Chapter 1 – A Life Full of Regret
Becoming the world’s greatest comic artist.
That was my dream from childhood—me, Kang Min-hyuk.
I was thirty-four years old.
I quit a stable job at a public corporation where I had even reached the position of section chief, and picked up the pen.
It was a late start, to be sure.
No—because it was so late, I drew comics relentlessly, even skimping on sleep to catch up.
Webtoon artist Kang Min-hyuk on the platform Bluehouse.
With my action-adventure comic <With All My Heart>, I achieved a respectable 7th place on Wednesdays.
It was the result I earned at thirty-four, pouring everything I had into it.
I was happy.
It felt like all the days I had given up and compromised in the past were finally being rewarded.
But that happiness didn’t last long.
“Mr. Kang Min-hyuk… from now on… you will never be able to do any work that requires your hands.”
“…Pardon?”
Because I was about to become a cripple in both arms.
***
Late at night, inside a dark studio.
The desk was littered with empty energy drink cans, sandwich wrappers, and the remains of triangle kimbap.
Kang Min-hyuk sat in front of it, gripping his pen and bringing it toward the screen of his Cintiq (liquid crystal tablet).
His hand trembled pitifully—parrr.
His wrist ached as if it might snap at any moment.
“Ughhh…”
The instant he touched the pen to the screen—
Thud! Roll-roll—
The pen fell straight onto the desk and rolled away.
“Daaamn it… Come on, just work! Please!”
Min-hyuk clenched his teeth and tried to pick up the pen again…
Tremble-tremble, thud.
His hand shook, and the pen kept falling.
After several attempts, he finally managed to draw a single stroke—but the line was crooked and wobbly, as if it had lost its way.
Min-hyuk leaned back in his chair, clutching his wrist and kneading it hard.
His whole body shook, and a flush rose to his face.
After repeating that a few more times—
“Aaaargh!”
In a fit of rage, Min-hyuk stood up and swept both arms across the desk.
Crash! Bang!
The expensive Cintiq and monitor tumbled to the floor, flickering.
Thud.
He staggered backward and collapsed roughly onto the bed behind him.
He stared at the ceiling and tried to clench his fist, but he couldn’t even make a proper fist.
“F*ck… why of all things…”
Avascular necrosis of the lunate bone.
Commonly known as Kienböck’s disease.
It was the name of a rare condition in which the wrist bones in both hands necrotize.
It had already progressed too far; even surgery wouldn’t let him dream of drawing comics again.
The exact cause was unknown, but the doctor said overuse of the wrists was highly likely to blame.
“Haaah…”
Min-hyuk closed his eyes tightly.
This was the result of chasing the childhood dream he had once abandoned, starting so late in life.
And this was all he got in return?
A bitter laugh escaped him.
Cripple, cripple—of all the ways to become one, it had to be my arms.
If my legs had been broken, or even if I’d gone deaf… anything would have been better than my arms.
He felt resentful.
Toward the world, toward this situation, toward his own wretched luck.
“If this is how it ends… then why the hell did I live like this?”
He no longer had the energy to rage.
All strength drained from his body, and his eyelids grew heavy.
Was it exhaustion? Resignation?
Or maybe the several bottles of soju he’d downed without thinking.
“Damn it all…”
With every breath, his vision, his consciousness, slowly… began sinking into darkness.
‘……’
The entire world was dark.
Was this a dream… or something else?
Beyond the distant, pitch-black sensation, Min-hyuk’s thoughts floated aimlessly.
Then, from the far reaches of his consciousness, a voice spoke.
—Why do you love comics so much?—
A low, androgynous voice—neither clearly male nor female.
Min-hyuk thought for a moment before answering.
‘To tell that story… I’d have to go back to when I was in middle school.’
In that instant.
Whoosh!
Within Min-hyuk’s mind, a single scene emerged—like an old film reel, strangely faded in color.
—Min-hyuk, Mom’s heading to work. I’m leaving pocket money on the table, okay? Eat properly.—
—Okay, take care.—
His mother, looking a little older than the current him.
She placed a single 5,000-won bill on the table and left through the door.
His mother, who worked late into the night at a gookbap restaurant to feed him single-handedly.
That money was meant for meals.
For a boy who never got separate pocket money, this bill held special meaning.
Back then, 5,000 won could buy many things.
He could get stir-fried pork rice at the snack shop near home, or add two fried eggs to kimchi fried rice.
But middle-school Min-hyuk always settled his meal with just one cup of instant ramen.
The cheapest cup ramen cost 1,000 won—leaving 4,000 won.
He saved that money and headed every day to the comic book rental shop five minutes from home.
I think it was called “Best Nation” or something like that.
Creak!
When he pushed open the door painted with yellowing sheets, a cheerful bell would ring.
Then came the familiar, warm voice.
