Lee Dongi (b. 1967) is well known as the artist who paints the distinctive character Atomaus. In 1993, he developed the original character Atomaus as a combination of the Japanese animated character Atom’s hair and Disney character Mickey Mouse’s face.
Lee wanted Atomaus’ identity to continue to be changed rather than to be fixed, so he created Atomaus in various situations. One of them is “eating noodles.” He has been interested in the use of chopsticks in Asian culture. Unlike Western eating utensils, the fork and knife, training is needed to use chopsticks. Lee considered the use of chopsticks a metaphor for a kind of technology. In order to emphasize the noodles, Lee depicted Atomaus without its body and exaggerated the noodles.