[비즈한국] A 'president for elementary students' is a special title given to individuals who receive absolute support and love from children. This lineage, which traces its roots back to Pororo, includes a variety of pop culture icons ranging from idols like TVXQ, BTS, and IVE, to animations (the Digimon series, Shinbi Apartment, etc.) and platform content creators (Dotty, Heunhan Nammae, etc.). Among these illustrious names stands a cartoonist who holds his own: Nam Dong-yoon, author of the 'Ghost Teacher' series. I met him at a sundae-guk (blood sausage soup) restaurant in Deungchon-dong, Gangseo-gu.
Upon entering the shop, a staff member who was chopping up boiled, de-steamed pig's head greeted me with a knife in hand. Lured by the rich, meaty scent permeating the space, I gladly accepted that blade. I immediately understood the author's words that he had made this place his regular spot when he lived in Deungchon-dong once upon a time. The cartoonist would spend his nights emptying his own mind to feed the panels, and he would come here to soothe the hunger of dawn.
A Bowl of Sundae-guk and a Glass of Makgeolli Accompanied by 20 Years of 'Infinite Challenge'
Since tasting it for the first time while being led by seniors and juniors during his college days in Cheonan, a bowl of sundae-guk and a glass of makgeolli (rice wine) became his companions during his overnight work sessions. Although he also often sought out seolleongtang (ox bone soup) or bean sprout hangover soup on his way home at dawn, he said there was nothing that paired as well with makgeolli as sundae-guk. His skill in pouring the dongdongju (rice wine) from a blue ladle was quite impressive.
Having entered adulthood while bearing the weight of his family's debts, the author worked tirelessly with his older brother for about 20 years. Although he never watched a single episode of 'Infinite Challenge,' the representative TV variety show of the time, his life was a series of endless challenges repeating in a daily cycle. For someone exhausted from focusing on illustrations and caricature work all day, sundae-guk and makgeolli became a simple pleasure that soothed the hardships of life and closed out his day. Now, he no longer pulls all-nighters for the sake of his health, and sometimes takes time to recharge while staying abroad for a while, but he says that this satisfying taste always comes to mind whenever he is overseas or finishing a project.
Hailing from Masan, Gyeongsangnam-do, he has always loved 'hometown foods' like monkfish stew and pork soup, or dishes where seafood and meat mix, like jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle soup) and spicy stir-fried baby octopus with pork belly. Yet, to say his soul food as a cartoonist is unequivocally sundae-guk—this is enough to say he is truly hooked on it.
A 'Children's Cartoonist' Who Dreamed of Being an Elementary School Teacher
Despite his rustic taste for sundae-guk and makgeolli, he is a popular author in the 'children's comics' field. Since the publication of the first book in the series, 'Ghost Teacher and Real Kids,' in 2014, his comics have been a hit and are now even included in third-grade elementary school Korean textbooks. In 2019, he received the Children's Comic Award at the 16th Bucheon Comics Awards. This is a very meaningful achievement in a situation where learning comics are the mainstream and arts for children, such as nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and children's poems, are receiving less and less attention.
However, he did not dream of being a cartoonist from a young age, nor was his start as a children's cartoonist smooth. Although he loved drawing from childhood, he had dreamed of being an elementary school teacher for a long time, and before entering college, he agonized over choosing between a university of education and a cartoon department. The response from the first publisher he sent his manuscript to was also not great. There were many things about his drawing style and story composition that tripped up the person in charge.
The desire to have 'just one' complete work of his own after doing freelance work for a long time, and the conviction in his own drawings, turned those twists and turns into a narrative of growth. It reminds me of 'Mu-i-il-gu (No Second Ball),' the lifelong motto of Jang Myung-boo, the star player of the Sammi Superstars. The author's solo work, which he had wished for as 'just one volume,' has now reached six volumes. His work, which he continued while thinking that it would be okay to draw more when asked when the next book would come out, has become a companion to young readers and left a meaningful mark in our cartoon history.
"I Hope They Feel It Naturally While Enjoying It"
Nam Dong-yoon's works are impressive for their meticulousness, which maximizes the density of every single frame. When asked about authors who influenced his style, he replied that he draws each panel "densely" due to the influence of Choi Ho-chul. Thinking of Choi Ho-chul's 'Euljiro Circular Line,' which depicted the scenery inside and outside a subway line 2 train entering Sindorim station with hyper-realistic detail, his drawing style, which is full of things to examine, was immediately understood.
His dense comics contain socio-cultural contents such as the climate crisis or folk culture in various places, but the 'intention to teach' is not revealed anywhere. The issue of animal abandonment is implied within the episode, to the point where it is difficult for any reader other than those with sharp eyes or diligent ones who read it twice or thrice to find it. The author's words, "I am composing it with the hope that young readers can feel it naturally while watching it interestingly," contain the author's heart of respecting children as readers.
