Conversation in the Hangyoreh Editing Room: How it Really Happened

Conversation in the Hangyoreh Offices:

Chang-gyu: Geo-Dwin. . . listen. You're a really great layout designer. We love your work, and Hangyoreh is proud to have you on staff.

Geo-Dwin: Yeah. AND?

Chang-gyu: It's just. . . there's one thing I want to talk to you about. You've gotta STOP photoshopping Hitler onto EVERY SINGLE PAGE of the magazine. We've had to hire a second layout editor just to photoshop them OUT again.

Geo-Dwin: You do that? You interfere with my designs? That's my creative work, you bastard!

Chang-gyu: I know that, and we respect your artistry. . . it's just, Hitler died a long time ago, and he's one of the most hated historical figures out there. You need to be careful about using his image!

Geo-Dwin: So you're surpressing my art, are you? You know who you sound like when you won't let an artist do what he wants for the sake of political expediency? HITLER! That's who! You're confining my art to a work camp! The Hangyoreh editing room is the Auschwitz of art!

Chang-gyu: Here. Look, Geo-Dwin. Page forty-six. Here, you've photoshopped Hitler's face onto one of the Wonder-Girls. Don't you think that's a bit. . . unnecessary?

Geo-Dwin: Chang-Gyu, you brownshirt, don't you understand a single fu¢king thing about art? Look at how seamlessly I've blended Yoo-Bin's neck into Hitler's jawline! It took me four goddamn hours to get the colouring right.

Chang-gyu: And it's a beautiful piece of photo-shopping: you won't hear me argue about that with you. . .but don't you think a professional publication is the wrong, um, forum for this kind of art? Shouldn't you be putting that into some kind of, um, a private collection?

Geo-Dwin: So this IS about censorship. You're going to stifle my freedom of expression. Like Hitler.

Chang-gyu: And also: here on page 27. You've photoshopped Hitler shaking hands with Lee Hoi-Chang. HE'S ON OUR SIDE!

Geo-Dwin: Yeah, but I was going to say in the caption how Lee Hoi-Chang's hands are so much stronger than Hitler's, that this imaginary handshake would have convinced Hitler to back off Poland, because it was closer to Korea.

Chang-gyu: That handshake NEVER HAPPENED.

Geo-Dwin: And you know, if you think about it, Hoi-Chang IS kind of like Hitler. . .

Chang-gyu: NO HE ISN'T!

Geo-Dwin: I'm an artist. What is real and unreal cannot hinder my creativity. The translators over at PD Diary understand me.

Chang-gyu: Anyway, I looked all through your layout drafts, and. . . (door knocks)

Yong-Joo: Hey everyone. I'm gonna order some Chinese. Do you want some?

Chang-gyu: Can you order me a jajangmyeon?

Geo-Dwin: And I'd like a Yukgyejang.

Yong-Joo: Sorry. They're out of Yukgyejang.

Geo-Dwin: Are you joking? I just want to be free to eat what I like.

Yong-Joo: They're out. Sorry.

Geo-Dwin: Well you tell that delivery guy he reminds me of a certain dictator. . . HITLER!  Imprisoning my palate!

Yong-Joo: Sorry Geo-Dwin. There's nothing I can do about it.

Geo-Dwin: You're an appeaser.

Chang-gyu: By the way, Young-Joo, will you have that interview with Olympic Gold Medal-winning swimmer Park Tae-Hwan ready for the next issue?

Geo-Dwin: That Nazi? You're putting Park Tae-Hwan in the Hangyorae 21? That fascist swimmer reminds me of HITLER!

Chang-gyu: Be that as it may, Geo-Dwin, you've put Hitler onto forty-six of the sixty pages in this month's issue of Hangyoreh 21, Geo-Dwin, including the cover. You've used his tiny face instead of bullet points on the table of contents. It's offensive to the 72 million people killed in the Second World War to toss his image around so casually!

Geo-Dwin: I'm a goddamn artist, not a politician! Don't you understand me, you fascist Philistine?

Chang-gyu: But if the magazine runs like this, we'll lose all our credibility and have to go back to printing communist tracts and flyers.

Geo-Dwin: Hmm. Can I use Hitler's picture on those?

Chang-gyu: NO! Maybe Marx and Trotsky.

Geo-Dwin: They're not my muse.

Chang-gyu: I'm sorry Geo-Dwin, but I have no choice. I have to take every image of Hitler out of this magazine.

Geo-Dwin: Every?

Chang-gyu: Every last one.

Geo-Dwin: Fu¢k you, then. I quit!

Chang-gyu: DAMMNIT! The magazine NEEDS your layout skills, Geo-Dwin! Please don't be so intractable!

Geo-Dwin: No way. I quit. Every single one-- that's going too far. This issue was going to be my magnum opus, you censor-mad Nazi!

Chang-gyu: OK. One.

Geo-Dwin: Which one? The Wonder-Girls picture?

Chang-gyu: Ummmm. . . the cover. Comparing Lee Myung-Bak to Hitler is kind of in keeping with our agenda anyway. I don't think the millions killed by World War II will be offended by that -- it just, you know, shows how our struggle for democracy is as epic, and important, as, you know, the second world war. It ennobles us. They should understand completely.

Yong-Joo: Uh, Boss? I've got a caller here -- says it's the 72 million people killed in the Second World War, and they WILL be insulted, degraded and trivialized by comparing every person we don't like to Hitler. They don't want you to run the Hitler cover.

Geo-Dwin: Those Nazis!

Chang-gyu: Hmm. Do they have access to any lawyers here in the land of the living?

Yong-Joo: Let me ask them . . . no. No they don't.

Chang-gyu: Fu¢k'em then. Let's run the Hitler cover! Will you stay on, Geo-Dwin?

Geo-Dwin: Yeah. OK.

Chang-gyu: Level heads have prevailed! Young-Joo! Warm up the printing press! Geo-Dwin, get on those layout edits! Move move move.

Geo-Dwin: I'll move when I'm ready, you tyrant.