Chapter 85 – Tu-ji-man-chang (2)
Two men in suits, who identified themselves as being from Jump Comics, had just made their entrance.
The inside of the auditorium began to stir.
“Did they say Jump Comics people?”
“That magazine, Jump Comics? Why are they here looking for Yu-ra?”
Jump Comics.
Along with New Chance, one of Korea’s two major boys’ comic magazines.
A publisher that had once sparked a boom by putting Korean comic artists who had embraced the Japanese comic style at the forefront.
And since countless popular Japanese comics were coming through Jump Comics…
It was a magazine that anyone who loved comics simply couldn’t not know about.
So naturally, the moment these people walked in and started asking for Han Yu-ra, this kind of reaction was inevitable.
Of course, Min-hyuk knew exactly why they were doing this.
‘It’ll be because of the contest.’
Han Yu-ra’s fantasy comic that had been entered in this contest — <Melton: Chronicles of the Demon World>.
They must have seen that and reacted this way.
That comic was… quite, no.
Honestly, it was openly, straightforwardly fun. That was just the truth.
In the midst of all this.
“……”
Yu-ra accepted the business cards the two men held out.
At that, Oh Han-cheol — who had introduced himself as General Manager — smiled pleasantly and spoke.
“We really enjoyed reading the work you submitted to our magazine. You’re genuinely talented.”
“Oh, yes.”
A slightly flustered Han Yu-ra, looking unsure of how to respond.
At that moment, the employee beside him said in a near-whisper.
“There might even be some good news for you.”
“Hey, watch your mouth.”
“Ow ow ow! Sorry. Hehe……”
Oh Han-cheol jabbed an elbow into his side, and Kim Min-yong went quiet.
“As for the work, can we just go look at it over there?”
“Oh, yes. Please take a brochure here. Just make your way through from this side.”
“Thank you.”
The two men headed straight for the first-year booth, with Han Yu-ra guiding them.
“Oh, isn’t this short piece pretty good, General Manager?”
“Hmmmm…… It’s good. The direction, the dialogue, too.”
The two of them moved through the comics, dropping honest, unfiltered commentary as they went.
The other students’ eyes naturally drifted toward them.
‘C-could it be… my work too?’
‘It looks like they’re getting close to where my piece is…’
If Jump Comics editors had come here, their goal was obvious enough.
They were here to find promising new artists and reel them in early.
There had even been a story going around about a senior who had debuted straight out of a school exhibition, so it would be stranger not to be interested.
And so, after the editors finished their tour of the exhibition.
They stopped by each grade’s booth and had a word.
“Excuse me, is artist Min Ji-hun here?”
“Oh…… that’s me.”
“We really enjoyed your work. Solid fundamentals, and your characters are drawn with great visual appeal……. We’d really love to work on something together. This is our card — if you’re ever thinking of doing a project, please give us a call.”
“Ah…! Understood!”
They handed out cards to the artists they had their eye on and showered them openly with praise.
That must be the editor’s way of doing business.
The same thing repeated itself after that.
Through the third-years, the second-years……
And when they came back around to the first-year booth.
“You draw female characters with such charm. Do you have a particular interest in romantic comedy works?”
“O-of course I do!”
To Oh Dong-gyo.
“The atmosphere of your comic is really distinctive. And cute. In many ways, I think you’d do wonderfully with a character-driven work — artist Kim Rok-hee.”
“Kyaaaah, really? What else did you like about it?”
They gave Kim Rok-hee a card.
And now……
“You’re artist Kang Min-hyuk, correct?”
They approached Min-hyuk.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Your work left a strong impression. Flawless fundamentals, excellent draftsmanship…… In particular, the emotional portrayal of the two characters growing closer as they play badminton together was really well done. Overall…… it seems like you’ve drawn comics for a very long time. Have you perhaps already been published, or made your debut somewhere?”
“……No, not yet.”
Sharp. Very sharp.
Oh Han-cheol, the General Manager, staring straight at him as he asked.
Well, just from the way he could pick up on that much simply by looking at the manuscript — it wasn’t for nothing that he’d made it to General Manager.
If New Chance’s Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon had an icy, commanding presence, then this one had… a slippery warmth with a sharpness that jabbed at you out of nowhere?