Recording Every Child He Meets
Nam Dong-yoon's life is simple. He has no special hobbies or pleasures. Most of his daily life is spent drawing cartoons and meeting children at lecture sites. The lectures, which he started because he wanted to interact with children through his books, have already exceeded 800 sessions. Like a Cheonlima (a legendary winged horse), he traversed the country and achieved his dream of becoming an elementary school teacher.
For him, lectures are a time to mingle and play with children. Like his comics, they are free from the obsessive mold that one must teach and learn. The author, who seems to consider himself something of a grown-up child, says that there is not much difference between now and his childhood when he couldn't sleep because he was piling up thoughts, worries, and imaginations. Did Mencius say that a true adult is a person who has not lost the heart of a child?
The author, who draws caricatures of three or four children per lecture, or about 400 children a year, said he archives every record of meetings, including photos taken together. He once found and showed a caricature he had archived to an elementary school student he had seen at a lecture who had since become a sixth grader, showing how sincere he is about records.
The author says he keeps all the drawings he made as a child in a scrapbook, and these records accumulated day by day become a database for his creations. In fact, the 'Teacher Kang Ghost' character in the 'Ghost Teacher' series is modeled after his fourth-grade homeroom teacher, and other characters in the comics were created based on the author's childhood friends and children he met at lectures. Perhaps it is because every connection is precious. Thinking that every child should be a protagonist, the author does not set a single, unwavering protagonist in his works. The classroom in his work, where the protagonist changes for every episode, could be called 'Teacher Kang Ghost's' 'Bong-sung-ah Academy.'
He says he still meets the childhood friends who became models for his comic characters at least once a year, and that the friends who used to run around with him have now become parents busy taking care of their own running children. Wouldn't his friends' children appear in his comics before long?
The Cute Curse of Young Readers is My Strength
When I asked the author, who moves back and forth across the frames, about the secret to his vibrant activities, he talked about a curse. It is the story of a cute 'poop needle' (a children's prank) curse from young readers left in the comments of the blog he runs, demanding he put out the next book quickly. To him, who loves children so much that he even makes gifts like cards and stickers himself for the children he will meet at lectures, the readers' curse becomes a great vitality for his creation. It is the reason why the author, who sometimes takes a week to draw two pages, sits down at his desk immediately after returning from a lecture.
In the postscript of 'Ghost Teacher and Creepy Ghost School,' the author appears promising to draw up to 10 volumes and asking the grim reaper to wait. Even if the author fills all ten, the young readers' curses and demands for the next volume will continue to pour in; could the grim reaper endure this?
Author Nam Dong-yoon was born and raised in Masan, Gyeongsangnam-do, in 1982. He says he loved comics from a young age, and while playing freely with his friends, he also drew a lot. Since graduating from Sangmyung University's Cartoon Department, he has presented illustrations and caricatures at various magazines, company newsletters, and events, and has also parallelized cartoon work such as 'Donkey's Dream' (Monthly 'People and Ideas,' 2007-2010), '88 Plus' (Monthly 'Campus Plus,' 2008-2009), 'Nam Dong-yoon's Issues and Editorial Comics' (Monthly 'People,' 2007-2008), 'Break Time' (Monthly 'Eureka M,' 2010), and 'Son and Dad' (Monthly 'Life and Dreams,' 2007-2011).
His representative work, the 'Ghost Teacher' series, began to meet readers in earnest in 2014 when it was published as his first children's comic book, 'Ghost Teacher and Real Kids,' after re-working and adding new episodes to 'Uncle Ddong-yoon's Comic Bundle,' which was serialized in the monthly children's magazine 'Gaeddong-i-ne Playground' in 2011. Seeing him not minding becoming 'Uncle Ddong-yoon' if it makes young readers happy, it is by no means an exaggeration to recall the Chinese literary master Lu Xun, who said he would gladly become an ox for children.
Since its first publication, the 'Ghost Teacher' series was selected for the excellent children's comic activation support project by the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency in 2016 for 'Ghost Teacher and Solving Worries,' and in 2018 for the excellent diversity comic production support project for 'Ghost Teacher and Creepy Ghost School.' In 2019, 'Ghost Teacher and Creepy Ghost School' won the Bucheon Comics Award for Children's Comics. His latest work, 'Ghost Teacher and Another World,' was also selected for the excellent diversity comic production support project by the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency in 2021. In addition to comics, he published the picture book 'What's Happening in the Dust Country in the Drawer' in 2019.
Author Seo Chan-hwi is a cartoon columnist who has explored and organized the flow and links between cartoons and their surrounding cultures in a historical context. Since 1998, he has operated the comic information community 'Manhwain' and has written for various media outlets such as the Hankyoreh, Ilyo Shinmun, Incheon Ilbo, and Kookbang Ilbo. Author Song Ha-won is the representative of the Public Culture Development Center UrArt and operates the alternative comic bookstore 'Homtong.' He is a cultural planner, cartoon researcher, and adjunct professor at the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting at Sungkonghoe University, and a director of the Geumcheon Cultural Foundation. The two intend to look into the author's life and work world through the food loved by Korea's representative cartoonists in 'Cartoonist's Soul Food.'