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Three Korean Graphic Novelists Reimagine the Genre

2010; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 84; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2010.0046

1945-8134

Rob Vollmar,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Three Korean Graphic Novelists Reimagine the Genre Rob Vollmar REVIEWESSAY Manhiva is the South Korean equiva lent of a narrative art form from Japan known as manga. As man ga's popularity skyrocketed in Europe and theAmericas during the first part of the twenty-first century, such successful manhwa as Priest and IN.V.U. were quietly imported and marketed alongside their Japanese counterparts tohelp meet thedemand. Without the expensive necessity of "flipping" the artwork (sinceKorean is read in the same direction as English) and the lower licensing fees associated with bringing in material from an adjacent market, manhwa has begun to find an audience of itsown among for eign readers, with several companies operating inside theUnited States focused almost entirely on manhwa publishing. As with manga before it, the rising tideofmanhwa available inEnglish has slowly served to broaden the quality and diver sity of material offered; artisticallymemorable works like the titles reviewed below have begun toappear alongside the strictlycommercial fare. Byun Byung-Jun. Mijeong. Joe Johnson, tr.New York. NBM. 2009. 237 pages, ill. $19.95. isbn978-1-56163 554-2 Mijeong is a collection of pieces from manhwa creator Byun Byung-Jun that explore human rela tionships,delivered with a twistof the supernatu ral and the surreal, against a backdrop of complex urban landscapes. The volume opens with a short piece thatprovides the collection with its title.The narrative is detached, much like the narrator who, despite proclaiming his alienation and sadness, wanders through the cityperform ing acts of kindness. Even in these scant pages, Byun shows an impressive array of drawing techniques, modulating from a brusque, sketchy quality to abstract water-washed impressions of 3 the city swirling inside of his story.His charac ters maintain an anonymity even as their lives are altered in themini-climax allowed within the story's parameters. The second piece, entitled "Yeon-du, seven teen years old," is thematically more representa tiveof thepieces thatfollow.The story introduces a number of characters quickly, tying each to provocative events thatunfold before the reader has been given sufficientcontext to assess their meaning. Then, whether through flashbacks or sparse exposition, the connections between them are slowly revealed, adding new weight to their previous actions with each successive revelation. 561World Literature Today SPECIAL SECTION Tke pear blossomto BI^wa's ^ame is? flower bloomsto tke Spring, for a airl to l<\Ave a "flower tl^xAt blooms to tke sprtoa, it meAv\s tt^Atsl^e will mAture eArfy forker Aae. ^ou will *\eed totostruct ak\d ^uide ker ver^ well. 1 *\ever k^vew tK?t a single *\Ame \r\dd Somuck deptk bektod it. ^es? it'strue. Just like kowa single alA^xce cc\\r\ covwey tl^edepths of o*\e's loveto A^otker... if/r An excerpt from The Story of Lifeon theGolden Plains, reviewed on page 58. The themes in "Yeon-du," with its abrupt vio lence and focus on themore negative aspects of human sexuality, are reminiscent of those utilized by such Japanese gekigamanga creators as Yoshi hiro Tatsumi. In "Utilty," Byun coaxes the social criticism implied but not emphasized in "Yeon Du" closer to the forefront ofhismacabre storyof a group of teenagerswho methodically struggle to cope with two deaths thatstem fromunseemly sexual impulses. The range of Byun's visual storytelling tech niques, inboth pieces, is restrained by the com plexity of thestorieshe is telling,but both suggest influence from not only Korean and Japanese Kim uses a dizzying arrayof narrative toolstocraft the story, moving seamlessly frompoetic narration to dialogue richin metaphor.He shows no reluctance inturning the storyover to the visual component inorder to capture the rhythms ofa particular moment. 3 January-February 2010 i57 REVIEWESSAY sources but also contemporary French narrative artists. Not every piece succeeds to the same degree on the same merits. "A Song for You" is beautiful ly rendered in cool watercolor over lightpencils but never rises above tone-poem status despite its random dabbling in similarly charged themes. "202, Villa Sinil" is an approachable stab at a humor romance horror autobio mash-up though it feels a little out of syncwith the rest of this collection. "Courage, Grandfather" suffers from some of the same meandering thematic issues but plays just enough with the reader's sense of real itytomake itamore engaging piece as awhole. With the final piece, "A Short Tall Tale," theMijeong collection as a whole starts reading like the record of an artist in transition. Byun stepsmore confidently into autobiography as he masterfully recaptures the narrative and visual rhythms of a phone conversation. His panel tran sitions show imagination and careful planning to keep thepages visually interestingeven as he walks his lover (and the reader) through a folk story.While lacking the st?rm und drang of the opening pieces, "A Short Tall Tale" nonetheless makes for a satisfying and somewhat calming conclusion to an often emotionally tasking col lection. Kim Dong-Hwa. The Story of Life on the Golden Plains. Lauren Na, tr. 3 vols. New York. First Second. 2009. 