Skip to main content
Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

Graphic Literature

The Secret of Frequency A: An Incredible Disaster

By Eom Jeong-Hui & Ko Im-Hong
Translated from Korean by Heinz Insu Fenkl & Jungbin Yoon
Come along the adventures of an elite group of North Korean young scientists who are out to save an unnamed African nation from a mysterious evil force!
SCIENCE FICTION SERIES (1)
A THE SECRET OF FREQUENCY

GOLD STAR CHILDREN'S PRESS 1994
CONTENTS
AN INCREDIBLE DISASTER ( 7 )
EOM JEONG - HUI STORY
KO IM - HONG ART

TRANSLATION
HEINZ INSU FENKL & JUNGBIN YOON
CAST OF CHARACTERS

KANG YEONG - NAM ELITE YOUTH SCIENCE SQUAD LEADER

KIM CHEOL - RYEOUNG ELITE YOUTH SCIENCE SQUAD MEMBER

REE JI - HYAE ELITE YOUTH SCIENCE SQUAD MEMBER

HEO SEUNG - MIN ( PROFESSOR ) SCIENCE SQUAD SUPERVISOR

COLBIN ( PROFESSOR ) DIRECTOR OF THE AFRICAN ZOO
KELTON DIRECTOR OF THE GURA CONGLOMERATE SCIENCE INSTITUTE ( AMERICAN )

RONALD DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH ( AMERICAN )

POE NAZI WAR CRIMINAL

GENJIRO ACOUSTIC ENGINEER ( JAPANESE )
Elite Youth Squad: HOW ARE YOU , PROFESSOR ?

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: HOW HAVE ALL OF YOU BEEN ?

KANG YEONG - NAM: THIS IS DR . COLBIN , DIRECTOR OF THE AFRICAN ZOO .

Dr. COLBIN: MY APOLOGIES FOR TAKING TIME AWAY FROM YOUR BUSY RESEARCH , PROFESSOR .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: I'M GLAD WE'RE GETTING TO MEET EACH OTHER .

Dr. COLBIN: SHALL WE GET GOING ?
{ZOOM}

SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA ...

{SCREE ...}

Elite Youth Squad: PROFESSOR ~
RONALD: ARE YOU PROFESSOR HEO FROM CHOSUN ?

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: YES , THAT'S ME . BUT MAY I ASK WHO YOU ARE ?

RONALD: I FORGOT TO INTRODUCE MYSELF . I'M RONALD , THE DIRECTOR OF RE SEARCH FOR THE GURA CONGLOMERATE SCIENCE INSTITUTE .

RONALD: SINCE YOU'RE A WORLD RENOWNED SCIENTIST , DR . KELTON SENT ME TO MEET YOU IN PERSON AND BRING YOU BACK TO THE INSTITUTE .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: I'M IN NO RUSH ALL IN DUE TIME . --

{ZOOM !}
Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: WHAT IS THE GURA CONGLOMERATE SCIENCE INSTITUTE ?

Dr. COLBIN: THEY RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND ENDANGERED SPECIES ... BUT I DON'T REALLY KNOW MUCH ABOUT THEM .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: ?

Elite Youth Squad: COMRADE YEONG - NAM , HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE RONALD KNEW THAT PROFESSOR HEO WAS ARRIVING TODAY ?

KANG YEONG - NAM: I DON'T KNOW ....

{SCREE}
AN INCREDIBLE DISASTER

Dr. COLBIN: SOME MYSTERIOUS THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING RECENTLY AT OUR ZOO . THAT'S WHY I ASKED YOU TO COME , PROFESSOR HOE .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: TELL ME ABOUT THE INCIDENT , DR . COLBIN , PLEASE .

Dr. COLBIN: BLACK LOCUSTS THAT ARE NATIVE TO THE MID AND SAHEL REGIONS OF AFRICA HAVE STARTED SWARMING UP HERE . THEY BLOTTED OUT THE ENTIRE SKY .

