Grass (Reservoir Books, translated by Joo Hasun), by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, tops almost every list of the best comics published in 2022, thanks to a powerful story about the horrific abuse and humiliation that “women” are subjected to. Consolation”, sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War. His new work, La Espera (also published by Reservoir Books with a translation by Joo Hasun), illustrates the problems posed by such a historical event as the partition of Korea through the story of an old woman. By sharing a plot structure, the former way would only be a grave mistake. Gendry-Kim puts his good hand when it comes to investigating a truth of historical significance, telling the story of an underage Gwija who will give a voice to a generation experiencing a terrible rupture. once again, the pain is out of fear of an incomprehensible but threat that takes her husband and eldest son from her. But the Korean writer’s great skill is to tell a story that is constructed by superimposing small stories, paying attention to the small details that create an intense texture of emotion that reaches the reader with the precision of a scalpel. The 10,000km distance separating our cultures disappears by magic and pain We discover that the world is always the same and knows no borders or nations. We see the daily problems of the old woman and it is impossible not to reflect them on our mothers and grandmothers. And we understand that the hardships they faced in the post-war period, no matter how many different cultures we talk about, are not far from what they went through: Women’s oppression, hunger and pain are universal, and Gendry-Kim manages to do her part. The line is simple, it acts as a sharp edge that reaches us with depth.
Their drawings don’t show obvious moments, they don’t look for easy tears to evoke compassion or disgust in the face of fear. In his cartoons, he manages to capture the essence of the moment when emotions are conveyed without words, with the power of a silence that opens the dreadful door of imagining what’s behind him and making his thoughts our own. We feel the loneliness of the old woman who does not see her children like a cold that freezes us; the pains of a body that no longer responds and knows that its end is near. We feel the martyrdom of the engraved image of the lost son like a throbbing pain that runs through us. We feel how forgetfulness and confusion come to the rescue of the endless pain caused by the memory of a past that leaves little room for the future. And just as easily we travel back in time to find the elements that will reconstruct the past in our memory, the rough mats tearing the skin, what they say is a photograph of horror that barely leaves a trace for the memory. … a few moments of happiness, tiny but enough to give hope and live the rest of life. Reading It’s hard to wait, but it reminds us how hard we have to fight for our memory every day to try to find that what we live is not a slab that prevents us from breathing today, but is the foundation of what makes us feel alive every day. see the future not as something to cause us pain, but as something we have yet to discover.
Absolutely necessary work.