12 Days
Encyclopedia
12 Days is a debut original English-language manga
written and illustrated by June Kim. Based partially on a story told to Kim by a stranger, 12 Days began during Kim's sophomore year of college as a method of coping with the end of a relationship
. After moving on emotionally with her break-up, she stopped developing the comic, only to revisit it years later. Kim resumed work on it in early 2005 and finished in the middle of August 2006. 12 Days focuses on Jackie Yuen, who decides to drink the ashes of her former lover for twelve days in beverages as a way to cope with her grief over her death. Tokyopop
published 12 Days in North America on November 7, 2006, to generally positive reviews. Critics praised the manga for its mature portrayal of grief and relationships, and its realistic artwork, although the choice of print for the dialogue was considered distracting.
and part Korean editor. After the death of her former lover, the Korean American
school nurse Noah Yoon, she decides to drink her ashes over twelve days in beverages as a way of coping with her grief. Nicholas "Nick" Yoon, Noah's younger half brother, steals some of Noah's ashes for her to use, and soon joins her in mourning Noah. She reminisces on how she met her and became involved in a homosexual relationship; however, Noah ended their relationship to marry a man to appease her father, and died returning from her honeymoon
in a car accident a month ago. As Jackie continues her ritual, she begins to feel ill and eventually faints. Nick takes her to the hospital, where she recovers. On New Year's Day
, she parts from Nick and returns to her apartment to find that he has taken the engagement ring she had wanted to give Noah, and unknown to her, he mixes it in with the remaining ashes. 12 Days concludes with "Chapter 0", set before the events in the rest of the comic: Noah finds Nick studying for exams, and they briefly discuss Artemisia II of Caria
, an ancient Greek
queen who drank the ashes of her husband.
. Several character traits, such as Jackie's chocolate allergy, are presented to the reader through inference
rather than exposition
. Additionally, Kim rarely uses sound effect
s in the comic, and incorporated a brief, untranslated Korean song alongside the predominently English
text.
Critics have focused on the issues of love and loss. 12 Days primarily deals with "a love affair and its aftermath," according to Dirk Deppey of The Comics Journal
. He considered it "a meditation on loss," which explores "a relationship neither fully ended nor easily forgotten by either party." Theron Martin of Anime News Network
considered it a story about "trying to find a way to cope with a devastating loss". According to Katherine Dacey, the former senior manga editor for PopCultureShock, the manga contains "lovely, quiet observations about the way we grieve, define family, express desire, and remember moments of hurt and betrayal." Johanna Draper Carlson, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly
, wrote that Jackie's action of consuming the ashes serves as "a transition period, a way to indulge her grief and then a time to be able to be herself again."
To a lesser extent, critics also discussed the homosexual content. Martin felt that the homosexual element of 12 Days had been addressed, without becoming overstated. Casey Brienza, a fellow reviewer for Anime News Network, argued that Jackie and Noah "were both ashamed of their homosexuality, and that shame ultimately destroyed their relationship." In her comparision of Alison Bechdel
's graphic
memoir
Fun Home
and 12 Days, Erica Friedman, the founder of the lesbian-themed anime convention
Yuricon
, considered neither story to be "lesbian narratives", but rather "narratives of grief, of relationships and of missed opportunities for communication and closeness."
. Kim soon abandoned the unfinished comic after moving on emotionally from the breakup, and considered the early concept "poorly built." In 2002, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts
in cartooning from the School of Visual Arts
in Manhattan, New York, and had three of her short comics published in anthologies
: "SheepSheepSleep" (2003) in Broad Appeal, "B-612" (2003/4) in New Thing Vol.2, and "Repeat" (2005) in SheWolf Vol.1. At the 2004 San Diego Comic-Con International, she encountered now-former Tokyopop
editors Mark Paniccia and Lillian M. Diaz-Przybyl, who helped to pitch 12 Days to their publisher. Resuming work on 12 Days in early 2005, Kim felt that her "slow speed, other projects and family matters" delayed its production. Additionally, the South Korean
-born and -raised Kim, who speaks Korean, English, and Japanese
fluently, would think of ideas in Korean that did not translate well over to English, ultimately leading her to change her method of thinking for the manga. She considered her creation of an original English-language manga "a bit ironic," because she "wanted to do something different from manhwa
or manga," which she had grown up around. Completed in the middle of August 2006, 12 Days was published by Tokyopop in North America in November of the same year (ISBN 978-1-59816-691-0). However, in May 2011, Tokyopop shut down its North American branch, with the status of original English-language titles left unclear. 12 Days is also published in Germany by Tokyopop Germany.