Dr. COLBIN: HAVE A LOOK AT THE MONITOR AS I CONTINUE .
Dr. COLBIN: AS THE SWARM FLEW EAST , EVERYTHING CROPS , FORESTS , MEADOWS , AND EVEN ROADSIDE TREES SUSTAINED SEVERE DAMAGE . --

Dr. COLBIN: IF THE SWARM REACHES THE NATURE PRESERVE , WHICH IS THOUSANDS OF SQUARE KILOMETERS , TENS OF THOUSANDS OF RARE PLANTS AND ENDANGERED ANIMAL SPECIES WILL BE DOOMED TO EXTINCTION .

Dr. COLBIN: I'M HERE AT THE REQUEST OF THE NATIONAL ZOO . I WAS ASKED TO INVESTIGATE AND GET HELP FROM THE ELITE YOUTH SCIENCE SQUAD , SINCE THEY'VE BEEN STUDYING THE EFFECTS OF SOUND ON PLANT AND ANIMAL GROWTH .
KANG YEONG - NAM: TO SET UP AN EMERGENCY PLAN , WE FIRST DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE THE AREA THAT WAS DAMAGED BY THE BLACK LOCUSTS .

KANG YEONG - NAM: AS AN ELITE YOUNG SCIENTIST TRAINED IN JUCHE * IDEOLOGY , I MUST ERADICATE THE BLACK LOCUSTS THAT CAUSED HARM TO BOTH PEOPLE AND NATURE .

* JUCHE - THE SELF RELIANCE IDEOLOGY OF CHOSUN ( THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA ) .
KANG YEONG - NAM: WE FIGURED IT OUT . THROUGH OUR RESEARCH , WE DISCOVERED THAT THE BLACK LOCUSTS WILL KEEP OUT OF AREAS WHERE THERE ARE LOTS OF BIRDS THAT FEED ON INSECTS . ,

KANG YEONG - NAM: S0 , IN COOPERATION WITH DR . COLBIN , WE HAD LARGE FLOCKS OF CHICKENS MOVED TO AREAS WHERE THE BLACK LOCUST SWARMS WERE HEADED .

KANG YEONG - NAM: OUR EMERGENCY PLAN WAS A SUCCESS . HERE , HAVE A LOOK AT THIS .

KANG YEONG - NAM: THE BLACK LOCUSTS THAT WERE ATTACKED BY THE CHICKEN FLOCK CHANGED THEIR DIRECTION .
Dr. COLBIN: THE NEWS ABOUT HOW THE YOUNG SCIENTISTS FROM CHOSUN SAVED OUR NATURE PRESERVE WAS WIDELY PUBLICIZED IN OUR PAPERS AND BROADCASTED ON RADIO AND TV .

Dr. COLBIN: BUT THEN , A FEW DAYS AFTER THAT , I GOT SOME BAD NEWS .

RADIO CALL: TO DR . COLBIN . CHICKEN FLOCKS IN BORDER REGION ARE ANNIHILATED . THIRD FRONTIER POST REPORTING .
Secretary: IT'S AN EMERGENCY CABLE .

Dr. COLBIN: ?! WHAT ? ALL THOSE CHICKENS ARE SUDDENLY DEAD ? ALL DEAD ?

Dr. COLBIN: I'LL HAVE TO GET THIS TO COMRADE KANG RIGHT AWAY !

Worker: PROFESSOR , I GOT SOME DEAD CHICKENS FROM THE SITE .

Dr. COLBIN: GOOD WORK .
LATER ...

REE JI - HYAE: WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED ?

KIM CHEOL - RYEOUNG: I DON'T KNOW , BUT IT'S REALLY QUITE STRANGE .

KANG YEONG - NAM: THE CHICKENS DIED BE CAUSE THEIR INTERNAL ORGANS RUPTURED . HAVE A LOOK .

Dr. COLBIN: ?

