Award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim contemplates and explores the long shadow North Korea casts over Korean societyOn an island located an hour from Seoul, North Korea sits visible from cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kims home and studio. The specter of the infamous dictatorship and nuclear power looms over daily life. Artillery fire, helicopters, and sirens from a nearby military base paint the acoustic landscape. In her award-winning books Grass and The Waiting, Gendry-Kim documents the pain and heartbreak of Koreas history. In My Friend Kim Jong-Un, she looks to the presentto the man currently responsible for upholding the national divide created after World War Two.While the rest of the world partakes in the popularity of Korean culture, a certain unease and anxiety hangs in the air in South Korea as its people still grapple with the distrust and anger of one culture split into two distinct societies. Gendry-Kim explores the life of the supre