Lee Jongchul grew up in the industrial area of Pohang in a town that was sandwiched between farms and factories. His parents ran a small restaurant, so he grew up seeing people with different jobs—steel factory workers, construction workers, restaurant workers, market sellers, and famers—who later became the biggest influence in his graphic novels. He studied painting in college, and he worked six years as a kkadaegi at a sorting center to support himself. This experience became the story Kkadaegi: A Life at a Sorting Center. He illustrated all three volumes of Changdae—A Boy by the Sea, graphic novels for young readers, and he has also created serialized comics based on his own childhood experiences for the children’s magazine Gaettong’s Playground.