Dr. COLBIN: ? YOU'RE RIGHT . AND WE CAN'T DETERMINE THE CAUSE OF THIS PHENOMENON .
Dr. COLBIN: IF THE BLACK LOCUSTS SWARM HERE AGAIN , OUR NATURE PRESERVE WILL BE DESTROYED . IS THERE ANY THING YOU CAN DO ?

KANG YEONG - NAM: LET'S CONTACT OUR HOMELAND AND ASK PROFESSOR HEO TO COME HELP US .

REE JI - HYAE: THAT'S A GREAT IDEA !

Dr. COLBIN: BUT ISN'T HE MUCH TOO BUSY TO HELP ?

KANG YEONG - NAM: HE'S BUSY , BUT IF WE ASK , HE'LL CERTAINLY COME HELP US .

Dr. COLBIN: SO THAT'S HOW I ENDED UP SENDING YOU THE TELEX INVITING YOU TO OUR COUNTRY .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: WELL , I'M GLAD YOU TOLD ME .
Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: WHAT WERE THE ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS DURING THE INCIDENT ?

REE JI - HYAE:IT WAS THE DRY SEASON , S0 THERE WAS NO RAIN AND HARDLY ANY HUMIDITY .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: CAN YOU THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE THAT WAS UNUSUAL ?

KIM CHEOL - RYEOUNG: THAT WAS THE TIME WHEN THE MYSTERIOUS JET WAS FLYING BACK AND FORTH ALONG THE BORDER !
KANG YEONG - NAM: IF WE CONSIDER THE FACT THAT OUR ACOUSTIC EQUIPMENT MALFUNCTIONED , I THINK IT'S CLEAR THAT THE PLANE WAS EMITTING A SUSPICIOUS ACOUSTIC SIGNAL .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: AT WHAT INTENSITY ?

KANG YEONG - NAM: WE WERE NOT ABLE TO MEASURE IT .

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: WERE THERE ANY SYMPTOMS AMONG THE CHICKEN FARMERS ?


Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN:?

Dr. COLBIN: ONE OF THE BREEDERS HAD NAUSEA AND VOMITING , AND ANOTHER ONE WAS ADMITTED TO THE HOSPITAL WITH SEVERE ABDOMINAL PAINS .
Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: THIS WAS CAUSED BY AN ACOUSTIC FREQUENCY EMIT TED BY THE MYSTERY PLANE .

Dr. COLBIN: EH ?!

REE JI - HYAE: ?

KIM CHEOL - RYEOUNG: ?

KANG YEONG - NAM: AN ACOUSTIC FREQUENCY ?

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: I SUSPECT THAT THERE IS A SINISTER CONSPIRACY SECRETLY AT WORK HERE IN THE PROXIMITY OF THE NATURE PRESERVE .

Dr. COLBIN: WHAT ? A CONSPIRACY ?

Dr. HEO SEUNG - MIN: TO PROTECT THE NATURE PRESERVE AND SUCCEED IN OUR VITAL RESEARCH , WE MUST UNEARTH THE SECRET OF FREQUENCY A , WHICH IS THE SOURCE OF THESE MYSTERIOUS INCIDENTS !

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Last year, shortly after the excerpt from Blizzard in the Jungle was published in the graphic lit issue of WWB, I ran across a blog, oikono.com, maintained by Geoffrey K. See, a Yale graduate student who travels widely and posts cultural artifacts from around the world. He had recently been to North Korea, and after reading one of my earlier translations of North Korean comic books (Great General Mighty Wing, excerpted in WWB in 2009), he posted some pages from one of the North Korean children’s graphic novels he had picked up in a bookstore in China. The first thing that struck me about the pages was that they were posted in mirror-image (by error, it turned out), but in reading them, I was delighted to find that the comic book was about an elite group of North Korean young scientists who are out to save an unnamed African nation from a mysterious evil force! Blizzard in the Jungle, which addressed a similar theme, was published in 2001, but The Secret of Frequency A had been published in 1994. On the one hand, it surprised me to see that a kind of pedagogical/propagandistic “Hardy Boys meets Tom Swift” type of story would be introduced to North Korean children before the more mature Blizzard in the Jungle addressed a similar theme for older readers. On the other hand, this chronology made perfect sense, since it suggested that the same thematic issues would be sustained over time (and also suggested that North Koreans continued to read comics as they grew up). I contacted Geoffrey See, and he graciously emailed me the scans of his pages and later sent me the comic book itself. It is thanks to him that we are able to excerpt it in WWB this year.

