[비즈한국] There are two main ways popular culture content approaches history. One is by focusing on the massive structures, flows, and major figures of the era; the other is by shedding light on the common people—the ordinary men and women—who quietly endured and lived through those times. If the former is a macroscopic view, like looking at a forest, the latter can be called a microscopic view, like observing a tree.
Although we hold light, trivial smartphones in our hands, it is an old habit to chase grand narratives featuring heroes and great figures with our eyes. However, there are those who cast their gaze away from the grand boulevards of Jongno or the deep, forbidden palaces, choosing instead to nurture and depict the back alleys and the households of commoners. I met cartoonist Jung Yong-yeon, who has spent over 10 years looking deeply into the lives of the common folk, illustrating works such as "Jeong-ga's Small History," "Mokho Rebellion: 1374 Jeju," "Righteous Army General Heesun," and "1592 Jinjuseong," at a ppyeohaejangguk restaurant in Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do.
Ppyeohaejangguk Over Hokkaido Delicacies
In the alley in front of the Wonmi-gu Office in Bucheon, the original locations of two restaurants famous for their ppyeohaejangguk face each other. There used to be one more, writing a "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," but now that two remain, it has become a "Chu-Han Contention." Since Jung, who has a studio at the Korea Manhwa Museum, picked ppyeohaejangguk as his soul food, I headed to that very alley where the "bone war" continues.
Ever since he witnessed the gruesome scene of slaughtering a cow in his childhood, the artist has avoided beef, so ppyeohaejangguk is his go-to choice when eating out. He eats it when meeting colleagues and when hiking Sapaesan Mountain near his home. He recently claimed to have found the best ppyeohaejangguk of his life at a place near Sadang Station after a long walk along the Seoul Dulle-gil with fellow cartoonist Kim Kyung-ho ("Ghost General Mudongi," "Beondegi-z"), and he mentioned that during a trip to Hokkaido, Japan, last year, he craved ppyeohaejangguk even with gourmet delicacies spread before him. We spent a long time talking about the ppyeohaejangguk we were eating, while sitting in front of the ppyeohaejangguk, sharing stories about having eaten it and missing it.
One might assume he has been eating it since birth, but Jung first encountered ppyeohaejangguk as an adult while hanging out with friends. He says there was nothing better than sitting across from friends with a bowl of soup and a drink. Food shared with friendship becomes imbued with affection.
Narratives Served on a Small Table
For Jung Yong-yeon, food is a medium for affection. The mulberries and croaker in "Jeong-ga's Small History," the buckwheat pancakes (bingtteok) in "Mokho Rebellion: 1374 Jeju," and the azalea flower pancakes in the short story "Spring"—they all contain midsummer friendship, romantic feelings, memories of neighbors and fathers, and the longing and sorrow for a departing loved one. While his works are not comics exclusively about food, they treat food as a primary element containing the primal life and emotions of humans. In his work, food and the act of eating are key devices that reveal the characters' narratives and relationships.
Consequently, he has no choice but to meticulously draw both the small table holding the dishes and the space containing it. In his work "Yakhyeon," selected for the 2023 Korea Manhwa Museum's diversity comics production support program, he initially drew a scene of people eating together at a table in the Joseon era, but upon realizing it was a historical error, he changed it to individual dining tables. During our interview, the artist brought an old *Haeju-ban* (a type of small traditional table from Haeju), saying it was the very table he had referenced. This table, supposedly made in Haeju, Hwanghae-do, also appears in the dining scenes of "1592 Jinjuseong" and the short story "Sister-in-law."
The small tables that the artist began collecting as a hobby have now reached seven. Looking at the *Haeju-ban*, *Naju-ban*, tiger-leg tables, *gaedari-soban* (dog-leg tables), *Tongyeong-ban*, and *Gangwon-do-ban*, all of which have unique regional characteristics, he says one can feel their distinct formative beauty. Since he always works on historical pieces that require a war of historical verification, there were mistakes, but the process of overcoming those mistakes helped him acquire a meticulousness that pays closer attention to detail.
