The Surprising Past Behind Chimchakman, the Man Who Seems to Live Life Easily [Part 1]

"On the shoulders of someone who looks like they live easily, there is always a five-year stretch that only they know about."

One evening in August 2025, a man sits on the stage of MBC's Radio Star. An internet broadcaster with a channel of 4.16 million subscribers. He runs a company, runs an entire building, and is the head of a family with a wife and a daughter. The MCs throw out a number for him: 4.9 billion won in YouTube earnings.

His expression is as composed as ever.

If you only see this one scene, he looks like the person who works the easiest in Korea. He plays a game and tells a joke. He orders delivery food while turning on a live stream. And somehow, all of it loops back as content.

But on the same broadcast, he formally declares one thing.

"The cartoonist Lee Mal-nyeon has retired. I have no plans to draw again."

Compressed inside this short sentence are nearly ten years he spent disappointing himself.

Today we follow a man who looks like he lives life easily, through four places where he, in fact, felt small in front of his own limits.

By the time you finish this piece, you will see that behind the desk of every person who looks like they have it easy, there is a five-year stretch only they know about.

Place 1. A Classroom Where the Friend Who Drew Well Sat Beside Him (Ansan Dongsan High School, late 1990s)

Chimchakman, real name Lee Byeong-geon, was born on December 5, 1983, in Jeonju. After Iksan and then a move to Ansan, he went to Gojan Elementary, Seongpo Middle, and Ansan Dongsan High.

He was not a lively child. By his own recollection, he was a quiet, low-key student. He drew a lot in his notebooks, but he did not draw well.

The feeling he most often felt in the classroom was envy. There were friends in the same class who drew better than he did. He kept closing his own notebook as he glanced at theirs.

What he saw from this seat was this. Sitting in the same classroom, some have talent overflowing, and some feel they are just average. And the average side is most of us.

Place 2. A Lecture Hall in Chungju Where He Seriously Considered Dropping Out (Konkuk University Chungju Campus, Department of Design, early 2000s)

When he entered university, he chose design. Konkuk University Chungju Campus. A campus far from Seoul, where most of his classmates had already gone through a formal track in fine arts.

Here, he met the same scene one more time. The design talent of the students next to him was a step ahead of his own. He felt he did not have the design talent. He did not have the confidence to keep up with his classmates.

He seriously considered dropping out.

The person who kept him in the lecture hall was his father. His father said it briefly.

"You have to graduate from college, no matter what."

Because of this single sentence, he stayed in the lecture hall. From the seat where he felt he was the most insufficient, next to the friends who drew the best, he stayed for two to three years on scholarship, and finally graduated.

What he saw from this lecture hall was this. A person who does not run away from the seat where they feel the smallest, ends up graduating from that seat.

Place 3. A Desk Where He Drew Until Dawn and a DVD Room Counter (Seoul, 2008 ~ 2010)

Around graduation, he made one last attempt. Uploading shorts to the DCInside cartoon gallery (Kayungal). At first it felt like a graduation project, a casual move. But the shorts caught fire on the gallery. Yahoo sent him a formal serialization offer.

The terms were brutal. Five hundred thousand won a month. That was the rate for the entire month, not per episode. He took the offer and started serializing Lee Mal-nyeon Series on Yahoo.

In the daytime he drew. At night he worked part-time at the counter of a DVD room. A period when one job could not feed him. A period when he worked at two seats at the same time.

What he saw at this time was two things.

First, you cannot live on a single seat. Second, but if you hold on at two seats at once, you do, in fact, survive.

He carried the seat of the formal cartoonist and the seat of the DVD room counter at the same weight.

Place 4. The Empty Desk After Lee Mal-nyeon Journey to the West (Seoul, 2016 ~ 2021)

After enduring the underpaid years, he soon built one era of Korean internet comics. Lee Mal-nyeon Series. Lee Mal-nyeon Journey to the West. But after Lee Mal-nyeon Journey to the West closed with episode 135 on September 1, 2016, no proper next work showed up on his desk for five years.

In 2018, he attempted one comeback with Lee Mal-nyeon Series 2018. He drew it thinking it would be funny. But on the comment board, the word he feared the most appeared.

No-jaem (not funny).

At that moment, he heard one sentence inside his own mind.

My comics have stopped being funny.

This single sentence emptied his desk for another five years. A person who has disappointed themselves with their own work finds it very hard to pick up the pen again.

In one interview, he says it this way.

"My expressive range was not enough. I should have worked hard and trained myself, but at that time I tasted internet broadcasting."

This single line says two things at once. That he admitted his own limits before anyone else. And that he started looking for a different seat in front of those limits. Only after he admitted with his own mouth the conclusion he feared the most, could he begin preparing to move to the next seat.

Epilogue

We often use the phrase "a person who lives life easily." When we see someone who is doing well, the phrase makes us feel as if they arrived at that seat without effort. It is a lazy phrase.

Chimchakman's life breaks the illusion of that phrase.

The classroom where he envied the friend's drawing. The Chungju lecture hall where he thought about dropping out. The dawn at the DVD room counter, paired with a 500,000-won monthly rate. The empty desk where he, before anyone else, admitted that his own comics had stopped being funny for five years. The person sitting at the desk of a 4.16-million-subscriber channel today is the person who passed through these four periods.

What he showed is clear. Only a person who does not run away from the seat where they feel the smallest can graduate from that seat and move to the next one.

In Part 2, we follow how the same person, who admitted his comics had stopped being funny, stood up again in a friend's studio, across seven years of recovery.

Micro-Mission

Today, think of one person who looks like they have it easy. A coworker, a friend, or someone you envy.

Now imagine what kind of empty desk might have sat inside their last five years. The period when they disappointed themselves with their own output. The lecture hall where a classmate seemed better. The dawn shift of a part-time job. The desk where no next work appeared, for years.

Even the person you envy the most has a five-year stretch that only they know about.

Write down your own empty desk today, in a single line. Where that single line moves next, will be decided at the next seat.

Note: This newsletter is based on publicly reported sources and interviews, including: real name Lee Byeong-geon, born December 5, 1983 in Jeonju, with childhood in Iksan and Ansan; graduation from Ansan Dongsan High; entry to Konkuk University Chungju Campus, Department of Design and his consideration of dropping out due to self-doubt about his design talent (he stayed at his father's insistence and graduated on scholarship); his activity on the DCInside cartoon gallery (Kayungal) followed by the Yahoo serialization of Lee Mal-nyeon Series (500,000 won monthly fee, balanced with DVD room part-time work); the closure of Lee Mal-nyeon Journey to the West on September 1, 2016 with episode 135; the 2018 return with Lee Mal-nyeon Series 2018 and its negative reception (including the Scary Tteokbokki episode); his interview remark that "my expressive range was not enough"; and his formal retirement as cartoonist Lee Mal-nyeon on MBC Radio Star in August 2025.