Catching Up With SuChin

Pak lives the sweet life as the new face for Daily Candy.

story by David Yi
photos by Minnow Park

SuChin Pak is sitting, Zen-like, on a plush chair in a whimsically decorated office in New York’s trendy SoHo district. It’s almost superhuman that she is so calm and collected after the whirlwind 24 hours she’s just had.

First, she moderated a morning roundtable discussion with successful female CEOs. Then immediately after, she filmed MTV Iggy’s “Best New Band in the World” special, playing host to a concert that starred K-pop sensation, 2NE1. After wrapping that, she made her rounds with the media, doing interviews in her role as the talking head for Daily Candy, the trendsetting email newsletter and website.

With her brown locks swooping over her left shoulder, Pak is wearing a slouchy gray United Bamboo top paired with YSL stilettos. Her nails are decorated with stickers—black and white, Zebra-striped. “They’re just Sally Hansen, but aren’t they cool?” she quips, brushing off any presumption that she may possess even a hint of haughty sensibilities.

After all, this is the same Pak—once a face of the Girl Scouts—who organically became a role model to thousands of young girls. Through the affable personality she displayed on MTV News and the grounded sensibility she demonstrated with other shows like My Life (Translated)—a series that delved into themes of immigration—the 37 year old became a trailblazer for Asian Americans in entertainment television.

From the red carpet to the Planet Green Network, she’s tackled interviewing the likes of Jay-Z to washing her hair with floor soap for a TV segment.

Since moving on from her gig at MTV News, she’s opened a Pandora’s box of ventures. Like opening an outdoor market in the Lower East Side called the Hester Street Fair that has since become a weekend staple for New Yorkers. Profiled in the New York Times and New York magazine, the market—started with her brother Suhyun and two friends—is planning to expand to other cities. Through that, she’s also become a frontwoman for fashion retailer Uniqlo’s fall/winter campaign, with her face plastered on billboards throughout New York City. Continue Reading »

Photo by Reuters/Kyodo

The Young, Unproven ‘Great Successor’

Thoughts on the third-generation (third-choice) ruler, Kim Jong Un

by Julie Ha

As of late December, the North Korean leadership appeared to be putting its best foot forward to show a nation in mourning over the passing of its “Dear Leader” of 17 years, but still moving confidently to ensure a rapid transfer of power. Within days of the announcement of Kim Jong-il’s death, the North’s official newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, published a front-page editorial calling on the people to unite in support of Kim Jong-un, in keeping with his late father’s last wishes.

The newspaper referred to Kim Jong-un as the “successor to the revolutionary cause” and the “leader of the people.” He had been quickly elevated to the leadership post of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, and the military’s top brass swore their allegiance to him.

What exactly do we know about Kim Jong-un? Almost nothing, said Korea expert David C. Kang, director of USC’s Korean Studies Institute. “We know he’s younger than 30 years of age, but we don’t know his exact age. We know he went to school briefly in Switzerland while a child, but have almost no information beyond that. He is reputed to like sports, although this tells us very little about his personality or leadership abilities.”

We also know that he was third pick, as his older brothers, Kim Jongnam and Kim Jong-chul, were passed up for, respectively, an embarrassing attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland under a false name, and alleged effeminacy. Continue Reading »

Seattle native Jay Park managed to climb to the top of the K-pop scene as the charismatic leader of boy band 2PM. But when the young performer made some “anti-Korean” comments on his MySpace page and later allegedly confessed to some “severe personal mistake,” according to his record label, he found himself excised from the group and Korea. The singer was prepared to return to a life of obscurity, dancing with his old crew and taking a job at a tire shop in his hometown.

But then, when Park, for fun, posted a YouTube video cover of B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ On You,” which shows him singing in his bathroom and momentarily flashing his well-documented six-pack abs, the video collected more than a million views in just one hour. Eventually it would reach 5 million hits, and then, his phone was ringing off the hook.

Park insists, however, his is not an intentional comeback. “The only reason I went back [to Korea] was because my fans were like, ‘We want you back, we want you back,’” Park tells KoreAm’s Rebecca U. Cho in this month’s cover story. Call it whatever you want, but Park is coming at his fans—and hoping to attract new ones—with a movie he filmed with his dance crew and a new album to be released early this year. And, this time, as a now-solo artist, Park says he’s calling the shots.

