Vividly rendered ... The Waiting, is graphic novel as reclamation project, an attempt to preserve before it is too late not a documentary history so much as an emotional one ... There is an immediacy, an intimacy, that emerges from these panels, which reveal both memory and art-making as processes. Nothing is fixed, Gendry-Kim is suggesting. We know ourselves only from the bits of information we have been allowed to have.
Masterly ... I know that I brought some of my own stuff to this, an account – half fact, half fiction – of families separated by the Korean war, tears rolling down my face as I turned its inky pages. But I won’t compare my own experiences to those of its characters – they don’t even come close – and nor do I want to take anything away from her achievement in this book ... Keum takes the reader inside some of the human heart’s most inaccessible chambers, places that are all but closed to most visitors – and yet she does so almost casually, the stark economy of her drawings no guide at all to their lasting emotive power. What a talent she is ... The Waiting involves many miracles, not least its author’s brushwork, at once beautiful and forbidding. But chief among them is surely the fact that without her own mother’s tenacity and courage, it would not exist at all.
Gendry-Kim adopts a non-linear approach that's both radical and naturalistic, to illustrate what unfolds in her protagonist's daily life when her other life is put on hold. While fully acknowledging the plight of biological family members separated along the North-South border during the Korean War, The Waiting also celebrates the beauty of found-family bonds forged to mitigate the destructive forces of history ... By modulating the narrative sequence, the author also affirms the resilient — if sometimes unacknowledged — bond between Gwija and her independent younger daughter ... The Waiting vividly captures Gwija's chronic deprivation ... Both author and translator understand the power of images in the comics medium, how serious topics — the way both war and patriarchy result in endless exile of the vulnerable — can be made accessible to a wide audience and serve as effective instruments for change. And while words presumably take a secondary role to images in a graphic novel, their 'silence,' crafted by a perceptive translator in step with the artist's powerful visual representation, cuts deep.
The book is labeled fiction, but the extraordinarily haunting narrative is inspired by Gendry-Kim’s mother and two elderly survivors of Korean War separations who were briefly allowed to meet their North Korean families ... spectacular ... Visually, Gendry-Kim’s stark black-and-white compositions couldn’t be more affecting: the ominous efficacy of all-black pages, unpredictable layouts with and without panels, and prodigiously empathic expressions throughout. Translated into English by lauded Hong, Gendry-Kim’s latest import proves to be another stunning masterpiece.
... informative—and distressing ... The black and white illustrations in the book are somber and show the chaos and desperation as people realized they couldn’t find their children, spouses, or parents as they fled south ... As much as Korea was devastated during WWII, the country soon became engulfed in war again. The aftermath of the Korean War still affects families today. At a time when South Korea is trendy for its culture and cultural exports Gendry-Kim’s book serves as a reminder that darker stories continue to haunt many in the elderly population, as well as their descendants.
An arresting portrayal of what happened to the families that were split apart during the frenzied migration of refugees from North to South Korea after WWII. Gendry-Kim’s considerable powers as a graphic storyteller breathe life into the tragic tale of Song Gwija ... Throughout, Gendry-Kim’s inky brushwork evokes a rich sense of place, from the hostile, scrubby landscape of North Korea to the crowded alleyways of modern-day Seoul ... This family portrait reveals in heartbreaking detail the impacts of colonization and political upheaval that reverberate for generations.
