VOL.74/2024.09

 

Current Status of Adult-Oriented Picture Book Publishing
and Publishers in Korea

 

2024.09.02

 

Reflections on “picture books for adults”

 

My publishing house, “A Little Cat at Noon (오후의 소묘),” began to be called the “picture book publisher for grown-ups” as we published our first picture book At the Drop of a Cat (written by Élise Fontenaille, illustrated by Violeta Lópiz) in spring 2019. But, what exactly is a “picture book for adults”?

 

 

According to Rouergue, French publisher of the original book At the Drop of a Cat (original title: Les poings sur les îles), the book is a picture book for children aged 6 or above. If a child and an adult read the book together, the child reads it more progressively. As such, while the best readers of picture books have been, and are, children, there are, in fact, fun picture books for grown-ups, too. Books with many spaces in between the pictures and the text, or between the pictures themselves, books with many layers of illustrations, where every time one opens the book, they see something different and discover it afresh, beautifully composed books, books that raise questions and ripples in our minds, and books that pull us back into the world of the language of images and the world of the senses, are some examples. I hope that my friends, and their children, will have picture books like A Little Cat at Noon to look at from time to time until they become grandmothers and grandfathers. And that’s what I always have in mind, creating books.
Let’s jump back in time a bit, to 2017, when I spent two years reading picture books with a group of adults under the guidance of a trusted teacher. We were all different ages, had different levels of experience and understanding of picture books, and different reasons for reading them. Still, we could all genuinely appreciate the beauty of the books in front of us and listen intently to the stories they told. For me, it was also a time when I realized how much I love the physicality of books. If you also love the physicality of books, it would be hard not to love picture books. Picture books have a unique quality that other genres of books don’t have: the form is never secondary to the content.
Novels and even comics are free from the physical format of a book, but picture books are not. A picture book is not just about the pictures and text, but also about the overall physical elements such as the format, cover, paper, and binding, making it a unique genre that is both visual and tactile, a reproduction and a work of art. What’s more, picture books are great to enjoy alone, but even better when shared. This is because they are simple, concise, and open-ended. As I fell in love with this world, I wanted to explore and swim deeper and wider in its beauty. It was through a series of coincidences that one of A Little Cat at Noon’s authors, Violeta Lópiz, introduced her beautiful work to Korea, and we became the first publisher to specialize in picture books for adults.

 

Current status of picture books for adults in Korea

 

Aladin, an online bookstore in Korea, has separate categories for “Picture Books to be Read Until 100-Years-Old” and “Picture Books for Adults.” The former belongs to the “Early Childhood” category, while the latter belongs to the “Fiction/Poetry/Drama” category. In the “Picture Books for Adults” category, which was incorporated into the literature category, the titles are mixed, including literary anthologies with only text and first edition series - and the number of titles is too small to be meaningfully counted (17 new titles in 2024). But, when I looked at the trends of “Picture Books to be Read Until 100-Year-Old,” a subcategory of “Early Childhood,” I happened to find something interesting.

 

 

A whopping 40 titles have been published each year since 2020! I am not certain as to whether this “rule of +40” will be applied this year as well, but one thing is for sure - the publishing of picture books for grown-up readers has begun to grow at a surprising pace since 2020. It is astonishing to see how the number of “Picture Books to be Read Until 100-Year-Old” increased from 40 in 2019, when A Little Cat at Noon published 3 picture books, to 125 in mid-August this year, which is more than a triple jump.
The biggest event in the picture book category in 2020 would have been author Baek Hee-Na’s winning of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA). As a Korean author won this globally prominent award - the so-called “Nobel Prize” for children’s literature, the picture book genre, which had been perceived as a genre for only a small few, received a new spotlight. However, it is hard to see that this event itself has a direct cause-and-effect relationship with picture books for adults - it would be more appropriate to look at it as a result of picture books as a genre emerging above the surface.
Today, publishers that were originally publishing picture books for children have begun to take more active actions to discover picture books with unlimited readership through new series or labels. For example, Gilbut Children launched the Picture Books of Life (인생 그림책) series starting with Walden (written by Henry David Thoreau, illustrated by Giovanni Manna) in 2020, and has recently published author Lee Soo-Yeon’s graphics novel I Happened to End Up Selling Furniture, going across genres. In 2020, the same year, Spring Sunshine Publishing also launched the On Picture Books (온그림책) series, presenting translated picture books. Its first Korean picture book in 2022, Did You Say I Am Pretty? (written by Hwang In-Chan, illustrated by Lee Myeong-Ae), won the Special Award at the first Korea Picture Book Award contest initiated in 2023. Also, after the successful launch of the Picture Books of Ordinary Days (보통날의 그림책) in 2022, publishing house Bearbooks released I Held Back Tears (written and illustrated by Lee Ha-Yeon) last February, its first picture book by a Korean author and the 6th add to the series.

