Derek Kirk Kim (born ) is a

Korean-American Korean Americans () are Americans of full or partial Korean ethnic descent. While the broader term Overseas Korean in America () may refer to all ethnic Koreans residing in the United States, the specific designation of Korean American impli ...

comics artist and filmmaker.

Personal life

Derek Kirk Kim was born in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

in , and moved to the United States at age eight. From

Pacifica, California Pacifica (, meaning "Peaceful") is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, California, Half Moon Bay. Overview The City of Pacifica is spread along a stretch of sandy c ...

, by 2005 he was living in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. There, Kim attended the

Academy of Art University The Academy of Art University (AAU, or ART U), formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. ...

where he majored in

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...

, though he later wished he had attended "a regular school so I could have gotten a more rounded education and been exposed to different subjects."

Career

Kim began publishing semi-autobiographical serialized short stories on his website, lowbright.com, in 2000. Some of those stories from 2000 to 2003 were collected by Kim and published in ''Same Difference and Other Stories'', an award-winning publication that he later said kick-started his professional career. Through the early 2010s, Kim described himself as being singularly focused on writing and drawing comics. For his character, Andy Go, an art-school dropout who finds himself trapped in a world that outlawed creativity, Kim began branching out by 2012. In the webcomic ''Tune'', Kim stepped back from drawing volume two and instead brought on artist Les McClaine to take over those duties—Kim could no longer handle the monotony of the drawing, and instead preferred to focus on production and writing. In the live-action YouTube series ''Mythomania'', an impetus for which was the casting–whitewashing controversy in 2010's ''The Last Airbender'', Kim found he enjoyed

filmmaking Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

more than drawing. Kim was credited as a designer on

Animation Domination High-Def Animation Domination High-Def (also called Animation Domination HD, Fox ADHD, and ADHD) was a late-night programming block broadcast by Fox. Originally premiering on July 21, 2013 as a spin-off of ''Animation Domination'', the block originally ...

's 2013 video, ''Sympathy for Slender Man Song'', which was a 2014 Webby Awards nominee in the category Online Film & Video: Animation.

Influences

Kim became interested in graphical storytelling as a child in South Korea, reading and watching ''

Astro Boy ''Astro Boy'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Kobunsha's ''Shōnen'' from 1952 to 1968. The 112 chapters were collected into 23 volumes by Akita Shoten. Da ...

'', ''

Gundam is a Japanese military science fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with ...

'', ''

Mazinger Z is a Japanese super robot manga written and illustrated by Go Nagai. It was originally serialized in Shueisha's ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from October 1972 to August 1973 and Kodansha's ' from October 1973 to September 1974. ''Mazing ...

'',

Captain Harlock Captain Harlock may refer to: * ''Captain Harlock'' (manga) ** Captain Harlock (character) {{disambiguation ...

stories, ''

Marine Boy ''Marine Boy'' was one of the first color anime to be shown in a dubbed form in the U.S., and later in Australia and the United Kingdom. It was originally produced in 1965 in Japan as by Minoru Adachi and animation company Japan Tele-Cart ...

'', and ''

Star Blazers ''Star Blazers'' is an American adaptation of the Japanese anime television series . ''Star Blazers'' was first broadcast in the United States in 1979. It was the first popular English-translated anime that had an overarching plot and storylin ...

''. In 2004, citing their oversized influence on development, Kim expressed an interest in illustrating

children's books A child () is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking countries, the legal definition of ''chi ...

, citing ''

The Little Prince ''The Little Prince'' (, ) is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published po ...

'' and ''

Oh, the Places You'll Go! ''Oh, the Places You'll Go!'' is a children's picture book, written and illustrated by children's author Dr. Seuss. It was first published by Random House on January 22, 1990. It was his last book to be published during his lifetime, before his ...

'' as examples. In 2005,

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

's Jacki Lyden noted that, like Kim, both main characters in ''Same Difference'' are

, though she felt they did not exhibit any explicitly-Korean attributes; Kim told her that he avoided obvious or stereotypical signifiers of their Asianness, instead grafting similar scenes as he and his Korean-American friends had while growing up. In a 2013 interview by Gene Luen Yang for

First Second Books First Second Books is an American publisher of graphic novels. An imprint (trade name), imprint of Roaring Brook Press, part of Holtzbrinck, Holtzbrinck Publishers, First Second publishes fiction, biographies, personal memoirs, history, visual e ...

, Kim agreed that, in addition to many of his main characters being

Asian-American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for ...

, he consciously imbued his work with an "Asian American-ness", though was saddened it needed to be conscious: "The default race for a central character shouldn't have to be

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

Works

* With * With * * * With * With * With * With * With * * With * * With

Reception

In November 2001, Kim was highlighted and praised in ''

The Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing r ...

'' for his serials ''Same Difference'' and ''Half Empty''—then hosted on

GeoCities GeoCities, later Yahoo! GeoCities, was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest, active from 1994 to 2009. GeoCities was started in November 1 ...

. In September 2004, Shaenon K. Garrity reviewed his body of work for '' The Webcomics Examiner'', and heaped praise on the artist, explicitly calling out his "technical precision and emotional expressiveness." In September 2002, the

Xeric Foundation The Xeric Foundation is a private, non-profit corporation based in Northampton, Massachusetts, which for twenty years List of Xeric grant winners, awarded self-publishing grants to comic book creators, as well as qualified charitable and nonprofit ...

awarded Kim a self-publishing grant for ''Same Difference and Other Stories''. For his publication thereof, Kim received a 2003

Ignatz Award The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a ...

for Promising New Talent, a 2004

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...

for Name Deserving of Wider Recognition, and a 2004

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be a successor to the Kirby Awards, which were ...

for Best New Talent. The third story in 2009's ''The Eternal Smile'', "Urgent Request", earned Kim a 2010

Eisner Award for Best Short Story The Eisner Award for Best Short Story is an award for "creative achievement" in American comic books that has been awarded every year since its creation in 1993. The Eisner Award rules state that "A short story must be within an anthology of big ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Derek Kirk 1970s births American comics artists American comics writers American graphic novelists American writers of Korean descent Artists from San Francisco Eisner Award winners for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition Filmmakers from California Harvey Award winners for Best New Talent Living people People from Pacifica, California South Korean emigrants to the United States Writers from San Francisco Year of birth missing (living people)