'GoBaU Museum' project scrapped, a cultural defeat, not a civic victory

 'GoBaU Museum' project scrapped, a cultural defeat, not a civic victory

- SEO, CHAN-HWE(iam@seochanhwe.com) / Comics Columnist

On 29 July 2020, the signature tvN TV program "Yoo Quiz on the Block", hosted by Yoo Jae Seok, featured Cho Seok, an artist who drew the hugely popular comic strip "Voice of the Heart". As per the programme's structure, Cho Seok was quizzed at the end of the episode, and the question that appeared on his fingerprint was: "The comics with the record for the longest running comic strip in Korea is this work by the late artist Kim Seong-hwan. What is this work that has been designated as a national registered cultural property?" The answer is <Oldman GoBaU>.

<The record set by "Oldman GoBaU" is enormous. After making its debut in "Manhwa Shinbo" in 1950 during the Korean War, it began running in "Dong-A Ilbo" in 1955, and later moved to "Chosun Ilbo" and "Korea Culture Ilbo", steadily interacting with readers and discussing the times, until 29 September 2000, with a total of 45 years and 14,139 issues. In such a long period of time, the opportunity to pass on to posterity the assets of <Oldman GoBaU>, which has become the history and legend of Korean current affairs comics, was 'almost' lost. This is because the city of Gunpo, Gyeonggi-do, cancelled the Gobau Museum, which had been promoted by the previous mayor.

It was in 2021 that Gunpo City came up with the idea for the GoBaU Museum. Gunpo had previously collected records of Kim Seong-hwan's picture book illustrations from the 1950s while promoting a project to build a picture book museum park in the Gunpo drainage basin, and in 2020, Kim's bereaved family announced their intention to donate more than 5,000 artifacts, including comics, paintings, and records, to Gunpo. However, as soon as the plan for the Kobau Museum became known, local media sparked opposition by spreading rumours that the budget for the museum was 30 billion won, and a candidate from the People's Power party running in the June 2022 local elections - the current mayor - actively quoted it on social media without checking and verifying it before deleting it.

Unsubstantiated "30 billion" aside, the local media's reporting behind the citizens' comments is downright malicious. "Why do we need a Gobau museum that has no connection to us?" "In a world where webtoon(* A word meaning the vertical scroll format comics in Korea) are all the rage, there are far more generations who don't even know who Gobau is." "Please confirm that this is what the citizens really want" ALL of the comments are pathetic or trivial, but when it comes to comments like "Let's build the Lee Young-hee Press Memorial Hall, and let's have a Kobau comic shop in a part of it," it's downright insulting. (* Lee is a famous thinker in Korea)

When asked what prompted Gunpo to push for the Gobau Museum, a city official said, "There is no cultural heritage or museum to represent Gunpo," according to the Incheon Daily on 6 September 2021. However, the unidentified citizen who made the aforementioned remarks apparently didn't care. It was even more intrusive to ask the Kim Seong-hwan, a native of Kaesong(* A city of North Korea, current), about the 'ointment'. Cultural facilities are something that other regions try to attract by manufacturing connections that don't exist for the cultural enrichment of their citizens, but Gunpo has its own connection to the deceased, and yet the citizens came out and shouted, "We don't need that."

Eventually, after the local elections, the city of Gunpo changed hands and the museum project disappeared completely. When I contacted Gunpo in late 2023, I was told that the city had suspended the project in 2022, and that the project itself had completely disappeared. In the end, those who can put culture on the back burner won. It seems like a victory for the citizens, but it's actually a defeat for culture. It's not just a problem for Gunpo City, but if the city won't even allow Oldman GoBaU, a nationally designated cultural property, to live there, who will they allow to do what they want?

 "At the special exhibition of the late Kim Sung-hwan at the 19th Manhwa's Day venue on 3 November 2019"

(2024.01.06)