 

* K-Book Trends Vol. 65 – Go to the article about the 2023 Korea Picture Book Award

 

 

Publisher Sakyejul was one of the front runners in releasing picture book series for all age groups. Its Dear Picture Books series, which was launched in 2002 with Shaun Tan’s picture book, has been periodically releasing picture books. The series’ latest title in 2023, If I Become 100 Years Old, a poetry picture book written by poet Hwang In-Chan and magnificently illustrated by Seo Soo-Yeon, received much love from readers. Also, BIR Publishing’s the Zebra series began with Bruno Munari’s book in 2012. In 2015, author Lee Su-Ji’s Alice in Wonderland was released, and in 2024, the 12th book in the series, You Are Here by Joanna Concejo, a beautiful book with a bit of a complicated touch, was published. As such, the series has been building a unique, distinct color, although at a slow pace. Meanwhile, Woongjin Junior has been making outstanding achievements quantitatively, as its Woongjin Picture Books for All (웅진 모두의 그림책) series launched in 2017 hit 60 titles in only 7 years. Including its latest book published this year, author Lee Jin-Hee’s Dust in the Forest, each of the titles is just so extraordinary in their own way.

 

 

Jjokpress’s label “Goat,” which aims for light and fresh publishing, has been consistently publishing stylish picture books since 2019. In addition, Picturebook Gongjackso, which has been publishing picture books for all, created the label “LOB” with the motto of “expanding the horizons of picture books.” At a time when many emerging picture book series are claiming to be “picture books for all,” LOB says they will make “books that can make someone fascinated,” rather than picture books for everyone. I was also one of those people who fell in love with LOB’s first book, We Go to the Park, written by Sara Stridsberg and illustrated by Beatrice Alemagna, published in 2023.
Lastly, I can’t leave out publishers like A Little Cat at Noon, who continue to publish books with their own color and texture, regardless of audience or genre. For example, Gloyeon and Hyang Publishing House, both of which have been committed to fostering emerging Korean picture book authors since the early days, are pushing the boundaries of what can be done with picture books, and both are making their mark on the international scene. Gloyeon’s Your Garden by Na Hyun-Jung (2021) was selected for the 2022 White Ravens, and Hyang Publishing House’s RICE RICE RICE by Bamco (2019) was awarded a Special Mention in the Nonfiction category of the 2021 Bologna Ragazzi Award for its ability to make even adults burst out laughing. Also, At Noon Books, which has secured a distinctive place on the boundary between independent and traditional publishing, is run by author Jung Mi-Jin. The publisher has been showcasing new styles and stories outside of the traditional picture book scene, and was awarded the Opera Prima Special Mention at the 2024 Bologna Ragazzi Award for Mo Story (2023), the first narrative picture book by Choi Yeon-Joo, beloved for her illustrations of the cat named Modaeri. I also love Logpress and Danchu Press for their charming translated picture books.

 

 

I hope picture books are recognized as an independent genre one day

 

I published my first picture book in 2019, and for a while afterward, I felt a little lonely. But now, five years on, I have been far too busy to feel lonely. Various picture books with artistic and literary qualities are pouring out around us, and picture book creators are coming up with more and more new stories. In 2022, “picture book author” was newly added to the occupation section of a Korean portal site. Yet, it’s unfortunate that large bookstores and online bookstores, which are still the biggest players in the Korean book market, still don’t have a separate categorized genre for picture books.
To me, picture books are art. So, naturally, I shaped them to meet my aesthetic senses, and all 21 of A Little Cat at Noon’s books have been published in the “art” category. Some bookstores have welcomed the entry of picture books into the art category, while others have been reluctant to this day, urging us to move into the early childhood category. But A Little Cat at Noon’s books that insist on staying in the art category don’t fit into the aforementioned [Early Childhood 〉 Picture Books to be Read Until 100-Year-Old] category, so they can’t even be counted. Just as there’s strength in numbers, it might be better for sales in the short term to have them side-by-side in the early childhood category. But my long-term hope is that “picture books” will be recognized as an independent genre.
Just like good art, good picture books don’t exclude or divide audiences. Instead of “Picture Books to be Read Until 100-Year-Old” or “Picture Books for Adults,” I would prefer to see them simply called “picture books.”

 

 

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Written by Jiwoo (CEO of A Little Cat at Noon)