Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia Series. London; New York: Routledge [an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business], 2019. xv, 306 pp. (Tables, illustrations) US$149.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-138-04693-1.
As the world tunes into US-DPRK summits, and talks of denuclearization dominate the media, there is still the mundane everyday life that exists in North Korea. Martin Petersen’s book North Korean Graphic Novels: Seduction of the Innocent? presents to the English-speaking audience an aspect of everyday culture that has not been dealt with in studies on North Korea. Petersen’s research is vast, exhibiting his knowledge and expertise in hundreds of graphic novels. Primarily focusing on graphic novels from the 1990s and 2000s, Petersen contextualizes the historical and political trajectory and the impact it has had on the production of this cultural medium. Although Petersen acknowledges the evident state ideology in graphic novels, he also suggests that artistic expression allows for “ironic readings” to emerge, affirming the diversity of cultural production in North Korea.
North Korean Graphic Novels consists of nine chapters, divided into three parts. The first three chapters in part 1 outline the history of the development of graphic novels from the 1960s to the present day and how they reflect the political changes occurring under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Based on the data in Korean Literature and Art Yearbook, chapters 1 and 2 itemize the publication of graphic novels, revealing their increasing popularity. In chapter 3, Petersen describes how graphic novels are inextricably connected to the deification of the leaders. By analyzing images and discourses in the novels’ frames, he shows the replication of political ideology glorifying the Kim family.
Part 2 is the most theoretical aspect of the book, framed around descriptive analyses of graphic novels of the 1990s and 2000s. In chapter 4, Petersen provides three approaches—what he calls meta-authorial reading, ironic reading, and reader-recognizant meta-authorial reading—to understanding graphic novels during the Arduous March in the 1990s, a period that crippled North Korea’s economy due to mismanagement of food, lack of production, and a nation-wide famine. According to Petersen, meta-authorial reading is an “expression of regime intentionality with an inherently partisan mode of meaning,” which is to say that the graphic novels of this period projected Party guidelines and adhered to state ideology (132). Ironic reading, then, is an approach that questions the intentionality of the state and provides open-ended interpretations of graphic novels. Although Petersen tries to demonstrate that graphic novels are not simply iterations of the state ideology and that there are cognitive dissonances, his application of reader-recognizant meta-authorial reading shows how the regime used graphic novels to reinstate power and stability during times of crisis. Petersen’s use of these three approaches is a modality through which we can better understand graphic novels of the 1990s. However, his descriptions of the plot were longer than his critical analysis, leaving the readers to make the connections that Petersen had promised.
Chapter 5 explores a recurring problem of bad family background in North Korean society. The state judges one’s intentions by scrutinizing one’s family background. Petersen argues that the function of graphic novels is to educate the readers to transcend problematic family backgrounds to become more loyal subjects of the state. Of all the chapters in North Korean Graphic Novels, this chapter is by far the most simplistic and uncritical in terms of analyzing the cultural medium. Petersen engages yet again in a descriptive explanation of the plot and falls short of providing critical nuances of a subject matter that is common in North Korean literature. He promises to extrapolate ironic readings that reveal structural problems in the society, but such readings get subsumed in the heavy-handed description of plots.
Conversely, chapters 6 and 7 are the most successful literary interpretations of graphic novels. By examining frames, sequences, artwork, rhetoric, dialogues, and symbolisms, Petersen explicates literary nuances that support the regime and moments that push the limits of artistic expression. Chapter 7, in particular, is the most developed chapter, wherein Petersen restrains from exhaustive descriptions of the plot while presenting a critical understanding of the multimodal production of graphic novels in North Korea. Petersen argues that there is much ambiguity in the interplay between state ideology and entertainment in graphic novels about loyal patriots who cross over to enemy territory to convert South Koreans.
Part 3 consists of chapters 8 and 9, which attempt to examine the consumption of graphic novels by North Koreans. While the cultural medium is primarily intended to educate young readers, Petersen observes that children may steal and read them in secret, potentially misunderstanding the intended message. The impact of such misunderstanding, Petersen argues, is important enough to spur the state to intervene, and educate the parents to emulate the Kim family in raising revolutionary children, which is an extension of the state’s attempt to educate the youth. Chapter 9 valiantly attempts to understand the reception of graphic novels by North Koreans. Interviewing a handful of North Korean refugees, migrants, and defectors living in South Korea, Petersen contextualizes these graphic novels, and situates them in a framework of reader-response theory. It is understandable that the outside world desires to know what North Koreans think about their own cultural medium, regime, and society, particularly because of the enigmatic discourse that shrouds that country. However, as difficult as it is to grasp authorial intent, it is virtually impossible to know how all the citizens of a country read, think, and interpret graphic novels, and insights from a handful of refugees will not provide any critical analyses of graphic novels.
Petersen begins and ends his book with the question of whether graphic novels have the power to seduce youth in North Korea, and demonstrates that they do indeed persuade readers to internalize state ideology. At the same time, he recognizes the seductive inclination of entertainment in graphic novels, creating a space of imagination that goes beyond the intended political message. Petersen displays his expertise in graphic novels and provides a comprehensive understanding of the cultural medium. Petersen’s book, therefore, is an important addition to much-needed scholarship in North Korean studies.
Immanuel Kim
The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA