Well, I did it. I have vanquished Barbra Streisand's autobiography -- all 960 or so pages. When I took it to work yesterday I said to myself, "I am not hauling this book home again!" I managed to finish it off during lunch and checked it in then and there.
I had to laugh when she said in the acknowledgements that the book took ten years to write, and even then her publishers had to basically pry it out of her hands. That's so Barbra.
Oh! And I solved -- well, sort of -- the mystery of the mermaid.
I took my good camera to work yesterday and got this picture of the tiny sticker -- the best I could do to capture the detail. When I came home, I ran it through Google image search and found this. Yes! It's the same image, and much prettier in color, posted by an apparently Korean artist using the name Kim Sanho. The same artist has an Instagram here.
(Wikipedia has an article about a South Korean comic book artist by that same name, but he's 85 years old and his style seems much more old-school, so I don't think this is his -- perhaps it's by an admirer who has adopted his name as a tribute?)
From what I can gather, the characters are from a story called Rain and Yuyeong, or Yoo-young, and the image was drawn to commemorate an award won by a project called Local Private Life 99 (or sometimes Local Privacy 99). This appears to be a series of comic books by various artists, each based on a particular Korean city. On this web page, one of the books -- focusing on the city of Busan -- is described:
So that seems to be our story, but interesting that the writer is here called Coral. The image itself is signed Sanho. Who knows what the artist's real name is! Apparently the sticker shows the characters after they've met and the mermaid is past her paper-bag crisis.
Anyway, that's probably way more than you wanted to know, but funny how a tiny sticker on a lamppost in South Hampstead led me down that rabbit hole of Korean comic books and graphic novels.
(Top photo: A fallen rose petal on one of next year's teasels, in our garden.)
I like that mermaid cartoon. It has a manga feel to it
ReplyDeleteIt does! I suspected it was Japanese but never would have guessed Korean.
DeleteOnly you! Only you could make a blogpost about a faded Korean sticker on a telegraph pole + all the research! Never mind Steve, I am sure you can get counselling for this condition.
ReplyDeleteI love it! The rabbit hole, not the therapy.
DeleteI can make a blog post out of anything! A discarded houseplant, for example.
DeleteThat's rather good sleuthing work of something on a lamp post of which many would take no notice.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why it intrigued me so much, but it was an unusual little sticker.
DeleteI'm still plodding through Barbra and find her infuriatingly fabulous. Very self-aware of her own traits, good and bad, and then completely unaware at other times.
ReplyDeleteFascinating.
"Infuriatingly fabulous" is a good way to put it! I was most struck by how blithely she relates stories that to the rest of us might seem astonishing.
DeleteI thought you'd find out more about the sticker! Thanks for the research.
ReplyDeleteThere's a story in everything!
DeleteNOT more than I wanted to know. Interesting and entertaining.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you thought so! I thought so too.
DeletePerhaps you should go into archiving or research, Steve. You are so very good at it.
ReplyDeleteIt's all my years in journalism -- so I suppose I did go into research, more or less.
DeleteThank you Paul Harvey for "The Rest of the Story"!
ReplyDelete"Good day!"
Deletestrange that he/she? drew the gills at the rib cage. and really, what a fun rabbit hole and proof that we really are one global community.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know mermaids even have gills. I don't remember seeing that on other mermaids!
DeleteYou make interesting discoveries when you're curious.
ReplyDeleteAlways fun to watch what's going on around us.
DeleteThat's an interesting discovery. I like that you do the research to figure things out. There isn't enough of that these days.
ReplyDeleteOr there are a lot of people who THINK they're doing research, but really they're just reading stuff on Twitter!
DeleteGood thing you got that sorted. In today's world of instant answers from the internet, I think we've lost our tolerance for unanswered questions.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. We all used to live with more ambiguity!
DeleteMystery solved. Excellent research. The mermaid cartoon figure has an exotic/mystic feel to it. So different from American cartoons.
ReplyDeleteIt is very Asian-looking, with a Manga influence, as Roentare said above.
DeleteI enjoyed going down this rabbit hole! It's a new experience for me! You do keep your blogs so very interesting for me and everyone else, too!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it was a fun trip for you too! It was fun for me to research it!
DeleteYou are a born researcher! The image is indeed lovely in color.
ReplyDeleteYeah, much better than that faded blue. I assume the sticker was originally in color and gradually faded.
DeleteThe mermaid image in color is quite lovely, but I don't find it any better... just different! It does have quite a Manga/anime feel to it. I like it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I think it's better in color. But that's just me!
DeleteWhat was the most interesting thing you learned about Barbra? Should I read her book?
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
She told a lot of interesting stories, particularly if you're familiar with her work over the years. But it's definitely a deep dive and maybe more than a lot of people would want to know.
DeleteCuriosity is (to me) a sign of intelligence. I too have to know the stories behind various items. I don't know how I managed before the internet.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to think how inaccessible knowledge used to be.
DeleteWell done hunting down that artist, Steve. My two oldest grandkids are really into K-Pop and love everything about Korean art and graphic novels.
ReplyDeleteOh, maybe they'll know this artist?! You should show it to them. Maybe they have more background info!
DeleteWell you were right about it Asian in nature - good job! Also, I thought you said you had VANISHED the autobiography & that made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteHa! I would LIKE to have vanished it at a couple points in the narrative, but no...
DeleteI would expect no less from a former journalist! It's fun to search for these things, given the enormous reach of the Internet these days.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy how small the world is, with the Web stitching us all together (for better or worse).
Delete