“Please do give us a call. If it’s you, your debut…… won’t take long at all.”
“……I’ll think about it.”
Well, Jump Comics and their editorial department were a little interesting to him, but……
*For now, I’m eating New Chance’s rice…… is something I can’t exactly say out loud.*
Min-hyuk answered vaguely and let it pass.
And so, after they had made one full round of the exhibition hall.
Oh Han-cheol asked Assistant Manager Kim Min-yong.
“They said artist Ma Dong-hyun isn’t here?”
“Ah, apparently he stepped out for a bit. Artist Choi Jung-an said it’d be at least an hour before he’s back……”
“Ugh, then let’s just go. We’ll run into him again another time.”
“Yes.”
The two of them said their goodbyes to Choi Jung-an — with whom they seemed to have some personal connection — and were just about to leave the auditorium when.
“Hm?”
“Oh?”
The two of them came face to face with two people walking in through the entrance.
A woman wearing glasses, and a man who looked every bit like a street tough.
It was New Chance’s Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon, and Min-hyuk’s editor, Go Gwang-jin.
“Well, well. Look who it is. Running into New Chance folks here of all places. How have you been?”
“Oh, you know. Getting by.”
Jump Comics’ Oh Han-cheol smiled pleasantly and extended his hand as if to shake, but Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon waved it off and answered with cool indifference.
At that, Oh Han-cheol opened and closed his empty hand a few times before furrowing his brow and speaking.
“Wow, maybe it’s because New Chance’s titles are doing so well lately…… You’ve gotten a lot pricier since I last saw you.”
An openly snide remark.
“What was that?”
As Go Gwang-jin’s face turned ugly, Song Mi-hyeon raised a hand to stop him, then let the corner of her mouth curl up slightly.
“Well, we’re just genuinely devoted to Korean comics. But speaking of which — Jump Comics really ought to put in a little more effort, don’t you think? Doesn’t seem like you’ve been doing great at discovering new artists lately. You run so many Japanese comics, someone might actually think you’re a pro-Japan magazine, honestly.”
“……No, what kind of thing is that to say? That’s exactly why we’re working hard to scout new artists too.”
“Bit late to be locking the barn door after the horse has bolted.”
“Come on, Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon! Do you have to keep talking like that?”
“Think about all the crap you’ve been throwing at us until now, huh? Does it look like I’m gonna speak nicely?”
The two voices rose higher, and the two editors standing beside them opened their eyes in undisguised hostility.
“Pro-Japan magazine, that’s what it is. Pro-Japan. Look at Jump Comics — there are hardly any Korean comics in it.”
“Excuse me, does New Chance hire gangsters as editors? What kind of talk is that?”
“Gang-sters? You calling me a thug? Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“It’s fine when you call someone else’s magazine pro-Japan, but not the other way around?”
And just like that, the fuse was lit.
“Hey, you bastard!”
“Oh yeah? You want to go? You want to go?!”
Grab!
Kim Min-yong and Go Gwang-jin had each other by the collar.
At that……
“T-Teacher? Is it okay to just leave them like that?”
“Looks like they’re fighting?”
The students approached Choi Jung-an with their questions.
Jung-an smiled awkwardly and answered.
“Haha…… Just leave them. Those two are always like this.”
“Always like this?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“……All the time?”
The students’ eyes went wide as they stood there watching, when.
“No no no! You!”
“You calling me — what?!”
The four of them were enthusiastically pelting each other with insults when.
“Everyone stop.”
“Hm?”
Thud!
A man appeared between them and spread both arms wide, physically pushing all four apart.
That man was……
“Who in the world…… raises their voice like this, without a shred of decency, at the students’ event?”
A towering figure of the Korean comics world, and the head of the Comic Creation Department.
The comic maniac himself — Ma Dong-hyun.
“Oh, artist Ma Dong-hyun! We were actually just about to pay our respects before leaving!”
“We literally just arrived.”
At his appearance, the editors who had looked ready to explode at any moment quietly settled down.
At that……
“Jump Comics, your business here is done. New Chance, you just got here, right?”
“Oh, yes, that’s right.”
“Then…… you lot, get out!”
“Whaaat! P-please wait, artist!”
Ma Dong-hyun grabbed Oh Han-cheol and Kim Min-yong by the backs of their necks and began dragging them outside, when.
