Bucheon Manhwa (Comic) Museum 2017

I went to the Bucheon Manhwa Museum over the weekend and it was much more eventful that I had expected. It was pretty far away, and it took about two hours by metro from my house. It was a bitterly cold day and the corridor leading to the entrance of the building was built like a valley, so the wind velocity made the minus 11 degrees weather much less bearable.

When I entered the building I was pretty surprised to know that they were doing an exhibit on an old school Korean comic book artist, and they were also showing the animated film "Your Name" for 5 dollars. I was pretty excited to have a bunch of activities to look forward to. 

To be honest, the exhibits were not to my liking, but I wasn't expecting anything so it was refreshing to see a bunch of random stuff thrown at me. While viewing the exhibit I had realized that I was very ignorant about the history behind Korean comics. Half of me wished to see Japanese, American and European comics because that is what I grew up with, but another half of me had me thinking what if Korean comics had made such advancements as its Japanese, American and European counterparts. 

One of the best part of this museum was that it had a comic book library where they had a large collection of international and national comic books to view freely. A good majority of the people present in the library were adults, and it was amusing to see such a large amount of korean adults reading comics, because I don't generally see older Koreans reading comics in public. Maybe I will see them reading something on their phones in the form of what they call a webtoon. Personally, nothing beats having the actual, physical copy of a comic book in your hands, while you lay down on your bed or sofa on a lazy weekend afternoon, reaching for the next volume as you flip through the light, printed pages of comic books. I swear I could have spent my whole day in the museum if I didn't have any other schedules.