I saw the staggering possibilities of that and decided to start writing and drawing my own. Here was the potential to create whatever I wanted, wherever I was, using only paper and pencil.

At the time I had never considered comics as art, but as a translator, I became aware of their power, their unlimited potential. Except that it was almost impossible to make a living as an artist, so I started translating comics to support myself. So I studied that in France and I loved it until I graduated and moved to Paris to try to break into the bigger, professional market.

Eventually I became frustrated with the limits of the page and started working in space. Kim: I always wanted to be an artist and drew constantly as a child. KLN: You studied painting at university in Korea and sculpture in France. I’ve met people who lived through difficult times in history and I’ve told a lot of their stories. When you hit those obstacles and don’t give up but try to get over them, that to me is the beauty of humanity, the will to keep going, even if you’re not successful, just that process is so beautiful. The way I see it, life is beautiful not just when we eat and drink and make merry, but when life gets hard, no one is immune from life’s obstacles. I don’t know why, it’s just the way I am. Kim: Every artist is different, but I find myself drawn to pain and sadness. Grass is a landmark graphic novel that makes personal the desperate cost of war and the importance of peace.KLN: As a graphic novel artist situated between comics and literature, what kinds of stories are you drawn to? The cartoonist Gendry-Kim’s interviews with Lee become an integral part of Grass, forming the heart and architecture of this powerful nonfiction graphic novel and offering a holistic view of how Lee’s wartime suffering changed her. Grass is painted in a black ink that flows with lavish details of the beautiful fields and farmland of Korea and uses heavy brushwork on the somber interiors of Lee’s memories. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee’s strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Grass is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War-a disputed chapter in twentieth-century Asian history.īeginning in Lee’s childhood, Grass shows the lead-up to the war from a child’s vulnerable perspective, detailing how one person experienced the Japanese occupation and the widespread suffering it entailed for ordinary Koreans.

Appeared on best of the year lists from The New York Times, The Guardian, and more! Winner of The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year!

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim