This study aims to examine the methods of creating political cartoons centering around political figures in order to find the ground of political cartoons’ existence and new directions for their development. Although Korean cartoons’ history is ov...
This study aims to examine the methods of creating political cartoons centering around political figures in order to find the ground of political cartoons’ existence and new directions for their development. Although Korean cartoons’ history is over 100 years and the genre of political cartoons is based on distinctive narration for creation, they are still in an uncertain status being classified as editorial cartoons or historic cartoons. The fact that political cartoons are classified into the range of editorial cartoons, not as an appropriate genre is closely related with the gloomy political system in Korea. During the 80 years of colonization by Japanese Imperialism and the Dictatorial Military Government, the word of ‘politics’ was tabooed, and the cartoons dealing with the topic naturally became the object of being regulated. Despite that, the public’s needs for political information were exhibited through editorial cartoons in newspapers. But this doesn’t mean the complete freedom of creation for them. Because editorial cartoons in newspapers had to deliver messages according to each day’s issues, their form was not the chief concern then. The cartoons have been drawn in the 1st to 4th boxes, and this style has not been changed at all for half a century since 1945. Meanwhile, after the authoritative government took power and strengthened the regulations even more, popular cartoons dealing with politics appeared as a way of satirizing the government. Though they were rough, the popular cartoons did meet some of the needs of the public for political satire which had not been satisfied by the editorial cartoons in newspapers. Even when the popular cartoons yielded numerous cartoons dealing with politics as a way of satire in editorial cartoons, editorial cartoons in newspapers have not been changed at all in its style. However, along with the end of the Dictatorial Government, editorial cartoons had to see some decline itself as well. This might have been affected by the decline of political narration in our society, but this analysis doesn’t seem accurate. These days, far more political cartoons are being created, and this proves there are still the public’s needs for political narration. Therefore, this paper studies and analyzes the new methods of creating political cartoons and the process of creation focusing on the author’s own work titled as <Manhwa, Kim Dae Jung >.
The range of research is to study the history of political cartoons and the methods of their creation theoretically. And as a research method, it focuses on analyzing works of various genres comparatively.
<Manhwa, Kim Dae Jung> is based on the contrastive structure of ‘the good/evil’, and this paper intends to analyze how the cartoon uses it to induce interest. Although cartoons centering around politics have over 100 years of history, we can hardly find political cartoons with a narrative style. As we have gone through the Japanese Imperialism, Military Government, and Dictatorial Government as well, they have become more withered and lost the place of creation. However, as editorial cartoons in newspapers have dealt with the matters of politics, they have widened their space more and more gradually. However, as the era of Dictatorial Government ended, editorial cartoons also had to see decline, but the cause of it is not the cause of decline in political narration. People rather preferred the storytelling cartoon-type narration longer than the editorial cartoons. The phenomenon of people being enthusiastic about political cartoons these days is the absolute evidence to show political narration is still solid.
This paper verifies that the development of political cartoons lies in the transformation of creative methods. The creative method of realism is also adopted in <Manhwa, Kim Dae Jung>. And geukhwache rather than manhwache was more suitable for political cartoons, and it is because the former provides a more sense of reality.
This article is significant in these aspects; first, this verifies that political cartoons exist as a genre with an independent status different from editorial cartoons; second, the development of political cartoons does not necessarily decline political narration; and lastly, it emphasizes political cartoons have appeared as a new type of contents along with a new method of creation.