Dokgo Tak, the jewel in my heart

Along with "Gaksital (Bridal Mask)" by cartoonist Heo Young-man, "Dokgo Tak," a baseball story by cartoonist Lee Sang-moo in the 1970s, is comics that fascinated youths at around my age during elementary school years. To those of us who did not have a chance to read books other than school textbooks, these cartoons were fun in that we unexpectedly discovered among publications. Back then, I read countless comics while staying at a comic book store almost all day. I still have vivid memories about the two comics and one of them is Dokgo Tak. While reading Gaksital, I found conflict between Gaksital and Japanese police as bad guys to be boring, conflict between Dokgo Tak, who was defiant yet friendly, and Dokgo Joon, who was sincere yet cold, resonated strongly with me in multiple dimensions.

There seems to have been golden eras that emerged unexpectedly once in a while in the history of Korean comics. I had never seen comics that have drawn so strong attention as Dokgo Tak and Gaksital. But during college years, I was fascinated by and addicted to comics again, "A Daunting Team" by cartoonist Lee Hyun-se and "Son of God" by Park Bong-seong. As for A Daunting Team, I rented some of the comic books at first, but found myself who could hardly fall asleep without further reading other comic books in the series. I ended up knocking on the doors at the comic book store late at night, and rented all the books in the series to read.

Comics are also known as "The Ninth Art." Every different generation has comics of their own generations. These days, web cartoons play the role. Popular webtoons including "Misaeng" by Yoon Tae-ho and "The Owl" by Choi Gyu-seok have been made into TV soap operas. Prior to the era of Dokgo Tak and Gaksital, four-cut newspaper cartoons such as "Kojubu" by Kim Yong-hwan, and "Gobau Yeonggam" by Kim Seong-hwan enjoyed immense popularity. Women must have their own memories of romance comics "Candy," "Roses of Versailles" and "Star of North Sea."

Dokgo Tak was more than mere comics to people at around my age. British boys learned not to give up and to renew commitment to overcome hardships while reading "Treasure Island" by Robert Stevenson, while French boys did the same reading "Adrift in the Pacific: Two Years Holiday" by Jules Verne, and American boys reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. At the time, young readers in Korea had no novels that could be matches for those boyhood stories overseas, but struggles shown by Dokgo Tak filled the role. I want to convey my sincere yet belated gratitude to the late cartoonist, who passed away while drawing comics in his workshop on Sunday.

pisong@donga.com