Toys R Us in Korea

Giraffe: Come in! Come on in, children! Come on into the first Toys R Us in Korea! The biggest toy store ever in ALL of Korea!

Jae Woo: Hey, what's wrong Mi Ra?

Mi Ra: I don't know about this new Toys R Us.

Jae Woo: What do you mean?

Mi Ra: Well, I wonder if it really is the world's greatest toy store.

Jae Woo: Of course it is! It's huge!

Mi Ra: I know. I know. But I think it's kind of weird that it's almost completely full of stuff from Japan and the United States.

Jae Woo: What's weird about that?

Mi Ra: We live in Korea, remember?

Jae Woo: Oh come on! They they have tons of Pororo stuff. Everybody loves Pororo!

Mi Ra: I know. They have a ton of Pororo stuff. But other than that little penguin, everything else is from other countries it seems like. Don't you worry about our culture, Jae Woo?

Jae Woo: Worry about our culture? Ha! No way!
Mi Ra: Well, don't you wish we had more of our own toys? And our own cartoons?
Jae Woo: I don't know. If you want your own cartoons so much, why don't you just tell your uncle to make them. He's an animator, isn't he?
Mi Ra: Tell my uncle! Are you crazy? He spends six days a week animating for other countries. Actually, he makes the animation that they base all these toys off of and then sell back to us at high prices. He doesn't have the time or money to worry about creating his own thing!
Jae Woo: Oh, lighten up! If it's so bad in animation, he should just go work in real estate then.


Mi Ra: Okay, okay. I won't complain about our lack of original content. Still, doesn't something seem awfully suspicious about that giraffe mascot?


Mi Ra & Jae Woo: Definitely!

Giraffe: Hey everybody! We've been open since December 8th and like to stay open for a loooooong time! So don't go to those small little toy stores everywhere else, come to Toys R Us located in Lotte Mart! It's conveniently located next to the Guil subway station in Seoul.

Useful Link: Toys "R" Us opening first store in South Korea

Stealing is Wrong

The Art Book Man

Art book man

Art book man

Selling books from

The States and Japan

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Wanders in

Quite Dapper

Some of his books

Still in their wrapper

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I have heard

Not best deals

For this mobile

Small bookstore on wheels

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Can you please

Lend a hand?

Does he visit

Your far away land?

Convenience Store Comics

I noticed a new comic book distribution model today in Korea: selling them in convenience stores. This is actually a very new approach that began in October of this year.2030 Comics are aimed at the 2030 generation (people in their twenties and thirties). They feature a series of seven comic magazines. Apparently, they are selling quite well. I could only manage to find a couple first volume comics left in the magazine rack.They are being sold exclusively at GS25, a convenience store chain in Korea. See, you can spot the GS25 logo on the cover.
Most Korean comics come in a bounded collection of multiple stories or in graphic novel format. Unlike most Korean comics, they are published in a Western format. I'm quite impressed that the comics are printed in full color, contain absolutely no advertisements, and still manage to cost only KRW1,500 per copy. This doesn't seem profitable, but apparently there is governmental support in this venture.

This is a unique experiment. I'm interested to see where it leads. Let's hope that the most popular stories are turned into animated projects! What do you think?

Here are some links where I learned more about this and so can you:

1. Comic books will soon be made available in convenience stores
2. "2030 Comics," a comic magazine for convenient stores, will be on the shelves this October
3. '2030 Comix' is selling well