The Secret of Frequency A is another example of the “North Korea as world savior” genre of comic books. North Korea has been active in Africa for decades, unbeknownst to the typical American (you can read more about this issue in my introduction to Blizzard in the Jungle), but what a general reader will find more surprising in this story is that North Korea is more than familiar with much of what we, in the U.S., classify as “Conspiracy Theory.” Whereas the villains in Blizzard in the Jungle are the Mafia (oddly out of place in Africa, by our standards), the evil technology involved in Frequency A is associated with mysterious American military “research” projects like HAARP—the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, which has been blamed for things ranging from climate control warfare to mass mind control to last year’s Haiti earthquake—and the use of “chemtrails” (clouds of chemicals sprayed in the atmosphere by military aircraft) for similar purposes.

As Great General Mighty Wing demonstrated, North Korea, with its continued drought-induced famines, is very much concerned with the issue of climate control as a weapon of war. But why is it Frequency A? In Korean, A (ㅏ) is also the first vowel in the alphabet, so calling the mystery frequency “A” makes sense simply as a matter of primacy. On the other hand, since we are looking at a comic book from North Korea that explicitly raises the issue, a more conspiracy-minded explanation may be more appropriate, particularly when it also accounts for other elements in the story. One of the villains, in addition to the Americans, is a Nazi war criminal, Poe. In New Age and fringe circles, it has recently become public knowledge that the international standard for tuning instruments for concert performances, A above Middle C at 440 Hz (Concert A), was only established in 1955 (and reaffirmed twenty years later). You can play it for yourself here: “Concert A.”

Concert A has come under fire recently for being disharmonious and for being willfully implemented to produce anxiety in the general population. Alternate standard tunings of 432 Hz and 444 Hz have been proposed by various groups, but the extent to which the “Frequency A” at 440 Hz poses a problem for humanity can be read about in a fascinating article from the Conspiracy Theory front authored by Leonard G. Horowitz, DMD, MA, MPH, DNM (hon.), who sells alternative health products online. The title of the piece is “Musical Cult Control: The Rockefeller Foundation’s War on Consciousness through the Imposition of A=440HZ Standard Tuning,” and it covers everything from the Rothschilds to the Rockefellers and Joseph Goebbels. To give you a sense of how much the North Korean comic book is in line with conspiracy theory, according to Horowitz, “the A=440Hz frequency was instituted at the precise time WWII preparations were being finalized by the petrochemical-pharmaceutical war financiers. Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland officially starting WWII on Sept 1, 1939. Only three months earlier, following widespread rejection of the A=440Hz frequency vibration by musicians worldwide, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels argued on behalf of this, apparently very important, intrusion into musical artistry, effectively persuading Hitler’s supposed enemies in Britain to adopt this allegedly superior standard tuning for the ‘Master Race’” (the full article is available online here). The only parallel missing in Horowitz’s piece is a reference to the Japanese, who also have a part in the conspiracy behind the mysterious Frequency A. That will be revealed in a future installment. Stay tuned.

 

Translation copyright by Heinz Insu Fenkl and Jungbin Yoon. All rights reserved.

