Cartoonist #Choi_Seong-guk: Expression that breaks down barriers
Choi says that prejudice is the biggest concern facing North Korean defectors in the South, and works to challenge this through his popular online cartoon strip, Rodong Shimmun: The Enthusiastic Resettlement Diaries of a Male North Korean Defector.
In South Korea, Choi was hesitant to pursue the work of an animator because he felt his knowledge of his new home was still limited.
“When I first saw South Korean cartoons, I just didn’t get them. There were no stories about patriotism or catching spies or war. They just seemed useless to me,” he said in an interview.
Instead, Choi worked as a reporter for a radio station that broadcasts into North Korea, providing information to those who want to defect. Since 2014, Choi also participated in a weekly YouTube video program dedicated to North Koreans living in many parts of the world.
Soon though, he came to better understand the sense of humor of South Koreans, and once more became interested in cartooning. In February 2016 he started working for the publishing house Koreaura, where he drew cartoons depicting life in North Korea.
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His webtoon Rodong Shimmun: The Enthusiastic Resettlement Diaries of a Male North Korean Defector chronicles the life of Yong-chul, a North Korean defector who is struggling with his new life in the South, and it quickly gained a wide following - with an average of 20,000 online views. ’Rodong Shimmun’ means labor interrogation, and it is a word play on North Korea’s Rodong Shinmun, the country’s labor newspaper.
