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(Date Posted:08/18/2005 9:22 PM)
I just found a blog that has pictures of the 1989 issue of Bomulsum (meaning "Treasure Island"), the top monthly manhwa magazine in Korea during the 80s. It's quite a valuable material, I must add. Comics are usually not very well-preserved in Korea, which makes researching manhwa difficult.http://blog.naver.com/yang3995/8078924The 80swas a period when genuinely entertaining and authentic works were flourishing and manhwa had entered the mainstream magazine market, which was a littlemore public and brighterthan the dark corners of manhwabangs. Like the Korean 80s, which was expanding in economic growth but people were still fighting for the right tochoose a democratically-elected president, manhwa had its bright and dark sides as well. Although magazines like Bomulsum had top-notch artists who were probably in their prime and sold quite well,they also had to struggle with censorship, and the unchanging, negative image of comic book art in society. Every year in May 5th (Children's Day in Korea), elemantary schools would hold a bonfire in the playground, burning all the comic books confisticated from students, and artists had to go in hiding to avoid unlucky prosecution. Still, or maybe because of it, the works were vibrant and energetic-perhaps not stylish or cool, but still they were very, very fun-and artists have become good at wiggling through the censorship.Baby Dinosaur Dooly(it's the fourth picture) was about a mischievious baby dinosaur with psychic powers, wrecking havoc inhis adopted Seoulite family and doing and saying naughty things to adultsand actually getting away with it (with the censorship board, that is; in the context, he is often ruthlessy beaten and punished by the father of the house in acomic, exagerrated way-but it was also reflecting typical domestic violence in a Korean household at the 80s, which was legally accepted as discipline)-how? He was adinosaurbeing sassy to an adult, not a human child being rude to his parents. Genre-wise, Bomulsum was targetted at generally children, and although most of the authors were male, the magazine weren't as gender-specific as the Japanese shonen magazines or the Korean soonjung magazines at the time. Two of the works were soonjung;The Green Knight(second from last) is a work by Hwang Mina, one of themasters of soonjung. I can tell you how solid these comics werethrough an example of Korean animation; works from Bomulsum were the first Korean material in a long timeto be animated (for decades, the rule was "anti-communist propaganda films only-science fiction and fantasy gives children wrong ideas"), and they were highly successful and becamse classics, while many other animationtrying tobe a masterpieceor sell toys hada shaky basis and plummeted, one recent example beingWonderful Days. I grew up with those comics, so I admit that perhaps I cannot bevery objective-still, many critics and fans alike agree that this was a high time for manhwa. With the 90s and the arrival ofDragon Ball, everything would change.
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Life can be a pain. But it ain't that bad, either.
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