The artist said that while he doesn't know when it will happen, if given the chance, he wants to curate and exhibit the tables and utensils he has collected, along with the anecdotes behind each one. Knowing how warm the narratives served on his tables are, I told him to please let me handle the planning of that exhibition.
Depicting the Micro-History of Nameless People
Although he debuted as a cartoonist in 1991 by publishing "Hades' Night" in *Weekly Manga*, it was the 2012 publication of "Jeong-ga's Small History" that truly introduced the name Jung Yong-yeon to the comic world. Since then, he has consistently produced historical comics, including volumes like "Mokho" (later published as "Mokho Rebellion: 1374 Jeju"), "Righteous Army General Heesun," and "1592 Jinjuseong," as well as short and medium-length works such as "Yongseo-in," "Gweryeoknansin," and "Cheongpa-yeok," serialized in the Korean Cartoonist Association's comics magazine, "BOGO."
The artist says his experience of being born into a family that wasn't well-off, failing to enter college immediately, and working in factories, construction sites, and sales after his debut, led him to focus on the lives of ordinary people.
If the autobiographical family history and "small history" contained in "Jeong-ga's Small History" align with the massive gears of modern and contemporary history, the story of the Jeju people massacred during the Yuan intervention period in "Mokho Rebellion: 1374 Jeju" flows along the shifting currents to connect with the April 3rd Incident and Gangjeong Village. In the afterword of "1592 Jinjuseong," which depicts the story of Admiral Kim Si-min and the people of Jinju who protected the path to the Honam granary during the Imjin War, the artist left the remark, "Everyone is the protagonist." He didn't paint those with distinguished lineages, but those who shared the burden of history's framework—the nameless, the obscure soldiers, the true masters of history. The very stories of "our people" that grand narratives and discourse have petulantly erased.
In the artist's work, where even large battle scenes are drawn one by one using a spoon pen and ink without the help of SketchUp or AI, it is difficult to find the feats of heroes like Xiang Yu. While the battle scenes of Saebyeol Oreum in "Mokho Rebellion: 1374 Jeju," the siege of Beomseom, or the battles in "1592 Jinjuseong" are overwhelming, the power driving those scenes does not come from Choe Yeong or Kim Si-min. In a war where everyone risks their one and only life, the firm footsteps of ten people, rather than the ten steps of one person, determine success or failure.
Cartoonist Jung Yong-yeon is currently juggling support program projects, contest submissions, and completing unfinished manuscripts. He says he has about five volumes worth of work waiting for their chance to be revealed to the world, and finishing these is his current goal. The artist said he is merely "enduring" as an author, but there are many readers waiting for the work of an artist who depicts not the exotic plants of distant mountains, but the stories of "us" here and now. I look forward to his spoon pen staying busy for a long time.
While reviewing my interview with the artist, which lasted from lunch until evening, I looked up the work "Lunch" by Danwon Kim Hong-do, whom he respects. In this painting from the "Album of Genre Paintings by Danwon," nameless commoners—men drinking makgeolli after hard labor, and a mother breastfeeding her child nearby—are all eating lunch in their own way. A gaze carries intention. The lunch I shared with Jung Yong-yeon taught me why Danwon stared at the common, everyday scenes of nameless people tilling the land, raising children, and sharing meals and drinks together.
He prefers literary, restrained drawings and stories over works with strong commercial appeal. He cites Jiro Taniguchi, who drew "The Solitary Gourmet," and Yoshiharu Tsuge of "Nejishiki" (Screw Style) as his favorite cartoonists. He is also very interested in old Japanese gekiga and art comics. He considers Jiro Taniguchi his most respected artist, not only for his technical brilliance but for the attitude of quietly pursuing his own world throughout his life. He also enjoys the work of Sanpei Shirato ("Kamui Den") and Katsuhiro Otomo ("Akira"). "Compared to the activities of such people, I am living far below their level, but I am still drawing comics." The humility in Jung Yong-yeon's words contained a yearning for perseverance.