{"id":17436,"date":"2012-06-08T15:07:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T19:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=17436"},"modified":"2014-05-15T23:06:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T03:06:49","slug":"jinchalo-by-matthew-forsythe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/jinchalo-by-matthew-forsythe\/","title":{"rendered":"Jinchalo by Matthew Forsythe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jinchalo\"<\/a>By no means is Jinchalo<\/em> your conventional manga\/manwha\/graphic work. Not to be going around in circles, but its title\u00a0\u2013 which, in Korean, means something akin to ‘really?’ ‘is that for real?’\u00a0\u2013 works rather appropriately as a response to experiencing this adventure … you just can’t be totally sure what happened!\u00a0According to the book’s front flap, creator\u00a0Matthew Forsythe<\/a>\u00a0was “partly inspired by Korean comics and folk tales,” to which he was probably exposed when living in Seoul, where he was a kindergarten teacher (his bio also reveals he was a database programmer in Dublin and a motorcycle courier in London \u2013 no xenophobe, he!).<\/p>\n

Virtually (English-)wordless with a smattering of Korean characters (signs on buildings, onomatopoeic additions, occasional nonsense compounds), Jinchalo\u00a0<\/em>is something akin to a\u00a0Rorschach test<\/a>, but surely more engagingly inventive. Ultimately, only you get to decide what you think you just ‘read’…<\/p>\n

Here’s what I thought: A little girl protagonist\u00a0\u2013 whose name, Voguchi, you would only know if you read that informative front flap\u00a0\u2013 lives in a seemingly traditional Korean house in a remote village. She’s got quite the hefty appetite, in dreams as well as in real life. She’s willing to share, though, and gives a begging stranger who looms in the front door a bowl of rice. Having eaten everything, she’s sent by her father (grandfather?) to the nearest town to buy more supplies.<\/p>\n

She encounters any number of unique beings, and during a run-in with a giant bird, inadvertently picks up the wrong egg … which soon enough hatches, and suddenly she’s eye to eye with the eponymous shape-shifter Jinchalo (again, another name you wouldn’t know without that very useful front flap!). Her journey home is filled with all sorts of surprises, not to mention some shape-shifting of her own [her transformation from adorable little girl to older woman, complete with the signature Korean old-lady perm and oversized-brim visor cap (you Koreans\u00a0know<\/em> what I’m talking about!!) is just too funny for words, all irony intended!]\n

Somewhat reminiscent of graphic artist\/author\u00a0Shaun Tan’s spectacular titles<\/a>,\u00a0Jinchalo<\/em> is a shape-shifting treat for the imagination. Every time you read it, you’re bound to discover something new, something different. And you’ll soon enough be asking yourself, “jinchalo<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

Tidbit<\/strong>: Jinchalo<\/em>\u00a0has a companion text, Ojingogo<\/em>, which I haven’t yet read, which for some reason is only available from used booksellers in the U.S., although readily available new in Canada. Yes, the publisher\u00a0\u2013 fabulous graphic specialist Drawn & Quarterly<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is Canadian, but most of their titles have not been stopped at the shared border. Hmmm … good thing for back door options!<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult, Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By no means is Jinchalo your conventional manga\/manwha\/graphic work. Not to be going around in circles, but its title\u00a0\u2013 which, in Korean, means something akin to ‘really?’ ‘is that for real?’\u00a0\u2013 works rather appropriately as a response to experiencing this adventure … you just can’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,274,6,73,37,31],"tags":[32,6608,438,1438,160,1439,35],"class_list":["post-17436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-canadian","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-korean","category-young-adult-readers","tag-adventure","tag-bookdragon","tag-folklore-legend-myth","tag-jinchalo","tag-kiddie-fun","tag-matthew-forsythe","tag-speculative-fantasy"],"yoast_head":"\nJinchalo by Matthew Forsythe - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/jinchalo-by-matthew-forsythe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jinchalo by Matthew Forsythe - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By no means is Jinchalo your conventional manga\/manwha\/graphic work. 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