To read this month’s cover story on Jay Park purchase a single issue copy for $6.50, shipping included! (U.S. addresses only.) For international shipping rates, please call 310-769-4913.

…And for a limited time only, you can get a SPECIAL K-POP PACKAGE OF 4 KOREAM ISSUES featuring 1) January 2012 with Jay Park, 2) August 2010 with 2PM, 3) May 2009 with Boa, and 4) a special collector’s issue with a printed autograph of Korean pop sensation Rain! All this for only $12.00, shipping included! (U.S. addresses only.) For international shipping rates, please call 310-769-4913.

Renowned comic book artist Jim Lee channels his dual identities as an illustrator and publisher.

by Jimmy Lee
photographs by Mark Edward Harris

New York City. October 2010.

Within the mundane conference rooms of these halls were assembled superb beings in the world of comic book creation—names like Brian Azzarello, Jeph Loeb and Grant Morrison. At the forefront of this league of extraordinary talents were Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, the two men anointed co-publishers of DC Entertainment earlier in the year. This dynamic duo had brought these figures together to combat the forces diminishing their industry: the Internet, digital piracy and slumping sales. What they would end up proposing at this conference would have universe-shattering consequences.

There is no argument that Jim Lee is one of the most revered comic book artists of the last 25 years. The hour-long lines he generates at comic book conventions are testaments to his artwork’s magnetic hold on fans, while the 2010- published tome, Icons: The DC Comics & WildStorm Art of Jim Lee, is a beautifully packaged ode to Lee’s penciling skills, all in coffee table book-sized glory. He has the distinction of illustrating the best-selling single issue of all time—X-Men No. 1, published by Marvel in 1991. Continue Reading »

A self-portrait by Derek Kirk Kim.

An exploration of why there seems to be a glut of Asian American graphic novel superstars.

by Oliver Saria

For those interested in seeing a window into the arcane world of Asian American graphic novelists, but who are too lazy to actually read their books even with all the pictures, it’d be worth your time to check out Mythomania, the live-action Web series written and directed by award-winning graphic novelist and budding filmmaker Derek Kirk Kim. (Full disclosure: I know a thing or two about Mythomania because Kim is one of my housemates and he shot it in our condo.)

In the second episode, a group of cartoonists gathers for a dose of actual human contact in what is otherwise a very lonely, arduous endeavor—writing, drawing, lettering, stapling and selling a self-published mini-comic. The Web series is based partly on Kim’s real-life experiences from about a decade ago when he was a fledgling cartoonist living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he would regularly meet with other fledgling cartoonists for Art Night. Gatherings of visual artists are not uncommon in cities like Chicago, New York and Portland, Ore.—places generally in close proximity to an art school or anywhere artists happen to coalesce. Other Art Nights across the country may go by less generic names, but few have reached the kind of semi-legendary status associated with Kim and his cohorts, who have produced some of the most acclaimed graphic novels of the past decade.

Kim went on to achieve the rare feat of winning the comic industry’s “triple crown” of awards—the Ignatz, the Harvey, as well as the “Oscar” of comics, the Eisner—for his groundbreaking graphic novel Same Difference and Other Stories (First Second Books).

Gene Yang, who actually proposed the first Art Night, was a finalist for a National Book Award in 2006 for American Born Chinese (First Second Books), the first graphic novel to ever be considered for the prestigious prize. In 2007, the book won the Eisner Award for best new graphic album and the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Lark Pien, another Art Night alum, won the Harvey Award for her color work on American Born Chinese. Kim and Yang both won their second Eisners in 2010 for their collaboration, The Eternal Smile, a collection of short stories. Other notable alums include: Jason Shiga, another Eisner winner for his mind-boggling work of genius, Meanwhile, a choose-your-own-adventure story on steroids; and Korean American Hellen Jo’s coming of age mini-comic Jin and Jam #1 (Sparkplug) was nominated for an Ignatz in 2009.

Jo, an art school dropout who now works as an assistant story board revisionist for The Regular Show on Cartoon Network, states unequivocally, “I definitely learned more at Art Night than art school. I kind of developed my stylistic choices there.” Continue Reading »

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Video Roundup: Girls' Generation, Bobby Lee, The Walking Dead http://t.co/xNbXgUI4

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Tim Kang’s One Shoot Films Launches 2012 Short Film Contest http://t.co/8UWLieG6 @Tim__Kang

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