COMICS
"Missionary" has been published
in the June 2008 issue of Aether: The Journal of Media Geography.
Download Han - "Missionary" (PDF, 1.9 MB)
My comics made it into the 24 Hour Comis Day Highlights 2006 book!
They chose only 10 out of more than a thousand entries,
so it's quite an (unexpected) honor. 
Interested in more? Download Incidents of Travel,
earlier work published in Q & A: Queer in Asian America in 1998 (PDF, 1 MB)
For 24 straight hours (10 AM on Saturday, October 7th to 10 AM on Sunday, October 8th, 2006), I wrote, drew, and inked 24 pages of comics.
The idea behind the international 24 Hour Comics Day was to produce 24 pages of comics in 24 hours. Non-stop, no sleep, and it's no joke. It was apparently held at 89 locations in 17 countries. I was at Elfsar Comics in the Yaletown area of Vancouver with about 15 other folks. All boys (ahem, some men) except for me and one high school girl.
It was surreal -- throughout the day, someone would blurt out questions like, "How should I kill off this dog I just drew?" and suggestions would be made. And there was a steady stream of moms and wives and girlfriends dropping by with homemade cookies and coffee and what not. I just wore my Etymotic ER•6 earphones to block it all out. And I just drew, and drew, and drew.
Disclaimer: Again, I wrote, drew, and inked the whole thing in 24 hours. The drawings are simple and unsophisticated, and full of talking heads. There are lots of things I would edit and re-draw, if I could. So be gentle, and please read with a generous heart. And let me know what you think.
Click on the image on each page, and it will flip to the next page. Or download the whole thing at once as a PDF file (Han2008_missionary.pdf, 1.9 MB).
Start Page 01
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- kaguya: omg…. I hate this reality….
- Alexis Martin: last year i was so addicted with the Bejewelled game and i played all night’~.
- dotorious: Very funny! And how surreal that must have been. I wonder if the dude would go back to wherever he came from, and mutter in shock,...
- Bonnie: I always though that the similarities between 원어민 and 원주민 were funny too. It’s startling being in Korea for a while (as a white...
- dotorious: of course. it’s funny, actually, the similarity (and vast difference) between 원어민 and 원주민.
Recent Photos
October 19th, 2006 - 16:12
LOVE IT. will post more when i have the time/mental bandwidth…
October 20th, 2006 - 17:11
Thanks, Judy! Great work! Truly scary.
October 21st, 2006 - 17:41
Bravo!!! Illuminating and fun to read. Spot on in your critique of the politics and the geopolitical imaginary behind this monstrous movement. Also hits close to home – several of my cousins in So Cal and in Korea are quite fervent and have gone of some missions and are always trying to convert me, the godless heathen in their midst….Thanks for making this important work accessible.
October 22nd, 2006 - 14:36
judy – this is truly inspiring, not to mention a very unique medium for translating your work. thanks for the peek at your 1000-page baby. hope all is well otherwise in your resettlement in canada.
October 23rd, 2006 - 12:48
what a creative, mental, and mostly, physical feat. i’m guessing this project was helpful in organizing the many loose ends as well as the big, and small, ideas that comprise your dissertation. i see how each of the three big points, us-korea alliance, us hegemony, and korean diaspora, are important factors when looking at the worldwide evangelizing efforts led by the us, who also happens to be leading the efforts in transforming the rest of the world into capitalist democracies (at least in theory). therefore, after reading your comic book, i can’t help but think that the us political and military campaign in korea during the cold war has been hugely successful in galvanzing the koreans for the christian, capitalist missions. not surprisingly, the lines between political economy, military and religion are blurred. but what is peculiar is the degree of the korean evangelical fervor. now that this topic is on my mind, i hope you share your conclusions when you reach them, preferably, in the same comic-book format.
October 23rd, 2006 - 22:31
That’s brilliant! Forget the diss, finish the comic book and hand that in.
October 23rd, 2006 - 22:49
Thanks for all the kudos, guys! I WISH I could forget about the dissertation — ha! I AM seriously considering submitting a portion of the diss in comic book form, though.
October 25th, 2006 - 09:51
Judy-
This is so great! I now feel that when I am trying to explain your dissertation to people, I can say something a little bit more than “something about korean missionaries and evangelicals and their ties to the US.” I am looking forward to reading your 1000 page plus dissertation when you are done. I am truly intrigued by this topic and the comic strip is a great distillation for those of us who are incapable and/or unwilling to spend the hundreds of hours that you have dedicated to this complex issue.
