Korean American Cooking Comics is a collection of zines produced by Silver Lake couple Sungyoon Choi and Eric Watkins. With recipes alongside comics about their domestic life together, the project started by Choi doodling in the kitchen. Watkins began scripting out the sketches that slowly evolved into a comic. They met storyboarding for an advertising agency.
The illustrations involve the division of labor in their household with Choi primarily doing the cooking and Watkins handling menial tasks like dishwashing. Choi explains her recipe for bulgogi calls for a Trader Joe’s shaved meat because it was the most affordable during the time she was living in New York. She explains that when she wakes up in the morning, she starts thinking about what she’ll be eating for dinner, using ingredients she has on hand. Beyond drawings of recipes and ingredients, Watkins describes more meaningful events that made it into a comic such as traveling to Korea with Choi to ask for her hand in marriage.
Sungyoon Choi and Eric Watkins met at a storyboarding for an advertising agency before documenting domestic life together as a comic. Photo courtesy of Sunyoon Choi and Eric Watkins.
Recipes and sketches comprise “Korean American Cooking Comics,” and chronicles the lives of creators Sungyoon Choi and Eric Watkins. Photo courtesy of Sunyoon Choi and Eric Watkins.