Cartoonist sheds light on former sex slaves
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Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s cartoon work tells the story of a Korean woman forced into sexual slavery during World War II. / Courtesy of the artist
This is the second in a series of interviews with resident cartoonists of the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency's Manhwa Business Center. ― ED.
Cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim poses at a cafe in the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, June 26. / Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
When Paris-based artist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was still called by her Korean name Kim Keum-suk back in 1993, she had a chance to watch “A Woman Being in Asia,” by director Byun Young-joo, which depicts sex tourism on Jeju Island. Gendry-Kim confessed she didn’t feel any empathy for the so-called “comfort women” back then.
However, ever since serving as an interpreter for Korean cartoonist Jung Kyung-a, who came to France to introduce her cartoon work “Femmes de Reconfort” (the French title of her comics “Reports of Comfort Women”) in 2000, she began studying about the women.
Gendry-Kim, then became actively involved in creating awareness of the plight of the comfort women in France, and made her name in Korea last year when her cartoon telling the victims’ story was featured at the Angouleme International Comics Festival in France.
At the festival, Korean artists displayed 20 comic strips and video works shedding light on the women, making international headlines.
Receiving a great response at the festival, Gendry-Kim said she “focused on issues related to women” because she believed these stories could be told best by women.
“The reaction at the festival was explosive. Conservative Japanese people attempted to set up a booth nearby, but they were prohibited from doing so because the organizing committee decided their intentions were for politics not peace,” Gendry-Kim said to The Korea Times at a cafe in the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, June 26.
“I was asked to take part in the festival by the Korea Cartoonist Association, and the experience I had there greatly helped me in terms of what I will concentrate on for my next work.
“I don’t think I became a superstar after the festival. I realized that there are some stories of women that only women can tell. That can also equally apply to men,” she said.
In that same notion, Gendry-Kim has been posting portraits of the sex slavery victims that have passed away on her blog (suksuksuksuk.blogspot.kr).
“I have been drawing a portrait of the deceased victims to cherish their raison d’etre.”
Her comic book version of the art-house film “Jiseul,” based on the Jeju uprising in 1948, was also received well.
On April 3, 1948, an armed guerilla uprising was suppressed by the police and military, months before the country's first democratic republic was established in August of that year. Being accused of being Communist, about 30,000 innocent civilians were killed. Gendry-Kim’s cartoon version also depicts a heartbreaking true story of 120 villagers fleeing the military forces.
Last May, Seoul City Government and the Seoul Animation Center included her cartoon on their recommended books listing. Among the list, "Jiseul” was the only title recommended for both children and adults.
“I was working on Jiseul while I was preparing cartoons for the festival. Jiseul is an extension of what I intended to draw about,” she said.
Power of cartoons
She not only found a theme for her next work, she also realized the great power of cartoons at the French festival.
“I saw that cartoons have power in attracting people to something that cannot be easily explained in literature or a painting; cartoons work using both sentences and paintings. From children to the elderly, everyone can understand a cartoon,” she said.
Gendry-Kim said she had not intended to draw cartoons in her early days as an artist.
“I majored in Western painting while I was attending university in Korea. After graduation, I flew to France to learn more about art, and studied sculpture and installation art there.
“But while staying in Paris, I had a chance to translate Korean comic books in French. After that, I started publishing my cartoons there,” she said.
She returned to home soil in 2010, and made her Korean debut as a cartoonist in 2012 with “Le Chant de Mon Pere,” a fictional story based on her own life.
“I don’t think I am only destined to draw comics, but now I am enjoying the power of cartoons," she said.
She said her next comic will be about female divers or “haenyeo” on Jeju Island.
She will depict a group of young women aged between 18 and their early 20s who go to the East Sea islet of Dokdo right after the Korean War to harvest sea food. The book is tentatively titled: “Young haenyeo Ok-rang goes to Dokdo to gather seaweed” and will be published this fall.
“The divers are still alive and I had long series of interviews with them. The book will be a story of Korean women who had to throw themselves into the sea in order to survive,” she said.
The artist, who is also planning to publish her pansori (traditional Korean narrative music) themed comic book in Switzerland this year, said she will have new work about the former sex slaves.
“When I drew the cartoons for the French festival, I only relied on testimonies of the surviving victims. Though I am only in the developing stage, this time, I would like to go deeper into the story of the sex slavery victims from a woman’s point of view,” she said.