956 pages, ill. $50.85. isbn 978-1-59643-458-9 (459-2) (460-8) The Story ofLife on theGolden Plains (available in English in three separate volumes?The Color of Earth, Water, and Heaven, respectively) is more than the idyllicmeditation on rural life inKorea's not-so-distant past that itmight appear to be on the surface. Creator Kim Dong-Hwa draws inspiration fromhismother's childhood to weave this story of a young girl's slow transition into womanhood, togetherwith thatof her widowed mother's struggle to raise her daughter and, in time,accept new love fully intoher life. The Golden Plains trilogy is intimate in its scope but epic in its execution. Manhwa, like Japanese manga, reliesmore heavily on thevisual component of the page to carry a story's mean ing. Kim, in contrast, uses a dizzying array of narrative tools to craft the story, moving seam lessly frompoetic narration to dialogue rich in metaphor. He shows no reluctance, however, in turning the story over to the visual component in order to capture the rhythms of a particular moment. His drawing stylemodulates from a crisp but expressive line to startlingexplosions of meticulous detail thatdraw the reader viscerally into the particular time and place inwhich his characters live. The whole comprises a work that, at times, moves at a pace more akin toWestern comics but, just as often,benefits from thevisual ebullience of Eastern narrative art traditions. While Kim's impressive understanding and command of visual storytelling techniques are worthy ofhigh praise, itis the trilogy's life-affirm ingmessage and insights into the preindustrial Korean worldview that captivate the reader into returning to its pages over and over. His charac ters dwell in a world informed by the rhythms of nature thatalso celebrates thevalue of human consciousness in providing those cycles with meaning. Though the story is bathed in a long ing for the simplicity of "an erawhere time stood still,"Kim expertly craftsa nuanced picture of the junction between the private lives of his charac ters and the slightly largerworld of the village towhich theybelong. In it,he is able to explore themes that are openly erotic yet radiatewith an unyielding innocence and dignity. The result is a work tingedwith both great pain and overflow ing joy that is neithermaudlin nor saccharine in itsdelivery and propelled unto its finalpage by a fierce candor. As a westerner, it is tempting to read Kim Dong-Hwa's StoryofLife on the Golden Plains and hold itas an ideal template againstwhich all other manhwa should be measured. In truth, the trilogy is a work of singular construction that, in many respects, defies the expectations of the tradition from which itemerges. As such, itdeserves tobe considered not simply as an excellent example of thepotential ofmanhwa but,more broadly, as a testament to the human achievement of combin ingwords and pictures to tell stories thatwould otherwise sufferfrom theabsence of either. Yun Mi-Kyung. Bride of theWater God. Hejeong Hass, JuliaKwon Gombo, and Phillip Simon, tr. Mil waukie, Oregon. Dark Horse. 2008-09. 729 pages, ill. $39.80. isbn978-1-59307-849-2 (883-6) / 1-59582 305-2 (378-6) Yun Mi-Kyung's Bride of the Water God is a tradi tional sunjeong manhwa (theKorean equivalent of Japanese shoujo or "girls" manga) thatwalks Rob Voll mar isa writer of and about comics and manga. His third graphic novel, Inanna's Tears, isdue out fromArchaia Comics in early 2010. He isa graduate of the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma and writes regularly on the Great Books of theWestern World (and sometimes comics) online at liberalartistry.blogspot.com. 58 i World Literature Today s Yun's decision to includedivine characterswell known to her domestic audience allows Bride the opportunity to creatively intersect with the verycore of Korean culture.The narrative is punctuatedthroughout with poems and songs related to characters inthe storythat are drawn fromcenturies of collective imagination. a fine line between commercial success and fine art. Inmany respects, Bride fulfillsmass market expectations for sunjeong manhwa as it follows the plight of a young girl, Soah, who is sacrificed by her village tobecome the bride of the water god, Habaek, in order to end a life-threatening drought. Though Soah fully expects tobe killed in the transaction, she finds herself transported to the divine kingdom of Suguk instead, where she is forced to cope with the duplicitous eccentricities of immortal beings. Habaek, to her dismay, is a young boy, but, unbeknownst to her, he manifests as an adult whom she knows asMui. While the story is somewhat typical for the genre, with soap opera inflected radical reversals of fortune, amnesia, and betrayal, Bride of theWater God enjoys two particular strengths that set itabove, if not apart, from its contemporaries. Yun's decision to include divine characters well known to her domestic audience allows Bride the opportunity to creatively intersect with the very core of Korean culture. The nar rative is punctuated throughout with poems and songs related to characters in the story that are drawn from centuries of collective imagi nation. Though manhwa is a relatively young medium by comparison, Yun's exploration of these cultural landmarks engages in an active myth-making /shaping process that began, in some cases, thousands of years before she was born. By recontextualizing those stories into a more contemporary format with which sun jeongmanhwa readers are already comfortable, Bride breathes new life into ideas (and the gods that accompany them) that had lost relevance for many in a postwar, post-industrial Korea. Bride of theWater God's most undeniable asset, however, is in the lush decadence ofYun's illustrations and visual storytelling.Her style is heavily dependent on shoujo manga as an influ ence, employing a wide array of techniques used to heighten the emotional soundtrack of the stories. Her layouts exhibit a quirky rest lessness reminiscent of such shoujo masters as Ikeda Riyoko and Ariyoshi Kyoko while her line often ventures into a hyper-angular expres sionism thatshares some similarities with Yun's Japanese contemporaries Anno Moyoco and Yazawa Ai. As familiar as many aspects of her work on Bridemay seem to shoujo readers, Yun Mi-Kyung's expert illustration skills and rich imagination position her as an innovator in a transnational tradition. Norman, Oklahoma January-February 2010 i59 ...