English

Last year, shortly after the excerpt from Blizzard in the Jungle was published in the graphic lit issue of WWB, I ran across a blog, oikono.com, maintained by Geoffrey K. See, a Yale graduate student who travels widely and posts cultural artifacts from around the world. He had recently been to North Korea, and after reading one of my earlier translations of North Korean comic books (Great General Mighty Wing, excerpted in WWB in 2009), he posted some pages from one of the North Korean children’s graphic novels he had picked up in a bookstore in China. The first thing that struck me about the pages was that they were posted in mirror-image (by error, it turned out), but in reading them, I was delighted to find that the comic book was about an elite group of North Korean young scientists who are out to save an unnamed African nation from a mysterious evil force! Blizzard in the Jungle, which addressed a similar theme, was published in 2001, but The Secret of Frequency A had been published in 1994. On the one hand, it surprised me to see that a kind of pedagogical/propagandistic “Hardy Boys meets Tom Swift” type of story would be introduced to North Korean children before the more mature Blizzard in the Jungle addressed a similar theme for older readers. On the other hand, this chronology made perfect sense, since it suggested that the same thematic issues would be sustained over time (and also suggested that North Koreans continued to read comics as they grew up). I contacted Geoffrey See, and he graciously emailed me the scans of his pages and later sent me the comic book itself. It is thanks to him that we are able to excerpt it in WWB this year.

The Secret of Frequency A is another example of the “North Korea as world savior” genre of comic books. North Korea has been active in Africa for decades, unbeknownst to the typical American (you can read more about this issue in my introduction to Blizzard in the Jungle), but what a general reader will find more surprising in this story is that North Korea is more than familiar with much of what we, in the U.S., classify as “Conspiracy Theory.” Whereas the villains in Blizzard in the Jungle are the Mafia (oddly out of place in Africa, by our standards), the evil technology involved in Frequency A is associated with mysterious American military “research” projects like HAARP—the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, which has been blamed for things ranging from climate control warfare to mass mind control to last year’s Haiti earthquake—and the use of “chemtrails” (clouds of chemicals sprayed in the atmosphere by military aircraft) for similar purposes.

As Great General Mighty Wing demonstrated, North Korea, with its continued drought-induced famines, is very much concerned with the issue of climate control as a weapon of war. But why is it Frequency A? In Korean, A (ㅏ) is also the first vowel in the alphabet, so calling the mystery frequency “A” makes sense simply as a matter of primacy. On the other hand, since we are looking at a comic book from North Korea that explicitly raises the issue, a more conspiracy-minded explanation may be more appropriate, particularly when it also accounts for other elements in the story. One of the villains, in addition to the Americans, is a Nazi war criminal, Poe. In New Age and fringe circles, it has recently become public knowledge that the international standard for tuning instruments for concert performances, A above Middle C at 440 Hz (Concert A), was only established in 1955 (and reaffirmed twenty years later). You can play it for yourself here: “Concert A.”

Concert A has come under fire recently for being disharmonious and for being willfully implemented to produce anxiety in the general population. Alternate standard tunings of 432 Hz and 444 Hz have been proposed by various groups, but the extent to which the “Frequency A” at 440 Hz poses a problem for humanity can be read about in a fascinating article from the Conspiracy Theory front authored by Leonard G. Horowitz, DMD, MA, MPH, DNM (hon.), who sells alternative health products online. The title of the piece is “Musical Cult Control: The Rockefeller Foundation’s War on Consciousness through the Imposition of A=440HZ Standard Tuning,” and it covers everything from the Rothschilds to the Rockefellers and Joseph Goebbels. To give you a sense of how much the North Korean comic book is in line with conspiracy theory, according to Horowitz, “the A=440Hz frequency was instituted at the precise time WWII preparations were being finalized by the petrochemical-pharmaceutical war financiers. Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland officially starting WWII on Sept 1, 1939. Only three months earlier, following widespread rejection of the A=440Hz frequency vibration by musicians worldwide, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels argued on behalf of this, apparently very important, intrusion into musical artistry, effectively persuading Hitler’s supposed enemies in Britain to adopt this allegedly superior standard tuning for the ‘Master Race’” (the full article is available online here). The only parallel missing in Horowitz’s piece is a reference to the Japanese, who also have a part in the conspiracy behind the mysterious Frequency A. That will be revealed in a future installment. Stay tuned.

 

Read Next