• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.39
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• pp.413-450
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• 2015

Although cartoons have been recognized for their great potential and value, they have failed to bloom in Korea. This is because wrong perception and irregular distribution of cartoons have been repeated for the last several years. Presently, however, cartoons are escaping from chronic problems they have had for long and welcoming splendid chances now. From the mid- and late-1990's, there have been large-scale events having cartoons as their theme, and social recognition on cartoons is becoming more and more positive. Their contents are diversified, readers are increased, and they are escaping from stereotypes through harmony with other media. Lately, either large or small exhibitions for cartoons are being planned, and Korean cartoons are going overseas and producing exhibitions there. Particularly, visitors' appreciative eye is getting keener, and they begin to see them not as a genre underestimated as low culture like in the past but as a kind of art on which independent research is being actively conducted. One of the biggest factors that have allowed cartoons to be positioned as visual art is the form of exhibitions that combine them with other genres artistically. Especially the cartoon exhibitions being held these days are aggressively introducing various elements of the cartoon genre through the medium of exhibitions not just as a mere tool of seeing to help understand cartoon writers or works. The genre of cartoons is now regarded as an active subject that can reflect its own unique essence in this rapidly changing cultural environment and extend the range of it itself. The latest cartoon exhibitions are characterized by trans-genre and complex aspects in terms of their direction or organization according to the contents, space, or theme. This trend of cartoon exhibitions implies that they are subdividing, analyzing, and planning various factors not in a horizontal way that was centered around image as in the past. It means that cartoon exhibitions are evolving as a form of mobilizing, combining, and reproducing various methods. Although a number of cartoon exhibitions are being held with a variety of themes, there is still lack of research on cartoon exhibitions concerning their forms and contents. Therefore, this researcher sees cartoon exhibitions as a factor that allows cartoons to escape from negative recognition and examines various cartoon exhibitions, from Seoul International Cartoon Animation Festival to the ones that are recently held, to figure out the meaning of Korean cartoon exhibitions. Furthermore, this researcher will find out the factors of planning and popularity in international exhibitions or personal cartoon exhibitions being presently held and figure out new directions and potentials for Korean cartoon exhibitions based on that. To meet the needs of visitors whose expectations have become even higher, it is needed to try not just previous methods but experimental and original planning as well constantly. To realize that, it is necessary to keep providing a field of opportunity where cartoon works, cartoon writers, and visitors can communicate as in an exhibition. It is expected that this study will trigger research on cartoon exhibitions to be performed multilaterally and produce new discourse on cartoon exhibitions afterwards.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.33
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• pp.223-246
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• 2013

Even though cartoons and narration comics were born from different origin, they have been called by names such as 'cartoons' or 'comics'. The reason can be found in the similarity of cartoons and narration comics. The similarity of cartoons and narration comics is the genre consisting of writing and drawing. Writing can be the format of expression and it can represent the story. Such story is present as a component of 'narration'. Sub genre of comics includes cartoons and narration comics. It includes animation in a broad range. In cases of narration comics and animation, it is thought that narration is present with continuity of time. However, in case of cartoon, because one or two cuts without continuity of writing are frequently expressed, it is being asked whether narration is present. It is easy to be reminded of epic or chanson de geste whenever you hear 'narration'. Since it deals with a biography of the character, we think the concept of 'narration' with temporality. However, narration provides a certain event in a broad range. Thus, cartoons presenting one event with the image may have the existence of narration, because description of multiple scenes of narrative comics can be implicitly represented in cartoons. As such implications leave a space, the empty space can be filled by active reasoning of recipients. However, nevertheless, it is very difficult to find studies as well as mentions of narration in cartoons. Thus, in this paper, we investigate the concept and structure of narration and demonstrate the presence of narration in cartoons. First of all, we looked at the narration theory in literature before studying narration in cartoons. The reason is that we thought the approach to the literary theory was required in order to investigate the basic elements, since cartoons are a collection of writing and drawing. We were focused on the prerequisites of narration presented in "story and discourse" of s. Chatman. If the prerequisites of narration are present, we can assume that the narration is present. The prerequisites are 'narration reasoning', 'screening', 'consistency', 'process statements' and 'stasis statement'. As s. Chatman described them as prerequisites of narration, he analyzed the narration structures of films and novels. In addition, we revealed that the narrations were present in cartoons as we identified how prerequisites of narration presented by Chatman were presented and expressed through "vocabulary of comics", "Timeframe" and "life in the line" described in "understanding comics" by Scott McCloud.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.30
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• pp.139-168
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• 2013