—Hey, you’re here.—
—Mister, did the new volume of the comic I was reading last time come in?—
—It did. I figured you’d come, so I set it aside for you.—
New releases were 500 won, older ones 300 won.
With 4,000 won, he could roughly rent about ten volumes.
He’d take the balding bachelor owner’s recommendations, carefully choose, stuff a black plastic bag full of comics, and head home.
Pour hot water into the cup ramen, flip open the first page of the tall stack of comics… and another world unfolded before him.
A world where he could become anything he wanted.
One day he was a pirate, another day a ninja; Sometimes he flew into space and colonized Mars.
Comics became a parent in place of his mother, who was always tied to work all day.
They played with him in place of the friends he never had.
As those days piled up, around the time he entered third year of middle school…
A sudden thought struck him.
—I want to become a comic artist.—
And if he was going to do it, he wanted to be the very best—like the protagonists in those comics.
Even his irresponsible father—who ran off with a neighbor woman and whose face he could barely remember—used to say, “The bigger a man’s dream, the better.”
Like most beginnings, it started with copying the art of his favorite comic artists.
Scritch-scratch!
Doodles copied onto scrap paper or in the corners of textbooks multiplied.
After a few months, reactions came.
—Whoa, Kang Min-hyuk, you draw freaking well!—
—Hey, draw my girlfriend for me.—
—For free?—
—I’ll buy you a triangle kimbap.—
—Deal.—
It was fun.
For the first time, he had found something he was good at.
Kang Min-hyuk, a basic livelihood recipient living with his single, impoverished mother.
At home, cockroaches greeted him like friends, and every rainy season the ceiling turned into a water park.
But in those moments of doodling, he could imagine himself a successful comic artist with a brilliant future waiting ahead.
Yet dreams are only dreams.
—Min-hyuk… drawing, well… comics… wouldn’t it be okay to keep them as a hobby?—
His mother’s response when he told her his dream.
But when he saw her hands swollen from washing dishes late into the night at the restaurant…
When he saw the deep dark circles under her eyes…
He could no longer bring himself to say he wanted to become a comic artist.
Nowadays people talk about webtoon artists earning billions, but back then, being a comic artist was the kind of job that was perfect for starving to death.
Was my selfish, fanciful dream worth bending my mother’s back even further?
Her swollen hands and the dark circles under her eyes were the reality forced upon me—the fate given to the human Kang Min-hyuk.
After that day, my life became simple.
I studied as hard as I could and entered a regional national university on a full scholarship, choosing the one with the lowest possible tuition.
Then, at a relatively young age, I landed a solid job at a public corporation.
A stable, iron rice bowl job that couldn’t be easily taken away—steady income.
Even if overtime was frequent, the allowances were paid without fail, and every now and then someone like me would get set up on blind dates or marriage meetings.
But…
—I wasn’t satisfied.—
Even when my bank balance grew and I moved into a two-room jeonse apartment.
Even when I invited friends over for a housewarming and shared drinks.
—Why does life feel so empty?—
There was no excitement.
No anticipation for the future.
It was a continuous existence like a corpse—a life with its soul drained away.
Still, I was certain my life would keep running along these rails until the very end.
That is, until I saw this.
[Webtoon Golden Age: Multiple Artists on ‘Bluehouse’ Platform Earning Billions?]
One ordinary day, while commuting to work on the subway as usual.
An internet article I happened to stumble upon.
It bragged about famous webtoon artists earning billions in income, their works being adapted into animations and movies, some even winning prestigious overseas comic awards like the Eisner or Kirby—throwing in some “K-this, K-that” nationalism for good measure.
But the contents written there were more than enough to set something inside me boiling.
Because in that moment, I remembered.
That my soul was still there.
—I’m quitting, sir.—
Half a year later, at the age of thirty-one and a half.
I resigned from the company without telling my mother.
Then, without a plan, I started drawing comics.
As if trying to reclaim the dream I had ignored for over a decade, I lived each day like ten, each ten days like a year.
I entered contests, submitted manuscripts, drew more, uploaded more.
I had to produce results before my savings ran out.
I drew comics with desperation, as though grinding my life into them.
Years filled with venom—fingernails splitting and bleeding, teeth grinding from sheer intensity.
And after those efforts stretched past two full years…
[Grand Prize in the Largest Contest Ever – ‘With All My Heart’ by Kang Min-hyuk]
—I did itttt!—
Kang Min-hyuk proudly won an award in the biggest contest held by Korea’s largest webtoon platform, Bluehouse.
Serialization was confirmed.
It felt like I had everything.
I fantasized that from here on, I could finally live the life I wanted.
With the prize money from the contest, I filled my bookshelves to the brim with comic books and met fellow artists whenever I had time.
As if trying to make up for everything I hadn’t done in the past decade and more.
I poured absolutely everything into comics.
But who could have known?