I am awaiting your conclusions with bated breath. Now that I don’t have the finales of project runway or Flavor Flav to look forward to, I am thankful for something more meaningful to anticipate!
Je Yon
November 16th, 2006 - 10:52
Judy-
I’m so glad I finally read this! It’s great. My favorite drawing has got to be your “Not Geology” T-shirt
Give the dogs hugs!
Leigh
November 21st, 2006 - 13:19
heya — still just a quick note, tho i’ve read it more carefully and love it — but why, if you’re so antisocial, would you go out into public (a very fanboy public, i might add) and draw it? i think the antisocial thing is a front.
-ewee
November 24th, 2006 - 13:30
Yeah, whatever, ewee.
But that was the whole point – drawing comics together in a public setting!
November 27th, 2006 - 11:17
uh, i thought the idea was to make us get off our collective asses and draw? whatever. woohoo you!
(and a front for your scintillating social outgoing side)
January 1st, 2007 - 21:46
thanks for this great comic-book art. it hit on so many interesting axes: imperialism, religion, korean diaspora. congrats on having it published. i learned so much. it helped me better understand my ancestry and current day activities.
June 5th, 2007 - 16:06
The dissertation as comic idea is wonderful.
I’m jealous, though it sounds like it was pretty taxing, physically. It sounds (and looks) like you had drawn comics a few times before. I am curious about what was involved. Like what size of paper did you draw on? Did you draw in pencil and then follow with ink?
Anyway, I’m a total fan. I am wondering what I could turn into a comic, myself. Maybe that’s obvious.
-Ulysses
June 5th, 2007 - 23:40
Thanks, Ulysses! It was really exhausting, so I’ve begun training in hopes of being in better shape at this year’s event in October 2007. Ha ha. And yes, I’ve been drawing comics for a very long time, but never seriously enough. You should do it in the Bay Area, too! You could easily do one about being married to a dissertating PhD student… or perhaps something more interesting.
Everybody used their own, different setup, but I used these Blue Line Comic Book Art Board (11×17) that I just trimmed in half. I had bought them almost 5 years ago, so I just wanted to get rid of them. I originally wanted to draw at 11×17 size, but that would have taken longer. Because of the time constraints, it looked like most everyone used letter size (8.5×11) paper. There was one guy who brought a whole computer and scanner set up, another guy who actually drew on the computer, and a couple of others brought desktop drawing boards, too.
And yes, I did rough sketches first in pencil, using both regular and non-reproducing blue pencils, and drew over them with various sizes of Pigma Micron pens. These pens provide non-varying-in-width, kinda boring lines, but perform reliably under duress. I didn’t follow the penciling all that dutifully when I was inking, so I did have quite a bit of erasing to do at the end.
This year, I’m thinking of using these dip pens that I recently bought for a graphic novels class. I only have the Speedball Cartooning Pen Set with 6 nibs, but I’ll probably experiment with more. These guys took some getting used to, but the lines are richer and more interesting. I might skip the penciling this time, too.
June 10th, 2007 - 18:06
fucking brilliant! love the dissertation in comic format. for the purposes of readability and reaching a wider audience, the comic does that amazingly well. i stumbled onto your page while searching for queer korean pages, and if i remember correctly, i think i met you during a KASCON in seattle? i was a jaded conference participant that talked to you after some workshop/presentation/whatever. twas nice to meet you, hope things are well, good luck with the dissertation. my brother is ABD also, i somewhat remotely feel your pain.
June 19th, 2007 - 18:31
By the way, speaking of food, we arrived in Korea last night. I’ll write more about this later, but we’re staying at a guest house attached to a college dormitory, and we had the PERFECT breakfast at the college cafeteria downstairs this morning. We went for a jog at 6 AM, showered, and by 7:30, we were sitting down with rice, radish soup, excellent kimchi, delicious sesame leaf banchan, and a perfect, non-greasy white fish fillet, lightly battered and pan-fried. Finished with a little juice box of soy milk. Yum! Simple, tasty, and cheap at about $1.50 each.
I was nearly in tears of joy… what would Jamie Oliver think of THIS school lunch?
January 12th, 2009 - 03:16
hullo! steph lee pointed me to your page and I must say that I’m quite glad that they did! I’m just wondering whether you had fleshed out the comic more, how the diss is going, etc. seeing as how this was originally posted 2+ years ago! at any rate, thanks for sharing this with the interwebs…
January 12th, 2009 - 14:01
Wow, cool! I can’t believe you still have this website! Missionary, hmm. So full of…possible meanings. Hehe!
June 11th, 2009 - 20:48
Judy, Congratulations. That is a great work and a very inspiring idea