About the author

Monnara was conceived by Rhie Won-Bok (이원복) . Born in Daejeon in 1946, Rhie (vexingly pronounced like the letter 'E') graduated from Seoul National University (long thought to be the best university in Korea). He subsequently attended University of Muenster, receiving a degree in design as well as Western art history. He is currently a professor of graphic design (산업미술, lit. industrial art) at Deoksung Women's University. He is also the author of (나란나란 세계사 도란도란 한국사), Rich Citizenry, First Rate Economy (부자국민 일등경제), A Comic Book Voyage into the 21st Century (만화로 떠나는 21세기 미래여행), Loyal Country, Human Country(신의 나라 인간 나라). He really likes that repetitive pattern for his titles. He was the president of the Korean Comics and Animation Society from 1998 to 2000, roughly coinciding with the beginning of The Simpsons' (which is animated in Korea) slide in quality. Hmm. Rhie is also an honorary professor at UC Irvine, according to his bio. A cursory search for him turned up no results in the University of California directory under the names "Won-Bok Rhie" and "Won-Bok Lee", although there does seem to be a scientist of some sort with the same name at USC whose name pops up with some frequency.