Thursday 29 November 2007

Ojingogo

BONK!


This is a rough drawing from the book Ojingogo. See that word over the girl's head? This book plays with Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and it does so very well.
OH!

However, this book isn't drawn by a Korean. It's drawn by Matthew Forsythe of Canada. Matt was a kindergarten English teacher in Korea for a year. It's in that year that he started drawing the webcomic Ojingogo. After returning to Canada, Matt finished up the first story and published Ojingogo in book form. Ojingogo was a success! It gained lots of positive attention and praise, even being nominated for the Eisner Awards, the "Oscars" of comics.


What a great use of one's experience in Asia! It's good to know that there are such fascinating foreigners who've lived in Korea and are producing work containing a little Korean spirit.

The story is about a girl and her squid. It's wacky and fun. You can read the comic online. The story doesn't rely on any language, but I think you're rewarded a little for being able to read Korean.


Matt is currently finishing up the second Ojingogo book. He draws very well and misses the food kimbab.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check out this book if you can find it: Peanuts: Found in Translation: Japanese Charcoal Ink Paintings by Yoshiteru Otani. The artist uses Japanese bursh script and incorporates it with Peanuts characters (Snoopy, etc). I think the book was only available from the Charles Schultz Museum in Northern California, but if you can find it online somewhere, or just see a few images from it, I think you'd find it interesting.

Midodok said...

Yeah, I have seen that book before. I really liked it a lot and recommend it, too.

Guto de Oliveira said...

very nice man ... amazing