By Bruno Savill De Jong — Moms opens on a street fight between two middle-aged women. The graphic novel is rarely this dramatic, but after Soyeon and Myeonghui began arguing over text messages, it quickly spills over from the virtual to the physical. Soyeon wonders “How did my life turn out this way?”, and Moms next proceeds to show the build-up to this undignified brawl, the daily struggles that chipped away at these average women until they exploded. It shows Soyeon’s early arranged marriage, their financial strain and her husband’s gambling, up until her current divorced status. In Korean society she has extended her ‘usefulness’, and is seen as toiling away as a cleaner, while her adult son still lives at home.

Yeong-shin Ma created Moms after he first moved out and underwent a newfound appreciation for his mother, basing it off her uncensored thoughts and anecdotes. So while Moms is not directly autobiographical, it carries the authentic observations of an autobiographical comic, particularly in the stripped-down and quotidian presentation. It reminded me of Paying for It, Chester Brown’s comic-book memoir about patronizing prostitutes. Both share a semi-comic semi-bleak tone, discussing intimate subjects in a sedate and unerotic manners. The sexuality of older women is often ignored, but Moms details the gossip and romance of Soyeon and her friends – even if ‘romance’ is a generous term. Most of the men are perverted or con-men, using the women only for sex or money. What is sadder is the women are usually fully aware of this, but take them anyway to stave off their loneliness.

The 350+ pages of Moms wallows in the misery of later-life dating, where excitement has typically left the equation. Soyeon and Myeonghui’s fight was over a guy, Jongseok, who is seeing both of them simultaneously. Jongseok hardly seems worth the trouble, until you realize they are fighting not so much to keep him, but rather to not be left. Moms weaves some humor around these pathetic observations, but on the level of a familiar chuckle at the absurdity of such struggles. Yeong-shin’s artwork is simple and blocky, rendering the figures dowdy with some moments of heightened expression. It parallels the occasional outbursts normally stuck within aging bodies and poor situations.

Moms greatest strengths are also its weaknesses. The frustrating pace and dour tone are what makes it effective. It captures the small and perpetual struggles of working-class women, providing an unvarnished look at their lives. Its anecdotal structure is often unwieldy, but it emulates the unsatisfying nature of life. It also makes Moms moments of contentment shine all the brighter. Moms particularly examines social media, and how platforms keep them connected to people they would rather forget, reminding women of the (unrealistically high and altered) success of others. Instead, Moms is a mundane and unflinching portrayal of those who often go unconsidered.

Moms by Yeong-shin Ma

Moms
Writer/Artist/Letterer: Yeong-shin Ma
Translator: Janet Hong
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Price: $29.95
Lee Soyeon, Myeong-ok, and Yeonjeong are all mothers in their mid-fifties. And they’ve had it. They can no longer bear the dead weight of their partners or the endless grind of menial jobs where their bosses control everything, down to how much water they can drink. Although Lee Soyeon divorced her husband years ago after his gambling drove their family into bankruptcy, she’s found herself in another tired and dishonest decade-long relationship with Jongseok, a slimy waiter at a nightclub. Meanwhile, Myeong-ok is having an illicit affair with a younger man, and Yeonjeong, whose husband suffers from erectile dysfunction, has her eye on an acquaintance from the gym. Bored with conventional romantic dalliances, these women embrace outrageous sexual adventures and mishaps, ending up in nightclubs, motels, and even the occasional back-alley brawl. With this boisterous and darkly funny manhwa, Yeong-shin Ma defies the norms of the traditional Korean family narrative, offering instead the refreshingly honest and unfiltered story of a group of middle-aged moms who yearn for something more than what the mediocre men in their lives can provide. Despite their less than desirable jobs, salaries, husbands, and boyfriends, these women brazenly bulldoze their way through life with the sexual vulnerability and lust typically attributed to twenty-somethings.
Release Date: August 12, 2020

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Bruno Savill De Jong is a recent undergraduate of English and freelance writer on films and comics, living in London. His infrequent comics-blog is Panels are Windows and semi-frequent Twitter is BrunoSavillDeJo.