An EXCLUSIVE ESSAY from internationally acclaimed cartoonist Yudori
- keepingitgeekly
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
A new graphic novel was just released by Takumigraphics, Fantagraphics' new imprint that specializes in East Asian comics. Lovers of the Empire Vol 1 is a romantic coming-of-age story set during the 1920s Japanese occupation of Korea, created by Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist Yudori (Raging Clouds). Modern values collide with tradition across 224 pages in full color, introducing a new slate of international comics to be published by Takumigraphics in the future to come.
Yudori wrote an essay comparing her experience of Korean culture to her parents' in advance of Lovers of the Empire Vol 1's release, which we have an exclusive look at down below!
There was nothing mournful about my mom’s voice when she said this to me:
“I used to hate that my school was so far away from home. The long walk made me worry that war could break out while I was still on my way back. I’d never be able to find my way home if that happened, I’d be stranded.”
She was about thirteen when she had these thoughts daily. I was about seven when she first told me about them. Being the child of this glorious former “empire”, I also took her words without much grief. It wasn’t anything different from a statement like “let’s have dakdoritang(닭도리탕, chicken stew) for dinner tonight”. It sounded so mundanely appealing, no matter how much wringing the neck, or butchering, or draining blood would’ve been involved in having chicken for dinner.
But the Korea she knew is dying away. No, it has been dead and buried, and yet another version of Korea that I used to know is going through its own slow death. We used to be an empire even, for a brief time. A few years ago, I got in trouble on Twitter for calling Korea a “third-world country”. You “can’t say that word anymore”, as in it’s deemed indecent by the people who don’t have to suffer the indecency of having their necks wrung or get bombed on their way back from school. The thought never occurred to me because I never attached shame to the label, any more than I attach a sense of pride to words like “empire” or “civilized society”.
If I remember correctly, my whole family laughed at my mom when she told us. We laughed at how imaginative, innocent, and silly she was. Why the hell should she worry about that, of all things? Wars don’t happen. Children don’t get bombed. Was she also scared of the monster under the– actually, no, Koreans didn’t have beds in our homes until relatively recently, so I can’t use that phrase. My mom certainly grew up without a bed, such Westerness was only reserved for wealthier families. This is the problem I face every day. My brain keeps deluding me into believing what I’ve never owned is mine. Like the phrase “monster under the bed”, like the empire, like the English word “I”, like the letters A, B, and C. There is a dissonance between the language I speak and where I lay my head at night. When I dream in Korean, my brain goes “wow that was weird”, as if it is trying to forget where my body is still rooted.
Monsters took a tangible form in my world. The home I was born into was a hanok, with an outhouse that had a pit inside it as a toilet. My dad used to tell me, don’t go out at night unless you want to be snatched by a tiger. Apparently, tigers were a real threat to villagers until they went extinct -supposedly- in the 1920s.
I never understood why my dad hated animals so much. I thought he even hated dogs at one point. Dogs, those fluffy friends, and he hated them! What a psychopath, I used to think. Then he told me one day the dogs in his town used to snatch food off his hands when he was little– once, a steamed sweet potato, which was all he had for lunch. Possibly his last meal of the day, depending on how things would go. “Dogs are wicked smart”, my dad used to say. “They know which ones to attack, they can tell which ones are small and weak. That’s why they always go for kids.” In that moment, I understood: he never hated animals, he only saw them as his equals. They were threats to his existence, but also comrades in struggle.
To me, the world is “third” in wealth and social safety, if a child’s biggest fear is the animals around them, not imaginary monsters.
So what happened? What happened to the empire- the Korea we all knew? Or did it ever exist? Was it ever a third-world country, or an empire? My mom grew up worshipping the dictator and shed the tears of innocent youth when she heard the news of his assassination. Was any of that real? You could argue that the Korean Empire never existed. It was declared in 1897 by the men in charge, never amassed any conquests, and was dissolved in a little over a decade. But I was told to memorize the words “Korean Empire(대한 제국)” because some very important men wrote history that way. Did it exist, then? How do you decide whether a thing was ever real?
They say Korean tigers went extinct partly because of forced modernization and industrialization under colonial rule. They were systemically hunted by the Japanese, and over time Koreans have come to see tigers as a symbol of national pride. They were hunted down to extinction by the colonizers, like us, except we survived. Tigers are no longer feared, as they’re a thing of the past. We reminisce over the good old times when Korea was an independent kingdom and when children were getting eaten alive by tigers. It’s funny how the line gets blurred– are we the prey or the predators? Are they monsters or our friends? Do they exist, or don’t they?
I like to imagine a lone tiger roaming the mountains of Korea, far from the glitter of the city, successfully overlooked by whoever is in charge of counting wild animals. It’s probably unhealthy to daydream so much. But I do it anyway, just as my mom used to imagine herself stranded in war, struggling to find her way home. Somehow it’s comforting, it tells me the pain was real. All the shame, the fear, and how poor and ignorant and deprived we were– it was all real, no matter how documentable it was. Our land has survived bombings and massacres, and have erected upon the ruins innumerable beauty parlors and “European-style” cafes. Our empire is perpetually rebirthing itself, multiplying through time, as if to compensate for the space it was never capable of conquering.
But maybe the tiger doesn’t care if she is considered extinct. Maybe she also doesn’t care if the land she lives on is called an empire or a third-world country.
The tiger doesn’t care about any of that, because she is always able to find her way home, no matter what it has gone through, no matter how much it’s changed.
Creator: Yudori
South Korea, 1929. Arisa Jo, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is the most eligible bachelorette in all of Gyeongsung (the capital city). With her Western dresses, movie star hairstyle, and assertive attitude, she embodies bold “Modern” values. Meet her opposite, Jun Seomoon, a young man from the countryside deeply rooted in tradition. When Jun is charged by Arisa’s father to be her escort in the big city, these opposing forces create sparks. Through this unlikely connection, these teenagers open their eyes to new perspectives amidst the rapidly changing world they find themselves in.
“Lovers of the Empire is a cute boy-meets-girl romance, set against a silent backdrop of massacres and battles,” says Yudori. “That is in a way what it feels like to exist as a Korean: keeping the façade of abundance and harmlessness, while something is always brooding deep inside, just below the point of explosion. Wars do not stop at battlefields and bomb sites, they seep into our everyday existence.”
Takumigraphics imprint will publish a host of new titles throughout 2026. Fans can look forward to Marina Lisa Komiya’s On Their Frontlines: The Lives of Japanese War Brides in August, Shimura Takako Wandering Son in September, Akane Torikai’s Wandering Cat’s Cage in October, and Kago’s The Ultra Power Mongol Invasion in November – with more breathtaking East Asian comic classics on the way.
About Fantagraphics
For 50 years, Fantagraphics has published the very best comics and graphic novels that the medium has to offer. Our mission is to celebrate great cartooning in all of its incarnations, from the form’s early luminaries to contemporary artists currently forging the future of visual storytelling. Not content to rest on our laurels and extensive roster of talented artists, we constantly seek out fresh voices from across the globe. Thus, we honor the rich history of comics while providing a platform for bold new stories, styles, and perspectives that push the boundaries of the medium. Fantagraphics remains peerless in our commitment to be the publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists.
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