Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada. Penguin Workshop, 2025. 9780593521328. 204pp. Includes notes about the story’s inspiration and sketches in the back.
Kim and Estrada continue their graphic novel series about university life in South Korea in the 1980s, when protests eventually brought about the end of the ruling military dictatorship. The series, which includes Banned Book Club and No Rules Tonight, features the members of a folk dance/music club at Anjeon University. The books are nearly all-ages; there’s a little bit of drinking in the books, plus there’s a constant threat of violence against the rebellious twenty-something characters who, each in their own way, do not conform to their families’ and society’s expectations.
This one has some of my favorite characters in the series, the four halmonis (grandmas) who live in the tiny Dangnam Village. The halmonis need Taehee (one of them is her real grandma) and her friends to play some long-neglected traditional instruments as part of a celebration of the year’s first full moon, to sooth the angry spirits that (maybe) killed their husbands. It’s not as much of a ghost story as that sounds, but Taehee doesn’t know that when she tricks the members of her club into accompanying her to Dangnam. What follows includes revelations of several club members’ secrets, a few examples of traditional Korean ceremonies, and helping with chores around the farm. (The latter is a real thing that I hope still happens in South Korea. When I was teaching at a university there in the 1990s, huge numbers of my students would be absent when they volunteered to help at farms.)
I can’t really recommend these books enough. They feel gentle and idealized, but they will make readers ask questions about South Korea in the 1980s that should lead to an understanding of the pride its citizens take in their hard-won democracy.
