Cartoons against corruption
Yi Won-soo by Jeong Chi-ho
Yi, 76, recently celebrated the publication of his 500th political cartoon through the New York Times syndicate.
Yi, a member of the Cartoonist and Writers Syndicate in the United States, is the second Asian to hit the 500 mark.
The first was Singapore’s Miel Prudencio Ma from Singapore, another syndicate member.
“Seeing my 500th internationally syndicated piece published means our [Korean] cartoons are getting recognized globally,” Yi said.
Understandably, Yi is a fan of cartoons.
“The characteristic of a cartoon is such that just one single drawing expresses so many things,” he said.
When describing what makes a successful political cartoon, Yi said the main idea and the drawing have to be as good as each other, he said.
Yi majored in law at Pusan National University with a dream to go into politics. He found work as a political aide during the Syngman Rhee administration in the 1950s, but he was less than impressed what he found in the murky politics of that time.
“After working for a politician for five years I realized how corrupt the political world was and how the Korean Assembly was trying to run the country in an autocratic fashion,” Yi said.
The cartoonist said he started drawing cartoons as his own means of protest against dictatorship and corrupt politicians.
Yi didn’t study drawing at school. Instead, he learned under the late Korean cartoonist Kim Yong-hwan, the man behind the character Kochuboo, which Kim created in the 1940s.
Yi continues to draw Kim’s character along with his own international political cartoons.
Yi Won-soo in one of his own sketches. Photo by Jeong Chi-ho
The younger cartoonist kept drawing until the Korean government hauled him away under suspicion of communist sympathies.
That was during President Park Chung Hee’s regime in the 1960s.
“Some of my work was published in a Japanese magazine that leaned toward the left, and so the government thought I was a communist,” Yi said.
“Although the police and the authorities were cordial, I was kept awake for four days and they repeatedly asked the same questions,” Yi said.
He was later cleared of all charges, but he decided to quit drawing.
He worked at the Korea Trade-Investment Promotional Agency for a decade, and then moved to an advertising company.
But in 1992, Yi picked up his pens once again. That was the same year the Korean government lifted restrictions on media publications.
Yi began drawing political cartoons for the Seoul Shinmun, a stint that lasted for six years until 1998.
He also worked for the Korea Times from 1993 until last year.
“I was thinking of becoming a cartoon critic who could help elevate the quality of cartoons in this country,” Yi said.
“But people around me said I’m better off as a cartoonist than a critic.”
Yi became a member of the Cartoonist and Writers Syndicate in 1995.
Then the New York Times started syndicating his work in 2003, when the JoongAng Daily and the syndicate signed a strategic alliance.
Nowadays, Yi spends his life drawing political cartoons and trying to promote environment protection through Korea and China Future Forest, a private organization founded by Kwon Byong-hyon, a former Korean ambassador to China.
Every year the organization plants trees in the deserts in China that produce the yellow dust ― the dense clouds of dry soil that afflict Korea and other parts of East Asia every spring.
Although past the age when most people relax and work less, Yi has no plans to slow down.
“A cartoonist never retires,” Yi said. He carries a small sketch-book with him at all times so he can sketch people and places at any time.
His plan is quite simple. “I want to reach out to people through my cartoons and increase awareness about environmental protection,” he said.
By Lee Ho-jeong Staff Reporter [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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