When first published in 2003, The Color of Earth was a milestone in manhwa (Korean comics). The initial volume of Kim Dong Hwa’s trilogy tracing the life of a young girl in nineteenth-century Korea was noteworthy for its complex portrayal of women and its popularity with both male and female readers. Just published in America by First Second, The Color of Earth will have an initial print run of 15,000. The second volume, The Color of Water,will appear in June, followed by The Color of Heaven in September.
The book tells the story of Ehwa, a young girl whose widowed mother runs a tavern in a rural village. Over the course of several springs, Ehwa comes of age and explores her nascent sexuality, her mother enters a secret romance with a traveling salesman, and the mother and daughter’s complex, intimate relationship with one another deepens. In the afterword, Hwang Min-Ho, a respected academic and book critic in Korea, notes “above all, this work in a moving homage to Korean women of a generation or two ago, who bore up patiently under the weight of social codes and traditions.”
Mark Siegal, editorial director of First Second, learned of The Color of Earth at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2008 and by the time he got off the train in Paris “knew we had to publish it.” He “warmed to the visual style of the book, its superb line work and the pacing of the story.” The literary tale and graceful artwork fit well with the company’s list, and the volume was easily adapted to First Second’s elegant design aesthetic, including French flaps and deckled edge pages. “It is as beautiful package as we can put together. It is not supposed to be disposable entertainment,” Siegal notes.
The Color trilogy has already been published in France by Casterman. For the English edition, Siegal explains, “Not all of the art work was available. We had to use some files from the French publisher and some from the Korean publisher.” Although he realizes some purists may notice the differences, it came down to, “We can either do it with a few imperfections or not do it at all.”
Lauren Na translated the volume into English. Throughout, Korean phrases and traditions are explained in brief notes, marked by asterisks, along the bottom of the page. Siegal believes “You may not pick them up on the first reading, but may come back to them,” noting that they are “great for educators.”
The trilogy should appeal to a wide range of readers, including fans of literary manga, teenage girls and young women, and the academic market, especially in the fields of women’s and Asian studies. The emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship may appeal to book groups looking to branch out beyond novels, as Persepolisdid. “There is hardly a title we publish which doesn’t reach out to librarians,” Siegal adds, and these volumes’ literary quality and historical and cultural information should make them particularly appealing to libraries.
Marketing plans include advertisements in trade journals and online, focusing on reaching the literary marketplace for girls and young women. A reading guide for the trilogy is available as a PDF on the First Second website. The site also offer excerpts from both The Color of Earth and The Color of Water.
Siegal notes Kim Dong Hwa is a “household name” in Korea, and the author is “a big new voice for America. I take inspiration from the way Vertical introduced Osama Tezuka’s Buddha as an opus from a major talent that everyone should know about.”
