The aim of this essay is to illustrate Sunjung Manhwa in the 1970s which has been alienated in comics studies. This essay analyses the articles and the serial comics in Schoolgirl, the magazine in the 1970s, and examines the ideal representations of the girls at that time. Sunjung Manhwa is really different between the 1960s and 1970s. It cannot be explained on this gap just by analyzing Sunjung Manhwa in book form alone. Even though the censorship on comics was the element that has hampered the development of comics as a whole, the slumps of Sunjung Manhwa in the 1970s were very excessive compared to other comics genres. This article can gain the answers to the reason of the changes of Sunjung Manhwa by studying the magazines which was the main mass media aimed at girls with Sunjung Manhwa.
While the articles in magazines show the editing direction and its characteristics, they reflect the values and ideologies at that time. The same is true for the comics in the magazines. Especially, the comics in the magazines was relatively free from the censorship. This essay examined how the articles and the comics in the girls’ magazine in the 1970s represented the images of girls at the time by focusing on feature articles and comics in the magazine, Schoolgirl. This article explored Um, Hee-Ja’s Blue Zone and Bang, Young-Jin’s Mini March among a full-length serial comics in the magazine, Schoolgirl. Both Blue Zone and Mini March reveal the images of an ideal girl that has been emphasized by the articles in Schoolgirl. Blue Zone draws the appearances of an earnest and obedient daughter, and Mini March represents the figures of a cheerful and bright girl. Through this study, it can be recognized that the magazines in the 1970s highly appraised girls who are obedient to a given society and serve to a harmonious family as ideal ones, and it might be guessed that the ideal images of girls that was characterized ceaselessly by the magazines were the standard of the censorship on comics and its creativity and had also a huge impact on the contents and the expressions of a great deal of works.
The 1970s was the times when its importance has been lost in the history of the comics studies by the censorship on the comics and the monopoly of “Hapdong(합동) publisher.” The limits of expression in terms of censorship were awfully distinct, so its result was few of good works in quality, and there are still many blanks in the study on 1970s’ comics. This study has a meaning which fills up a blank in the comics studies.