, a LGBT
-interest magazine, highlighted 12 Days as "a dark, deeply emotional graphic novel." Brienza complimented Kim's artistic attention to the background and setting's details, and summed up the comic as "a sensitive depiction of lesbians that strives for literariness". While not personally enjoying the comic, Friedman considered it "excellent and well worth reading." Noting the potientially confusing flashblacks, Martin stated: "12 Days doesn't easily fall into any of the normal manga (or manga-like) categories. It avoids any kind of sensationalism in providing a mature piece about a difficult topic, which may limit its appeal but certainly makes it worth reading." While Deppey praised the manga as "an ambitious and partly satisfying work that very nearly succeeds," he considered it not "as daring or complex a work" as Fun Home. Although Dacey disliked the backgrounds and the "self-consciously literary" ashes-in-beverages aspect, she enjoyed the "ambitious, thought-provoking, emotionally stirring story" and Kim's use of naturalism in her artwork. She later placed it on her list of the top ten original English-language manga. Draper Carlson recommended it, commenting: "The emotions the book carries will be familiar to anyone who’s suffered a loss in love. It’s a work to meditate on." Conversely, A. E. Sparrow of IGN
concluded: "Obviously this book is trying to go for a deeper level of understanding[....], but it still needs to be understandable to the reader, or what's the point? 12 Days is simply trying too hard, burying some absolutely beautiful illustrations in a sea of chaotic storytelling."
Original English-language manga
Original English-language manga or OEL manga is the term commonly used to describe comic books or graphic novels in the "international manga" genre of comics whose language of original publication is English...
written and illustrated by June Kim. Based partially on a story told to Kim by a stranger, 12 Days began during Kim's sophomore year of college as a method of coping with the end of a relationship
Relationship breakup
A relationship breakup, often referred to simply as a breakup, is the termination of a usually intimate relationship by any means other than death. The act is commonly termed "dumping [someone]" in slang when it is initiated by one partner...
. After moving on emotionally with her break-up, she stopped developing the comic, only to revisit it years later. Kim resumed work on it in early 2005 and finished in the middle of August 2006. 12 Days focuses on Jackie Yuen, who decides to drink the ashes of her former lover for twelve days in beverages as a way to cope with her grief over her death. Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
published 12 Days in North America on November 7, 2006, to generally positive reviews. Critics praised the manga for its mature portrayal of grief and relationships, and its realistic artwork, although the choice of print for the dialogue was considered distracting.
Plot
Consisting of nine chapters, 12 Days centers on Jackie Yuen, a 29-year-old part CantoneseCantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
and part Korean editor. After the death of her former lover, the Korean American
Korean American
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea...
school nurse Noah Yoon, she decides to drink her ashes over twelve days in beverages as a way of coping with her grief. Nicholas "Nick" Yoon, Noah's younger half brother, steals some of Noah's ashes for her to use, and soon joins her in mourning Noah. She reminisces on how she met her and became involved in a homosexual relationship; however, Noah ended their relationship to marry a man to appease her father, and died returning from her honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
in a car accident a month ago. As Jackie continues her ritual, she begins to feel ill and eventually faints. Nick takes her to the hospital, where she recovers. On New Year's Day
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
, she parts from Nick and returns to her apartment to find that he has taken the engagement ring she had wanted to give Noah, and unknown to her, he mixes it in with the remaining ashes. 12 Days concludes with "Chapter 0", set before the events in the rest of the comic: Noah finds Nick studying for exams, and they briefly discuss Artemisia II of Caria
Artemisia II of Caria
Artemisia II of Caria was a sister, the wife and the successor of the king Mausolus. She was a daughter of Hecatomnus, and after the death of her husband she reigned for two years, from 353 to 351 BC...
, an ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
queen who drank the ashes of her husband.
Style and issues
June Kim, the author and illustrator for 12 Days, primarily drew the artwork in the realism style, although she occasionally rendered characters as super-deformed versions of themselves. The comic reads from left to right. While the cover uses color, the artwork primarily appears in black and white, with occasional gray shading. Kim explores the characters' pasts through dreams. and periodic, nonlinear flashbacksFlashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. Several character traits, such as Jackie's chocolate allergy, are presented to the reader through inference
Inference
Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. The conclusion drawn is also called an idiomatic. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.Human inference Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions...
rather than exposition
Exposition (literary technique)
At the beginning of a narrative, the exposition is the author's providing of some background information to the audience about the plot, characters' histories, setting, and theme. Exposition is considered one of four rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and narration...
. Additionally, Kim rarely uses sound effect
Sound effect
For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
s in the comic, and incorporated a brief, untranslated Korean song alongside the predominently English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
text.
Critics have focused on the issues of love and loss. 12 Days primarily deals with "a love affair and its aftermath," according to Dirk Deppey of The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
. He considered it "a meditation on loss," which explores "a relationship neither fully ended nor easily forgotten by either party." Theron Martin of Anime News Network
Anime News Network
Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...
considered it a story about "trying to find a way to cope with a devastating loss". According to Katherine Dacey, the former senior manga editor for PopCultureShock, the manga contains "lovely, quiet observations about the way we grieve, define family, express desire, and remember moments of hurt and betrayal." Johanna Draper Carlson, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, wrote that Jackie's action of consuming the ashes serves as "a transition period, a way to indulge her grief and then a time to be able to be herself again."
