Yesterday we brought you the news about the National Police Agency having published a comic book critical of the North Korea regime and it’s nuclear program.  The Financial Times picks up the story and expands upon the story a bit.

The comic is called Ji-yong goes time travelling to school children between the ages of 10 to 15. The plot focuses on a young boy who rides through time with his grandfather’s ghost on a giant, red dragon.  He witnesses the North Korean invasion of the South in 1950 and the Stalinist dictatorship built by Kim Il-sung as well as present-day labour camps, starvation, nuclear weapons and cyber attacks.

The goal of the comic is to provide security education to elementary and middle school students. The creators cite a survey showing that 57 per cent of schoolchildren were “not aware” of the Korean war and 60 per cent of people in their 20s could not say when the war started.

“In the past, national security education was conducted forcefully and stirred up hostility,” the police said. Children’s cartoons would depict North Korean soldiers as wolves and Kim Il-sung as a pig. “These new comic books are based on facts to help children form a fair appraisal.”

The agency invested 90 million Won which is about $77,000 in American dollars.  They produced 150,000 copies and distributed them to schools and police stations.

The comic books follows a “spot the spy” computer game that South Korea’s intelligence agency put online during the summer.

The two nations went to war in June of 1950 and paused confrontation in July 1953.  There has never been an official treaty ending the war (it’s technically still going on for this reason) and occasional flair ups and skirmishes have occurred.  North and South Korea are divided by a demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the 38th parallel.