” or “A hundred allies are not enough and even one enemy is too much.”

In its time, The Great General Mighty Wing was one of the most powerful advertisements for North Korea’s particular brand of communism.

Kim Tae-Kwon created World Professional Wrestling King—Ryok To San (Published in 1995 by Pyongyang D.P.R.K Print) as a biographical comic of Kim Sin-Nak (1924-1963), a famous wrestler from North Korea who became a major figure in wrestling competitions in Japan during the 1950s.

Born in South Hamkyong province in what is now North Korea, Kim moved to Japan to become a sumo wrestler during the Japanese colonial period. Japanese sumo fans would not accept a Korean competitor, so Kim used a Japanese ring name—Rikidozan. The Korean version of his ring name, Ryok To San, translates as “rugged mountain road.”

Despite success in the ring, Kim’s sumo career was dogged by anti-Korean discrimination. In 1950, Kim gave up on sumo and became a mainstream, professional wrestler on the Japanese circuit in 1951. He quickly established himself as Japan’s greatest wrestling star by defeating one American wrestler after another.

Rikidozan’s popularity stemmed in large part from the wounded national pride of his Japanese fans. Still stinging from their collective defeat in World War II, the Japanese public needed to see figures who could best the Americans in some way, however symbolic. And when Rikidozan did, they responded enthusiastically.

In this comic, and in North Korean culture, Ryok To San is depicted as a patriotic figure: a man who rose to incredible heights despite the challenges of a harsh, foreign society. Throughout, Ryok To San is glorified as someone who can defeat foreigners. In contemporary North Korea his mythology lives on in a variety of comic books, toys and souvenirs.

The story of Kim Sin-Nak resonates in South Korea as well. In 2004, South Korean director Song Hae-Song made a biopic about the wrestler titled Rikidozan: A Hero Extraordinary with South Korean actor Sol Kyong-Ku playing the title role.