Visual Metaphors in North Korean Graphic Novels for Children

Jacco Zwetsloot

Global Politics Review
Vol. 2, No. 1 (April 2016): 65-82.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1238561
GPR ID: 2464-9929_v02_i01_p65
Published: 28 April 2016

Abstract: North Korea produces dozens of comic books each year for its children of various ages. Comic books for younger readers are often populated with anthropomorphized animal characters – not humans. Some of them tell stories that seem to be allegories of the Korean War. In these graphic novels, the animals represent through visual metaphor the various groups found in Korean War stories – good and pure North Koreans, traitorous and cowardly South Koreans, and their evil American overlords. This paper examines these visual metaphors to see how good and bad characters are graphically presented to young North Korean readers.

Keywords:  North Korean, Comics, Visual Metaphors, Children’s Literature, Propaganda.

Copyright by the Author.  This is an Open Access article licensed by Global Politics Review under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License Creative Commons License// Disclaimer: the copyright and license of this article changed on October 30, 2017, when GPR became Open Access. The PDF file has not been updated for archival purposes. //

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