To a lesser extent, critics also discussed the homosexual content. Martin felt that the homosexual element of 12 Days had been addressed, without becoming overstated. Casey Brienza, a fellow reviewer for Anime News Network, argued that Jackie and Noah "were both ashamed of their homosexuality, and that shame ultimately destroyed their relationship." In her comparision of Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. Originally best known for the long-running comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, in 2006 she became a best-selling and critically acclaimed author with her graphic memoir Fun Home.-Early life:...
's graphic
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
Fun Home
Fun Home
Fun Home is a 2006 graphic memoir by American writer Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, USA, focusing on her complex relationship with her father...
and 12 Days, Erica Friedman, the founder of the lesbian-themed anime convention
Anime convention
An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activities and panels...
Yuricon
Yuricon
Yuricon is an anime convention geared toward fans of yuri anime and manga. The first Yuricon event was held in 2003 in Newark, New Jersey with about 200 attending, although Yuricon has existed as an online entity since 2000. The event was organized by Yuricon, LLC., which continues to run...
, considered neither story to be "lesbian narratives", but rather "narratives of grief, of relationships and of missed opportunities for communication and closeness."
Production
Partially modeled on a story told to Kim by a stranger around 1996, 12 Days began during her sophomore year in college as a way of coping with the end of a relationshipRelationship breakup
A relationship breakup, often referred to simply as a breakup, is the termination of a usually intimate relationship by any means other than death. The act is commonly termed "dumping [someone]" in slang when it is initiated by one partner...
. Kim soon abandoned the unfinished comic after moving on emotionally from the breakup, and considered the early concept "poorly built." In 2002, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
in cartooning from the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
in Manhattan, New York, and had three of her short comics published in anthologies
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
: "SheepSheepSleep" (2003) in Broad Appeal, "B-612" (2003/4) in New Thing Vol.2, and "Repeat" (2005) in SheWolf Vol.1. At the 2004 San Diego Comic-Con International, she encountered now-former Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
editors Mark Paniccia and Lillian M. Diaz-Przybyl, who helped to pitch 12 Days to their publisher. Resuming work on 12 Days in early 2005, Kim felt that her "slow speed, other projects and family matters" delayed its production. Additionally, the South Korean
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
-born and -raised Kim, who speaks Korean, English, and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
fluently, would think of ideas in Korean that did not translate well over to English, ultimately leading her to change her method of thinking for the manga. She considered her creation of an original English-language manga "a bit ironic," because she "wanted to do something different from manhwa
Manhwa
Manhwa is the general Korean term for comics and print cartoons . Outside of Korea, the term usually refers specifically to South Korean comics. The term, along with manga, is a cognate of the Chinese manhua...
or manga," which she had grown up around. Completed in the middle of August 2006, 12 Days was published by Tokyopop in North America in November of the same year (ISBN 978-1-59816-691-0). However, in May 2011, Tokyopop shut down its North American branch, with the status of original English-language titles left unclear. 12 Days is also published in Germany by Tokyopop Germany.
Reception
12 Days received generally positive reviews from critics. Caroline Ryder of The AdvocateThe Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
, a LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
-interest magazine, highlighted 12 Days as "a dark, deeply emotional graphic novel." Brienza complimented Kim's artistic attention to the background and setting's details, and summed up the comic as "a sensitive depiction of lesbians that strives for literariness". While not personally enjoying the comic, Friedman considered it "excellent and well worth reading." Noting the potientially confusing flashblacks, Martin stated: "12 Days doesn't easily fall into any of the normal manga (or manga-like) categories. It avoids any kind of sensationalism in providing a mature piece about a difficult topic, which may limit its appeal but certainly makes it worth reading." While Deppey praised the manga as "an ambitious and partly satisfying work that very nearly succeeds," he considered it not "as daring or complex a work" as Fun Home. Although Dacey disliked the backgrounds and the "self-consciously literary" ashes-in-beverages aspect, she enjoyed the "ambitious, thought-provoking, emotionally stirring story" and Kim's use of naturalism in her artwork. She later placed it on her list of the top ten original English-language manga. Draper Carlson recommended it, commenting: "The emotions the book carries will be familiar to anyone who’s suffered a loss in love. It’s a work to meditate on." Conversely, A. E. Sparrow of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
concluded: "Obviously this book is trying to go for a deeper level of understanding[....], but it still needs to be understandable to the reader, or what's the point? 12 Days is simply trying too hard, burying some absolutely beautiful illustrations in a sea of chaotic storytelling."
External links
- 12 Days at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- June Kim's official website