Enrique Corts

Since the 24th, after posting on X, I haven’t been able to eat properly at all. It hurts my heart so deeply to feel as if all the efforts of my friend—who has supported me so much by helping with translations, lettering, and sharing news on X—have vanished into nothing. My SNS manga, Sunday’s Momonga shared about 55 pages on X, but in truth, I have drawn 140 pages over the past year. I believed X was the only place where this work could be released, shared with readers around the world, and enjoyed together. To see that place collapse breaks my heart. But what hurts the most is the screaming that keeps echoing inside my head. A long time ago, I watched myself and my fellow artists in Korea—people who had done nothing wrong—being taken from, attacked, and humiliated. I watched what happened to their lives and their dreams. As for my own life, I lived through it myself. Those wounds still bleed, even after decades. They will never heal—not until the day I die. Until the very last second of my life, they will keep bleeding. And now I have to watch the people I love—those who draw—go through the same suffering. I have to watch them give up drawing and leave the world of comics. Now, this is happening all over the world. I have escaped many times before, and I will escape again this time. But I know this very well: there are many people who cannot escape. Because the field they have built is precious to them, and because they know that the moment they leave, everything they have worked for will fall apart, they are left with no choice but to endure the pain, the humiliation, and the exploitation. A artist cannot endure even a single pen line or a single dot of their drawing being altered by someone else. Because it is our precious, beloved child. Throughout my entire life, even when I taught my students, I almost never corrected or altered their drawings carelessly. Well... there were only a few times, and even then, I did so only with their consent. Because I knew those drawings were their precious children. Even if it was just practice, the drawing was born from our own hands. To create that drawing—our drawing, a drawing like our own child—we have lived by giving up so many of the joys and happiness that others freely enjoy. And we will probably continue to do so. I believe this. Because my fellow artists in Korea have endured this pain for decades. This is what it means to draw. If you do not know this feeling, if you cannot understand it, then you do not understand ‘drawing.’ Actually it is very easy and simple to understand. That drawings are precious to us. You already know they are precious, right? That’s why I haven’t been able to eat properly since Christmas. Drawings... They are precious… They are truly, deeply precious…