BOOK RIOT / December 16, 2020

With new releases from Elena Ferrante, Scholastique Mukasonga, Sayaka Murata, Dubravka Ugresic, and acclaimed translators Ann Goldstein, Jordan Stump, Ginny Tapley Takemori, and Ellen Elias-Bursać, this past fall was always going to be an astonishingly good season for new books in translation but it blew away even my high expectations! I’m thrilled to select some of the best fall 2020 books in translation and highlight the incredible range of titles available—including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.  

Publishers Weekly / June 19, 2020

Crashing into an uncertain fall comes a heady mix of genres, including dystopian sci-fi from Roxane Gay and Sophie Yanow’s Eisner-winning work, plus innovatively retold classics­. It’s a season for discoveries.

ComicsVerse / October 26, 2018

Bad Friends is a story that everyone should read. Ancco creates realistic and relatable woman who endure difficult situation. The art matches the story and endgulf us into Pearl and Aeong-Ae`s emotion. 

The London Free Press / October 12, 2018

Bad Friends is a memoir of growing up in South Korea in the 1990s from the cartoonist known as Ancco. It is a powerful account of teen years spent as a punching bag.

PEN America / September 27, 2018

In celebration of National Translation Month, for this week’s Illustrated PEN Guest Editor Meg Lemke presents an excerpt from the forthcoming Bad Friends (Drawn & Quarterly, 2018) by artist Ancco, translated from Korean by Janet Hong. Lemke writes: Ancco’s debut both in Korea and America is a discovery; a work of fiction based on her own life, for many American graphic novel readers, this drawing out of the inner world and tumultuous experiences of a young South Korean teen in the ’90s will be both fresh and achingly familiar. The savage abuse that Pearl, Ancco’s stand-in, receives at home and school is counterpoised by the intense friendships with “Bad” girls (compared to whom, her home-life is idealized, as at least her parents care what she gets up to). Themes of rebellion, dawning sexual power and vulnerability, and coming-of-age are set in haunting black and white cityscapes and seedy backrooms. As we celebrate translation month, don’t miss this unique work.

The Guardian / December 09, 2018

Ancco's English Translation selected Best Books of 2018 (Graphic Novels)

Fumetto Logica / November 25, 2018

An Interveiw with Ancco (Graphic Novelist)   In occasione del Festival La violenza illustrata di Bologna (7 novembre/4 dicembre 2018) e del 25 novembre, Giornata internazionale contro la violenza sulle donne, proponiamo una sintesi degli incontri pubblici a cura di Canicola con Ancco, autrice coreana della graphic novel Ragazze cattive (Canicola, 2018). Il libro ripercorre il quadro oscuro e brutale dell’adolescenza coreana negli anni Novanta, tra soprusi di violenza in un periodo di forte crisi economica e morale del paese.

PW / June 15, 2018

A Book Reveiw of Ancco's     Told with arresting honesty and strength, this graphic novel conjures a grim vision of growing up in late-1990s South Korea. Rebelling against her abusive father and teachers who routinely beat her, 16-year-old Pearl smokes, slacks off at school, and runs with the bad-girls crowd. Yet her situation is well-adjusted compared to her fellow delinquents, especially her best friend, Jeong-Ae, who survives in chaotic poverty and is already dabbling in sex work.

Fumetto Logica / December 13, 2018

Ancco's selected Top 10 Graphic Novel in Italy

Publishers Weekly / August 04, 2021

There’s more to Korean comics than webtoons. While vertical-scroll digital comics have surged in popularity among English speakers since the Netcomics, Webtoon, and Tapas Media platforms started publishing Korean comics in English, the growth in popularity of print manhwa (the Korean term for comics) in North America has been more of a slow burn. While manhwa overall remains a small category in the print comics world, the category is growing in the North American marketplace. Drawn and Quarterly has published several manhwa a year since 2017, and their 2019 manhwa, Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, a powerful story of sexual slavery during WWII, won the Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year and was nominated for two Eisner awards. Chugong’s Solo Leveling, an action fantasy manhwa that started out as an online webtoon, has been a bestseller in print for Yen Press. Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada with art by Hyung-Ju Ko, a memoir of Sook’s college years under a repressive Korean government, was published by Iron Circus Comics and nominated for an Eisner Award this year. And in August, Ablaze Comics will publish the first volume of the action manhwa The Breakers, by Jeon Guk-jin and Kamaro, as a 400-page omnibus.