wanted person
pig
Arrest
5:30 a.m., September 4, 1985
Chilseongdae
7:30 a.m., September 4, 1985
September 4, 1985, 8:00 PM
undertaker
September 5, 1985, 8:00 PM
frog
September 6, 1985, 7:00 PM
September 8, 1985, 10:00 AM
Sunday Seoul
September 8, 1985, 7:00 PM
rice
September 10, 1985, 7:00 PM
The Last Supper
September 13, 1985, 10:00 PM
Safe today too
September 20, 1985, 8:00 PM
light
September 26, 1985, 3:00 PM
You and me

meeting
Injae Geun to the readers of this book
Author's Note: Park Geon-woong
Help

A comic revisiting the peaceful footsteps of democrat Kim Geun-tae.
Kim Geun-tae was tortured ten times in the anti-communist division of the Namyeong-dong Police Headquarters in September 1985.
Based on a confession fabricated through torture, he was found guilty of violating the National Security Act and sentenced to five years in prison.
And it was not until 2014, 28 years later, two and a half years after Kim Geun-tae passed away, that he was found “not guilty” of violating the National Security Act.
The definition that false statements obtained through torture cannot be considered evidence of guilt has finally been accepted.
As democracy is regressing to the point where people are saying, "We'll do anything but torture," we look back on the time Kim Geun-tae spent working to advance democratization in this country through a cartoon.
The tenacious writer Park Geon-woong vividly captured this in a comic book of over 550 pages.

Kim Geun-tae records the "beastly times" he endured in Namyeong-dong.
The phrase 'being taken to Namyeong-dong' means going to Namyeong-dong and being tortured.
Kim Geun-tae, who had formed the Youth Federation for Democracy Movement and was working for the democratization of our country, was taken to Namyeong-dong on September 4, 1985.
Until he escaped from Namyeong-dong after 22 days, Kim Geun-tae was tortured 10 times, on the verge of death, in the last room on the 5th floor of the Namyeong-dong building.
Starting with water torture, I endured electric torture, electric baton torture, and even psychological torture inflicted by the torturers, and had a beastly time.
Although Kim Geun-tae could not immediately resist the demands of his torturers who wanted him to surrender, he survived this terrible time by preserving the last spark of pride in his heart.
On December 19, 1985, in court, Kim Geun-tae threw off the torture trauma that the torturers had imprinted on his body and mind and denounced the truth about the torture that had occurred in Namyeong-dong to everyone.
"The Time of the Beast" is a book that records in comic form the "beastly time" that Kim Geun-tae was forced to endure in Namyeong-dong.

I recreated the hell created by ordinary people.
Those who inflict horrific torture are ordinary people you might encounter on the street.
People who worry about their children's college entrance exams or employment, they are kind and warm fathers to some.
Those who listen to the radio, read magazines, and worry about what gifts to give their family for their anniversary, inflicted horrific torture on a human being who was no different from themselves without any remorse.
Inside a gray-white building visible just by looking up from Namyeong Station on Line 1, ordinary people were committing torture that destroyed human dignity.
They just did what they were told from above.
When you try to achieve a goal by any means necessary, terrible torture begins.
"The Hour of the Beast" shows how evil ordinary people can become when they are confined to a system or framework.
Furthermore, author Park Geon-woong did not miss to express the violent bodies of those who torture as a 'profession', as ordered by someone, and even the facial expressions that sometimes feel pleasure while torturing.


Right now, it's time to remember and uphold the spirit of Kim Geun-tae.
“Humans are weak in the face of massive state violence.
If you give up, you lose.
(……) We must fight against our indifference, which turns a blind eye to the absurdity of society and tries to ignore reality.”
_Kim Geun-tae, from a lecture on current affairs at Chonnam National University in 2009
Kim Geun-tae experienced torture at the hands of government agencies, that is, state violence, and by bringing this issue to light, he laid the foundation to ensure that such state violence never happens again.
Thirty years after the 1980s, which is the period covered in the comic, the fact that 'torture' has not been revived amidst civilian surveillance and fabricated espionage cases is thanks to Kim Geun-tae.
However, the burden that Kim Geun-tae shouldered to protect this was enormous.
Every September, I suffered from body aches due to the aftereffects of torture.
The trauma of torture also tormented Kim Geun-tae so much that he went to the dentist for dental treatment, but memories of the torture came back to him and he returned without receiving treatment.
It is said that the Parkinson's disease he was diagnosed with before his death was also due to the aftereffects of torture.
Kim Geun-tae, who received the Robert Kennedy Human Rights Award and was selected as a ‘Prisoner of Conscience’, has dedicated himself to advancing democracy in our country to the next level.
In a word, Kim Geun-tae is a symbol of our country's human rights movement and a practitioner of democracy.
Perhaps the reason we live our daily lives without worrying about democracy is because people like Kim Geun-tae risked their lives to overcome that time.
Now is the time to remember and uphold Kim Geun-tae's words: "We must fight against our indifference that turns a blind eye to reality."

A full-length graphic novel by cartoonist Park Geon-woong, who has attracted attention in Europe.
《Time of the Beast》 was selected for the overseas expansion project planned by the Korea Creative Content Agency in 2013 and has already been released in the European publishing market.
As a result, seven European publishers, including Buat a Buil, De Hong Deng Lo, Agrum, Camburaki, En Pluie du Moi, Drozofil, and Lacoupula, showed interest in Park Geon-woong's comic book "The Time of the Beast."
Among the many manuscripts selected for the overseas expansion planning manuscript development support project, this book received the most love calls from overseas publishers.
European publishers who reviewed the work highly praised the drawings and directing that Park Geon-woong expressed in the cartoon, saying that they were excellent.
Although it deals with the history and politics of the Republic of Korea, 'torture' is a serious problem that can and does occur anywhere in the world.
The universal theme and the artistic quality of Park Geon-woong's work were recognized in Europe.
Park Geon-woong, an artist who considers the best technique to express each subject, such as the Nogunri Massacre, the Jeju April 3rd Uprising, and long-term prisoners of conscience, and expresses it in his works.
Now, the issue of human dignity called 'torture' has been depicted in a full-length graphic novel.
Those who have seen firsthand how pigs die cannot eat meat.
But those who haven't seen it can still enjoy the meat.
Author Park Geon-woong presents to us the raw life of Kim Geun-tae, who spent an animalistic amount of time for democracy in this land.
What will you think of the democracy we feel like air after reading this cartoon? This is the question author Park Geon-woong poses to readers.