Slam!
The auditorium door was shut.
Like a storm had just blown through.
“……Hehe, see? I told you it was nothing.”
Choi Jung-an clapped her hands together as if she had known all along this was how it would go.
‘What just happened.’
‘Is this actually okay?’
‘What on earth is our department head, exactly?’
The students blinked in bewilderment.
And when it was all finally over.
“Phew…… Shall we go, Chief Editor?”
“Let’s.”
The New Chance duo straightened out their clothes and moved toward the third-year booth first.
And then…… just as the Jump Comics staff had done, they read through the works one by one.
“Artist, if you ever think about doing a planned series, please give us a call. This part here, where you connected panel to panel — pushing it with solid black ink…… that was intentional, wasn’t it?”
“Oh? How could you tell?”
“There was just a sense that you were putting deliberate intent into the direction throughout.”
Honest impressions, followed by a business card.
What was interesting was……
‘It feels like almost the same people who got cards before are getting them again.’
‘Ah…… So I didn’t make the cut this time either.’
Were all trained eyes just that similar?
With only one or two exceptions, the same people who had received cards from Jump Comics were receiving them all over again from New Chance.
And finally, the two of them came back around to the first-year booth and looked through the comics.
“We look forward to working with you.”
“Oh, yes!”
Same as before — Dong-gyo, Rok-hee, and Yu-ra all received cards, and last of all……
The two of them caught Min-hyuk’s eye and walked over toward him.
In that instant, a flicker of tension crossed Min-hyuk’s face.
Because……
‘Surely they won’t act like they know me here.’
Right now, Min-hyuk had been keeping it thoroughly hidden from his classmates that he was the artist David.
He was just the tiniest bit worried that Go Gwang-jin might blurt out something he shouldn’t.
‘Well, even so, editor Go Gwang-jin isn’t so oblivious that he’d……’
Just as that thought crossed his mind.
“Well well, artist Kang Min-hyuk! Fancy meeting you here like this!”
As if to make a mockery of that thought, Go Gwang-jin’s mouth spread into a wide grin as he called out loudly.
“Oh……”
He was done for.
Min-hyuk’s jaw dropped open.
“Hm? Artist?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The eyes of the students around them snapped over.
Beads of sweat formed on Min-hyuk’s forehead, and his mind painted a picture of the future.
— Kang Min-hyuk, you were lying to us?
— I’m so disappointed in you, you bastard!
— Well look at Mr. Big-Shot Artist over here.
The students sneering, pouring scathing remarks down on him.
And in the middle of it all — himself, rubbing his hands together like a fly, desperately groveling.
‘No. Not that. Anything but that……’
He was racking his brain trying to figure out how to get out of this situation, when.
Thwack!
“Ugh—!”
Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon drove her elbow into Gwang-jin’s side, then spoke.
“Haha, assistant Kang Min-hyuk. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you.”
“Oh…… Yes?”
“We met once at artist Shin Pil-ho’s studio, didn’t we? You don’t remember?”
In that instant, a look passed between Min-hyuk and Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon.
Nothing was said, but by instinct alone, he understood exactly what he needed to do.
Min-hyuk scratched the back of his head and answered with an awkward smile.
“Ah, of course I remember, of course I do. You suddenly called me an artist so — haha, I guess you could say I was a little startled……”
“Our editor Go Gwang-jin has always had quite the loose tongue. Here, please take a card. Your work is really wonderful. As I mentioned before — if you’re going to do a new project…… please come talk to us first. We at the New Chance editorial department will support you with everything we’ve got.”
“Oh, thank you. I absolutely will.”
At that……
“Ah, so they recognized him because he assisted artist Shin Pil-ho.”
“I was wondering what that was all about.”
The Comic Creation Department students muttered one or two words each, as if the situation had finally clicked into place.
A natural reaction, given that everyone already knew Min-hyuk had worked as assistant to artist Shin Pil-ho.
Chief Editor Song Mi-hyeon’s quick thinking had clearly done its job.
“Let’s head in then, editor Go Gwang-jin.”
“Oh, yes!”
After that, the New Chance editors left the auditorium.
‘……I’m alive.’
Kang Min-hyuk let out a long breath of relief.