That the final destination would be becoming a cripple in both arms.
‘You idiot.’
I was insanely bitter.
If it was going to end like this anyway, shouldn’t I have started drawing comics much earlier?
If I had chased what I truly wanted.
If I had been truly desperate about this, wouldn’t I have found a way to solve the money problem somehow?
Why did I avoid a direct confrontation?
Why did I keep putting off what I wanted to do?
If only I could do it all again—there were mountains of things I wanted to try.
‘I wanted to go to AniGo too, and art college… Someday I wanted to open my own studio.’
All the things I had given up under the weight of reality came flooding back one by one.
Things I had firmly buried in a life that had already passed—things I could no longer do.
But now, they were nothing but regrets.
If I were given just one more chance, I wouldn’t have lived like this.
But now, all of it is just meaningless muttering.
My life has already crossed a river from which there is no return.
The clock hands of life cannot be turned back, no matter what.
That was when it happened.
Click!
Along with the sound of some mechanical device locking into place, a faint voice reached him from far beyond the darkness.
“Min-hyuk.”
“……”
“Kang Min-hyuk?”
The voice kept repeating his name over and over.
‘What is this?’
He didn’t want to wake from the dream.
Because even if he opened his eyes, nothing would remain but the life of an arm-crippled man.
It would be far better… to just die like this.
That would be the happier choice.
That’s what he thought.
But the voice had no intention of letting him do that.
“Kang Min-hyuk!”
“?”
A rough shout stabbed his ears like a needle, and his eyes snapped open on their own.
Sudden light poured in, blinding him, and the musty smell of mold assaulted his nose.
The voice grew clearer, and the surroundings gradually came into focus.
“Kang Min-hyuk, why aren’t you answering when I call you!”
“……”
Blink.
Min-hyuk blinked rapidly.
A woman stood right in front of him, glaring straight at him.
“Mom?”
Hong Mi-seon.
A plain-faced woman of small stature, always wearing the black turtleneck she put on for work.
The iron-willed woman who had raised Min-hyuk single-handedly in place of his irresponsible father.
She was staring right at him.
The only strange thing was…
‘Why does Mom look so young?’
There were no wrinkles on her face, no gray hairs.
Her once-stooped back was straight, and her complexion was healthy.
She looked at most in her forties—no, if he was generous, late thirties.
“Haaa… Mom’s exhausted, Min-hyuk. Please answer right away when I call you.”
As Hong Mi-seon let out a long sigh, Min-hyuk chewed over her words before slowly replying.
“…S-sorry, Mom. I was lost in thought for a moment.”
“…Fine. I’m heading to work now, so study hard. I left money on the table—make sure you eat properly.”
“Uh, uh… yes.”
They say when you’re too shocked, words fail you—and that was exactly how he felt.
Clank!
The door closed as his mother—now young again, Hong Mi-seon—disappeared.
‘What the hell is…’
Min-hyuk slowly turned his head.
And there, spread before his eyes, was a familiar sight.
The ceiling stained with water marks and patched holes from endless leaks.
The yellow linoleum floor and wallpaper so faded it looked more amber than yellow.
This was the semi-basement room he had lived in until his senior year of high school.
The old room from his past.
The fact that he was standing here now meant…
“Is this… that?”
Regression to the past?
A deep crease formed between Min-hyuk’s brows as realization hit him.
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[TL Note: TL Note (Terminology & Cultural Context)
In the original Korean text, the author uses the terms 만화 and 만화가.
만화 (manhwa) literally means comics. In Korean, this word refers broadly to the comic medium itself and is not limited to a specific format (print or digital).
만화가 (manhwaga) is formed from 만화 (manhwa) + 가 (ga).
The suffix 가 (ga) means a professional or practitioner (artist/creator).
So 만화가 (manhwaga) literally means “manhwa artist” or “comic artist.”
In the very first line:
The original korean was:
the author wrote > 세계 최고의 만화가가 된다
Means “to become the world’s greatest manhwaga.”
The ambition here is global—the best comic creator in the world—while using a neutral, timeless Korean term rather than a format-specific one.
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Manhwa vs Webtoon
Manhwa: The general term for Korean comics as a medium (historically print, but not limited to it).
Webtoon: A digital format of manhwa (vertical scroll, full color, mobile-first), which became mainstream later.
In this part of the story (the MC’s childhood), the text refers to 만화/만화책 (printed comics), not webtoons.
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Translating 만화가 as “comic artist” best conveys the global scope of the dream in natural English.
Translating it as “manhwa artist” preserves Korean cultural flavor, but in English can sound like “the best within Korean comics” rather than absolute global supremacy.
For this translation, I chose [comic / comic artist]
So, tell me in the comments Which do you prefer?
Manhwa /
Manhwa artist (strong Korean flavor)
Comic / Comic artist (clear global meaning)]
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