This article aims to explain the significance and value of cartoons in the 1910s which were largely passed unnoticed in the preceding cartoon studies by scrutinizing cartoons published in Maeilsinbo in the 1910s. Until now, Korean cartoons in the 1910s has been neglected just because it were published in Maeilsinbo. However, this writing analyzed cartoons in this period on the base of the fact that the cartoons in the 1910s printed in Maeilsinbo diversified the horizon of the Korean cartoon. Cartoons in Maeilsinbo functioned as a bridge connecting cartoons published in Daehanminbo in 1909 reputed as a root of Korean cartoon and 1920s, the time when satirical cartoons and comics started being printed in newspapers. The characteristics of Maeilsinbo as a bulletin of government general and periodical characteristics that the agent of popular culture begun to move reside as multi layers in the cartoons in the 1910s. In this article, the process and the development of how cartoons published in Maeilsinbo. As pleasure became important in everyday life in Korea, cartoons were able to earn a portion in the newspaper. In the beginning, modern cartoon style seemed vague, but as time goes by, its own style gradually settled. Cartoons in this period were not fixed in specific section but various kinds of cartoons were developed during the time since works of Korean as well as Japanese cartoonists and illustrators were published. Among them, representative cartoons in Maeilsinbo were analyzed in this article under three categories: first, cartoons represented 'Choseon-ness' through scenes of daily life and customs concurrently contained a view of anti-civilization/enlightenment; second, cartoons represented the accumulation of wealth as valid from the view point of public interest; last, cartoons divided Koreans who suffered from hardships of life in Kyungsung and Japanese in Jingogae in order to divide space. In conclusion, Maeilsinbo disciplined the colonized, Koreans, and exposed the discourse of the colonial power via cartoon.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.37
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• pp.45-82
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• 2014

Comics and cartoons of superheroes in the West have adopted various semiotic systems and other art-forms, including their politico-socio-economic condition, and made parody of other popular texts, as well. Based on the idea of the development of superhero genre, this article focuses on how East Asian popular texts appropriate and reconstruct the genre, which was once considered the realization of American idea, by analyzing a series of TV animation (Japan, Sunrise,2011). Through the feature of parody with intertextuality, provides East Asian value and sensibility of characters as corporation-centered modern humans in capitalist society. This animation has similarity and difference, compared to that of Western superhero cartoons. It satires Western capitalist society and emphasizes Eastern family-oriented value. The performances of superheroes on TV represent the satire on Western style individualism and estimation through each one's achievement. It metaphorically criticizes the situation in which modern human falls into dependency on capital and media, and the capitalistic system in which public good is used for the method of private profit. emphasizes East Asian value of human and society, the cooperative relation for the success and maintenance of community by combining members of state and society through familial sensibility. Tiger functions as a spiritual leader in the group of superheroes who have been obsessed with competition for their own private purpose rather than public cause, Bunny and other colleagues are gradually influenced by Tiger's familial communicative style. emphasizes community-centered view and self-sacrificing sensibility as an international citizen to solve social pathology of modern world.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.49
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• pp.677-696
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• 2017

Cartoons and consequently animation are an effective way of visualizing futuristic scenarios. Here we look at how animation is becoming ubiquitous and an integral part of this future today: the cybernetic and mediated society that we are being transformed into. Animation therefore becomes a form of speech between humans and this networked reality, either as an interface or as representation that gives temporal form to objects. Animation or specifically animated films usually are associated with character based short and feature films, fiction or nonfiction. However animation is not constricted to traditional cinematic formats and language, the same way that design and communication have become treated as separate fields, however according to $Vil{\acute{e}}m$ Flusser they aren't. The same premise can be applied to animation in a networked culture: Animation has become an intrinsic to design processes and products - as in motion graphics, interface design and three-dimensional visualization. Video-games, virtual reality, map based apps and social networks constitute layers of an expanded universe that embodies our network based culture. They are products of design and media disciplines that are increasingly relying on animation as a universal language suited to multi-cultural interactions carried in digital ambients. In this sense animation becomes a discourse, the same way as Roland Barthes describes myth as a type of speech. With the objective of exploring the role of animation as a design tool, the proposed research intends to develop transmedia creative visual strategies using animation both as narrative and as an user interface.