Umma's Table

There is a point in your life, perhaps it's when you have your first child, when you can better reflect on how you were raised. How love was shown in your home and what you carry with you as you build your own future.

Here our protagonist Madang has found himself a new home in a quiet rural outpost, but finds himself shuttling back home to Seoul to take care of his ailing mother. Navigating doctors, an alcoholic layabout of a father, and a somewhat resigned mother, Madang finds comfort in his rural garden and food. He reflects warmly about his mother's cooking and carries that love to his own family.

It's a simple story with pared down line art that turns our characters into anthropomorphized cats that nonetheless delivers a familiar gut punch of reconciling your past, actively turning from your parents to carve out your own space in life to the feelings of duty that come as they age. Wrestling with the economies of care, feelings of desperation and trying to find a way forward amidst the mess.