The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The English edition of Korean news site Chosun reports that the country is marking 100 years since the first publication of a comic strip in a newspaper there (a political cartoon commenting on the Japanese attempting to annex the Korean peninsula). Sadly the article doesn’t actually show that cartoon or indeed any others, although it does go on to note how the spectacular growth in the comics industry has lead to some serious monetary figures – the Ministry for Culture, Sports and Tourism said the market for comic books was around $600 million (US); when licensing of characters, royalties and other factors for other projects were taken into consideration the amount apparently runs to the billions, with the government putting aside a budget of $96 million over five years to support the industry. Could you imagine comics in Britain getting anything like that support from government…