South Korea

Abstract

This chapter studies political cartoons in South Korea. It starts with a historical overview tracing the origins of South Korea's political cartoons to illustrations in the country's earliest newspapers. It shows the adaptability of Korean political cartoons throughout history, which helped them last. Among the issues the political cartoons dealt with were the ideological struggle between rightists and leftists, the thirty-eighth parallel that divided the peninsula, the cooperative China–Korea relationship, the housing crisis, the power shift from the U.S. military to Korean civilian authorities, comparisons between U.S. and Korean products, and the reestablishment of the nation. As usual, Korean political cartoons saw highs and lows throughout Korea's history, but for the most part, political cartooning became more robust when liberalization was ushered in during the late 1980s. Another venue for reporting and commenting on social and political issues that has surfaced are social/historical realism graphic novels.