New webcomic from Kang Do-ha

To make up for the previous spewing of a post here's something that makes a bit more sense.

Anyhow, I'm glad to see that Kang Do-ha is back with a new webcomic. Following the interesting writing and artwork of "The Great Catsby" (also discussed previously here) and the insanely surrealist and Saint-Exupery-esque "Pinwheel Boy's Dream," comes "Romance Killer."


(above image from Kang Do-ha's "Romance Killer")

According to the title image above from the preview episode, "Romance Killer" is actually the second volume in his three part "Drama of Youth" series. "The Great Catsby" was the first, and the final, third installation is called "Kubrick."


(above image from Kang Do-ha's "Romance Killer")

I always loved Kang Do-ha's drawing style. He definitely has an eye for setting up a scene, and using imagery. Also it's great to see him finally draw people for once and not anthropomorphized animals...pinwheels...elephant princesses...

For example, the above scene from the second episode just gets better the more you look at it. And the writing...the line from that above scene is great: "Once the cleaning is done, I can hear the hard panting of the Baretta. I resented the fact that the trigger that needed to be pulled had its mind elsewhere."

While "Romance Killer" seems to follow a more straight-up storytelling than previous offerings, it's still good to see that Kang Do-ha isn't totally dropping the interesting references, tie-ins and surreal philosophizing.

For one thing, we open up this entire series talking about the flower meaning of asphodel. According to Kang, the meaning of the asphodel is "I am yours." Interestingly enough the only flower meaning I can find attached to asphodels is "regret" or "unending regret." Even more interesting is it's a flower sacred to Persephone. I don't know if Kang knew of this, but considering the fact that his main character in this work seems to be a contract killer, that's another aspect to contemplate.


(above image from Kang Do-ha's "Romance Killer")

And in the fourth episode, in discussing the plastic surgeries the wife has taken, he not only draws out an interesting imagery of what the wife has done to her face but also he manages to bring in Elizabeth Taylor into the discussion.

So I'm going to look forward to how this turns out. I honestly was a bit disappointed by Pinwheel Boy after the story of Catsby since I felt the former relied a bit too much on imagery and metaphor. But even more so, I'm definitely looking forward to what "Kubrick" is going to be about.