Comics Lowdown: More Manga, Scary Stories and an Inside Look at North Korea

A North Korean cartoonist looks at the lighter side of defection, an American cartoonist turns down an Iranian award, and Humanoids announces an all-ages horror graphic novel.

Struggles and Smiles: Former North Korean animator Choi Seong-guk was surprised at how different the comics were when he defected to South Korea: “When I first saw South Korean cartoons, I just didn’t get them,” he says. “There were no stories about patriotism or catching spies or war. They just seemed useless to me.” There were a lot of other differences too, including some idioms that he misunderstood. Now he has turned his experiences into an online comic that depicts both the funny and the serious side of the lives of North Koreans at home and in South Korea.

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Frank Miller’s ‘300’ prequel due next year

Check out new preview art for ‘Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander.’

Entertainment Weekly reports that Frank Miller’s 300 prequel will arrive next year from Dark Horse Comics.

With quite the mouthful for a title, Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander will “focus on the Persian emperor Xerxes, the so-called ‘King of Kings’ who raised a massive army to invade Greece in the fifth century B.C. to get revenge for his father’s death and become a god,” according to EW. “The title suggests the story will also look forward to the rise of Alexander the Great, who destroyed the Persian Empire a few centuries after Xerxes’ reign.”

Miller has talked about doing the comic for a while, at least as far back as 2009-2010.

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