North Korea’s Comic Book Propaganda

Blizzard in the Jungle and Great General Mighty Wing

In Blizzard in the Jungle (left), a plane carrying North Korean agents is brought down in the African jungle by gangsters eager to get their hands on a briefcase of “secret documents.” Using the wisdom of the country’s revolutionary juche philosophy, and enriched by the power of Korean-grown ginseng, agent Kim Yeong-hwan leads the survivors to safety. Great General Mighty Wing (right) tells the story of its eponymous hero, a militant honeybee, who leads his socialist hive in a successful attack on an alliance of imperialist wasps and spiders.

Related article: "You Are Followers of the Juche Philosophy, So I Can Put My Trust in You."
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
General Loser and the Gnats and Sniper Maiden

General Loser and the Gnats (left), a series of satirical episodes poking fun at U.S. President George W. Bush, and the cover of Sniper Maiden (right).
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
Operation Shooting Star and The Fireflower Youth Guard

Cover of Operation Shooting Star (left). Cover of The Fireflower Youth Guard (right).
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
The Secret of Frequency A

In The Secret of Frequency A, an elite North Korean youth science squad teams up to help an African nation rid itself of a mysterious plague of locusts. The cause? A coterie of nefarious U.S. agents—including a Nazi war criminal and a buck-toothed Japanese acoustical engineer—who have utilised a particular frequency of the note A to advance imperialist interests in Africa.
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
On the trail of top-secret documents

An excerpt from Blizzard in the Jungle. “You are followers of the juche philosophy, so I can put my trust in you.”
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
Foolish American individualists

An excerpt from Blizzard in the Jungle. Two Americans who foolishly break off from a North Korean-led band of plane-crash survivors are devoured by crocodiles.
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
The tale of a mighty honeybee general

An excerpt from Great General Mighty Wing. As befits a North Korean comic book hero, Mighty Wing also discovers a way to irrigate his hive’s Garden of 1,000 Flowers and drive up honey production—a veiled reference to the devastating famine that coincided with the comic’s publication.
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
Japanese imperialists bearing weapons

An excerpt from Great General Mighty Wing. The wasp army, a stand-in for Japanese imperialism, tests a terrifying new weapon that they hope to use against the honeybees.
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
President Bush becomes President Loser

U.S. President George W. Bush as caricatured in General Loser and the Gnats. The words making up Bush’s body mean devil, demon, numbskull, and hell ghost.
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.
An alternative view of Bush Cabinet meetings

Anti-Bush satire from General Loser and the Gnats.

Return to article: "You Are Followers of the Juche Philosophy, So I Can Put My Trust in You."
Heinz Insu Fenkl, SUNY New Paltz.